2c. We’re All In This Together!

I was asked by a member of the Navigators, the steering committee for the community, to lead a workshop in a House Meeting to address the issue of limited participation in taking responsibility for community tasks. This was about five years after move-in and there seemed to be inequities in how work was getting done or not being done.

I don’t know whether I was expected to place a “guilt-trip” on folks or embarrass them into taking on more responsibilities, but what I did was to ask each person to share the roles of care that they performed on an ongoing basis. It was awesome to discover things folks did “behind the scenes” that most did not know about. This included everything from changing light bulbs to breaking down cardboard boxes in the pantry. It was a spiritually uplifting event and indirectly accomplished its intent – to inspire folks to see themselves collectively responsible for doing the work of the community.