Acts of Service, or the Doing in Our Being
Several years ago, my father had a stroke.
I entered the hospital room, dropping my computer and my carry-on bag to the floor. My father lay on his side in a hospital bed, facing away from the door. He was wrapped in a thin blanket, feet sticking out the bottom. I didn’t know what to expect, walking in that room, but my father was cold and alone. So, I did the only thing that I could think to do. I found some lotion at the nursing station, squeezed a generous glop into my hand, and began to rub his feet. I don’t remember us saying much to one another. Platitudes of “Everything will be okay” or “Everything happens for a reason” were both useless and insulting. The words “I love you” would be honest, but would he be able to hear them? In those awful, hard moments, I focused on being of service in a way that he could feel. Touch was a language that he could understand.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. One of my favorite podcasts, “On Being,” released a piece called “The Soul in Depression,” one that featured conversations with Andrew Solomon, Parker Palmer, and Anita Barrows. While all of the interviews were excellent, Parker Palmer’s stood out to me. Palmer, a Quaker theologian and writer, described going through two major bouts of depression in his life. While many people tried to be of help, one man’s actions actually did help him through those dark times. A friend of his, a Quaker elder, would come over every day, strip off Solomon’s shoes and socks, and massage his feet. The elder would say little if anything, focusing instead on just being with Palmer.
To be honest, I’d not thought about being with my father in that cold, lonely hospital room until I heard Palmer talk about how a friend had helped him. That got me to thinking about how our feet are our connection to foundation, the ground on which we stand, and that led me to the questions I want to work to answer: How do we strengthen our foundations? How do we strengthen our community?
A Retrospective for Community
Let me be very clear: do not run over and begin rubbing a coworker’s foot. I’m fairly certain that that would be a human-resources violation as well as just plain weird. But let’s focus on the underlying metaphors of what those actions signified: caring, service, comfort, connection, humility, kindness, community.
I am one of the leaders of the Agile Austin Coaching group, meaning that I get to see and hear a lot of thought leaders in my ongoing quest to bring great content to more people. For the March 2021 session, Alex Britez, a hugely talented designer in educational technology, demonstrated a retrospective that he uses when working with teams. Alex does a lot of work not only with design but with empathy, transparency, and psychological safety. He began with the individual, the “I” in “I hope…” and “I fear…” and then moved towards community, the “I hope we” and “I fear we.” He then used big, powerful questions to help a team lean even more, shifting from the inner life to the public realm. But as much as I love great questions, I love that Alex took this even further: action. He created a Community Commitments section brings that action forward. (Also, yay for accountability!) The community strengthens itself through the commitments and action for one another.
Keep Your Side of the Street Clean
As my friend Susan likes to say, “Keep your side of the street clean.” When she says this, she means that in any relationship, there is a certain amount of work that you need to do on your side before you can even hope to be of any good elsewhere. I laughed when I first heard that statement, but then I noticed that it had crept into my own vernacular, that I had begun talking about street maintenance. I was actively trying to keep my side of the street clean.
Do my work--This means doing all of what I choose to do. If I develop new content, then I take from inception through delivery into feedback. If I do the laundry, then I go from washing through to putting the folded items away neatly.
Listen deeply--When in conversation, I listen completely, fully, not just for my turn to speak. I pay exquisite attention.
Maintain good boundaries--I am kind and full of love, not just for others but for myself. Healthy boundaries allow respect to thrive on both sides.
Say what I need--If I need something, I state clearly what that is. I don’t need others to guess or to interpret what I mean.
Be for one another--I’m all in for you. I want to see you succeed, I want to be there to cheer you on. Before anything else, I am for you.
When I do these things, my side of the street sparkles. Community thrives.
A word of caution: you cannot be of service to someone unless you have first been of service to yourself. In other words, Eleanor Brownn’s, to be exact, “You cannot pour from an empty vessel.” Be part of a community that fills you up, not drains you.
The Gift of a Good Question
A good question is a gift, an invitation to step into vulnerability. So, I’ll leave you with these questions: What does strong community mean to you? How can you be of service to others?
One of my 2021 goals is to be a speaker on a TedX stage. (We’ll see if I can make this dream a reality in our Covid-affected world, but I’m putting it out there as where I’m trying to go.) But as I want to speak on a bigger stage, that means a lot more practice speaking engagement, more Meetups, more everything. I’ll be speaking about clean language, metaphor, and how to use both in asking better, cleaner questions at Agile Regina and then again at Lean Agile Toronto. Please join us!
The image used for this blog post was captured by Linda Nickell. I’m incredibly fortunate in that I can call her and say, “I need a photo that conveys this metaphor,” and a couple of minutes later a beautiful photo appears in my inbox. Connect with her on Instagram as @coznlinda, or join in on Wednesday evenings for her Happiness Hour. Details, upcoming presentations, and past recordings can be found on her site.