Evan Renaerts

Love a Good Plan

November 9, 2007

The morning starts with a breakfast-frenzy; what will Emma eat and what will she take for her school lunch, which flows into a squeaky, squawky clarinet practice filled with chatter and laughter, and then the dash out the door – whew!

Last night at the dialogue class my wife and I are teaching, one of the participants was wondering how to gather people together at meetings in ways that support the open inquiry that is the hallmark of good dialogue. So many meetings, he said, are plagued by difficult people or people advocating for completely different outcomes; how to deal with that?

The question took me into what I know about groups and about convening anything from an important discussion, to a meeting, to a multi-million dollar project. Oddly though, the first image that popped into my mind was that of a gardener. The really gifted gardeners are more than mere botanical mechanics; they scratch the soil and speak their love to the plants, they water and fertilize with such care and attention, so that the entire process is love in action.

I love this as an image because most of us know from experience that there are gardeners, and then there are gardeners for whom everything flourishes. My proposition is that the quality of consciousness that makes an exceptional gardener is the same quality you will find in exceptional conveners and exceptional planners.

In my own background the planning of a project would begin at the moment my interest was caught by a possibility, by the potential of something that might be brought into form. That spark of interest and curiosity would lead me to explore the full scope of possibility, looking for the big picture.

Getting the “wide angle” perspective would launch my own visioning process – my mind would begin generating images and flowing through sequences, seeking for the feel or the innate rhythm of this nascent project – and without thinking about it I would begin to love the project into life.

This can sound airy-fairy but what is actually happening is something that I believe all skilled persons bring to their craft. They bring a deep level of caring, deliberation, thinking and re-thinking; as though they were brushing loose dirt aside, checking the undersides of the leaves and plucking off withered twigs.

We can call it conscientiousness or professionalism, but again, if it goes beyond the mechanical application of skills there is an element of love present. I make this point because I believe it is this love that is the “secret” ingredient in truly successful human endeavours.

Leading edge science and consciousness research indicate that we humans are actively creating the world we experience through our perception on a moment by moment basis. There is no fixed, immutable world out there that each and every one of us experiences in exactly the same way.

If we accept this premise that we are creating our own world, then why wouldn’t we create a world with the greatest possible degree of harmony and flow; why wouldn’t we create gatherings and meetings and projects that reflect our deep trust in others, our faith in a collective goodwill, and our love of life?

It seems to me that a great use of energy is to let go of trying to control people and events in life and instead bring appreciation and love to my visioning and my relating.

Evan Renaerts
604 314 0835
evan@evanrenaerts.com