Accountability is the willingness to acknowledge that we have participated in creating, through commission or omission, the conditions that we wish to see changed. Without this capacity to see ourselves as cause, our efforts become either coercive or wishfully dependent on the transformation of others.
Community will be created the moment we decide to act as creators of what it can become. This is the stance of ownership, which is available to us every moment on every issue, even world peace, the overdependence on fossil fuel consumption, and the fact that our teenagers are slightly self-centered.
This requires us to believe in the possibility that this organization, this neighborhood, this community is mine or ours to create. This will occur when we are willing to answer the essential question, “How have I contributed to creating the current reality?” Confusion, blame, and waiting for someone else to change are defenses against ownership and personal power. This core question, when answered, is central to how the community is transformed.[1]
What are you creating at this point in your life? Take a few minutes to write this down. What are the relationships, the networks, the stories that you are still an active participant in? As you working through this journaling exercise, consider the following questions:
How Much Risk are you willing to take? How valuable of a moment do I intend this to be? To what extent are you invested in the well-being of the whole?[2]
[1]Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging (p. 127). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
[2]Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging (p. 182). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
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