A modern day fable of OS

[MCymraes at aol.com]

Dear Ones All:

Recently, my company had an interesting situation--it was supposed to be an OS, life was moving well--and suddenly the management got cold feet.  Four days before an event that had been in planning for a month and a half, it was decided that we needed traditional facilitation instead of OS, to "protect" the group from one another.

I won't go into all of it--and I will share the outcome of the event as it went forward--but in the midst of the turmoil, this fable came to me.  Call it a Sufi story for OS, or whatever you would like.  (and a special wink to Ralph Copleman for all the learning and patience.)

Blessings--
Dylene

A Modern Fable.
 Once upon a time, there was a traveler who went from village to village and performed service according to the village need.
One village the traveler stopped in had a wise chief who wanted his people to be happy, and his village to be prosperous.  The village was full of good people who had come together, but who had turmoil in the work of living as a group.  The Chief had heard of the traveler, and asked her to stay in his village and serve.
The traveler did so, and as she worked in the village, she became aware that these people were good-hearted, and would make wise use of a gift that she knew.  She did not possess this gift, but she knew how the villagers could.
“There is a box I think you could use,” the traveler told the chief.  “It lies two and a half days from here, and in order to get the box, your whole village should be invited to go with you.”
The chief was intrigued, and agreed.  This traveler had a reputation for wisdom, and had helped other villages, though none so large as his own.  “Ask my people if they would like to seek out this box, for I would like them to have their own free will about this—all but the village Elders. They must go because I feel this is important.”
The traveler agreed and began to invite the villagers to seek the box.  She also began to attend to the needs of the villagers on the journey—arranging the sleeping and food for the two and a half day journey.
Soon, people began to come to her, one by one.
“What color is this box?”  One asked.
“Why does it take two and a half days to get to it?” Another asked.
“What shape is the box?” And so on.  The traveler said very little, and the people were frustrated.  They began to speculate about the box, and each had their own idea.
In the meantime, the village Elders came to the Chief, with the same questions—and some new ones.
“How do we know this box doesn’t contain something dangerous?” One asked.  “I know of another village, one my brother-in-law has a cousin in, that got a box like this—and their village burned to the ground one night.”
“How do we know this box will match our other boxes?” asked another.  “We already have more than a dozen boxes stacked in our treasure house.  Why can’t we just keep using those?  They have served us in the past.”
“Why do we have to leave our work for two and a half days?” Another rejoined.  “We will all lose precious time trading—and time is money.”
“And what is this about taking the whole village?  They might start believing that they all have the ability to go searching for boxes of their own, if we take them on this journey. That could be dangerous.”  This was a man who sold boxes, and had a great stock of them to sell.  His way of life was threatened.
The Chief was a wise man, and listened to his advisors.  He realized that he had made his decision based on faith, and not on logic.  So, he called the traveler forward.
“I am worried about this box,” he said in a gracious and tactful way.  “My people are not sure we even need it.  And what if we get it, and our people get the wrong ideas?  What if they start looking for their own boxes?”
The traveler listened to the concerns of the chief.  After he spoke, he sat quietly and thoughtfully.  “I want the good of my people,” he explained.  “But there are issues they don’t understand.  I think this box might be dangerous for them, and for the village.  Perhaps we could give them a box we already have in our treasure house, one that we understand and know about.  And we could just give it to them here, instead of making them travel so far away.”
He felt more at ease with this solution.  The traveler nodded, and that is what they did.
The villagers peered inside the box, and shrugged, then returned to business as usual, since there were no new solutions to their daily efforts within it.  The traveler’s box was forgotten.
Eventually, the traveler was ready to leave the village.  The people all had the box they were familiar with, and they were content.  As the traveler got ready to leave, the Chief stopped her, and walked with her to the edge of the town.
“What was in that box you had talked of?” He asked quietly as they walked.
“Nothing,” the traveler said.
The Chief stopped in his tracks.  “Nothing?”  He frowned, and thought how glad he was to have made the choice his advisors recommended. “Then why did you tell us we needed it?”
The traveler looked at him, and smiled.  “I didn’t say your villagers needed the box.  What they needed was the journey.”