[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] A Path Forward conversation

[Ken Gillgren]

Rob, I completely respect the work you have been doing and the profound contributions you are making to personal and collective healing. I refocused on the hyper-local after years of observing and participating in network of network and movement of movement efforts, from the Pachamama Alliance “Awakening the Dreamer” training in 2005 to the Wiser Earth online platform based on Paul Hawkins “Blessed Unrest” vision of networking individuals, organizations and efforts around the world. It became intermittently fulfilling and overall exhausting.

I’m still clarifying my learnings from these and related experiences, but I’ve found a greater sense of hope and progress In realizing that the Beloved Community, like the Kingdom of Heaven, is ”here now and coming in power,” and that instead of trying to interweave wildly diverse ideologies and commitments to specific issues or even “shared interests,” there are individuals and families who are already giving presence to the Beloved Community; we have both directly witnessed them everywhere we care to look, for they have out-sized impact beyond specific issues or causes and elicit expanding circles of redemption and restorative resolutions in the wholeness of their thinking, organization and action. It is this “presencing” of the Beloved Community that needs to be highlighted, connected and cultivated, for it is happening in the gaps, the margins, the neglected spaces between and often in spite of competing ideologies, values, principles and issues.

That’s as far as my thinking has developed. Because today, the channels of communication have created a different environment for discourse, connecting, learning, and sharing beyond our conventional understandings of networking or movement building. That’s all I got right now. I’ve completed my contract with Rainier Beach will be sharing my learnings on LinkedIn and my blog over coming weeks. But this conversation has already helped to bring clarity to my own “blessed unrest.” For however fulfilling or dire the times, we are and will always be “in the midst” of living in the Beloved Community with confidence in its greater realization.

--
Ken Gillgren
kgillgren at igc.org

> On Saturday, Mar 22, 2025 at 12:33 PM, Robertson Work <warkers at msn.com (mailto:warkers at msn.com)> wrote:
> I sure hear you, Ken. Grateful for your many years of working in Rainier Beach in WA. Wise voices are calling us to focus on the community level to create "islands of sanity" and catalyze the "beloved community." We also need to be part of networks of care and be social and ecological activists at state, national, and international levels.
>
> Robertson Work
> Books and bio (https://www.amazon.com/Robertson-Work/e/B075612GBF) Essays on Substack (https://robertsonwork.substack.com/) Videos and articles (https://www.globalcompassioncoalition.org/author/robertson-work/) Interviews and poetry (https://www.globalheart2heart.com/a-compassionate-civilization-creating-a-new-future-now/?fbclid=IwAR2EAy4c64wCRzlzUCzVKXokqce3hePofFvzdzvCM5aDYRb9QgdFyQPUyxU)
>
>
> From: Dialogue <dialogue-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of Ken Gillgren via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2025 8:42 PM
> To: Ken Fisher <kenfisher1942 at gmail.com>; Robertson Work via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> Cc: Ken Gillgren <kgillgren at igc.org>
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] A Path Forward conversation
>
>
> Great. Let me know how that goes. With all due respect to Rob, I've grown impatient with the at least 20+ years of aspirational hope under the network of networks and movement of movement banners. I've been looking into the Cynefin framework (see: https://thecynefin.co/) and particularly the EU fieldbook developed in collaboration with Cynefin on managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis (https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/712438d0-8c55-11eb-b85c-01aa75ed71a1https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/712438d0-8c55-11eb-b85c-01aa75ed71a1). The one thing I have learned is that the key breakthroughs emerge from the margins, the gaps. the neglected corners and not the usual suspects.
>
> Hope to reconnect more in the future....
>
> Take care, one and all, we were called to be present to this time...
>
> Ken Gillgren
> kgillgren at igc.org
>
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> >
> > On 3/20/2025 4:09:45 AM, Ken Fisher <kenfisher1942 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks, Ken
> >
> > I intend to bring this model for discussion among climate change groups in Kingston, Ontario.
> >
> > Ken
> >
> >
> > > On Mar 20, 2025, at 1:14 AM, Ken Gillgren via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> > > OK, I'm not able to fully participate right now, but take a look at the Constellation Model for Governance, a Canadian innovation that captured the imagination of the neighborhood coalition I worked for over about 15 years although we did not quite push it through. It does provide one potential framework for mobilizing diverse networks of services and organizations across diffferent levels. Maybe still worth a look:
> > >
> > > https://socialinnovation.org/about/innovations-publications/constellation-model-of-governance/
> >
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