Giving and receiving

[Harrison Owen]

At 08:56 AM 11/15/2002 +1300, Anne Pattillo wrote:
>    * That open space is embodied with a spirit of generosity
>    * That the process of giving and serving has unexpected benefits 
> personally and for the community
>    * That reciprocity within a spirit of generosity is not an transaction 
> of I give to you, you give to me rather like the breath of life it is an 
> act of giving forward, giving unconditionally
>    * That receiving is a more challenging prospect that giving
If there is any one, single thing that I might wish for as a legacy from my 
wonderful journey in Open Space with the incredible multitude of folks who 
have chosen to share the journey -- it is that we constantly share (give 
away) what we are learning and doing. Folks who are newly to the scene are 
often blown away with the lack of "proprietary interest" and sales pitches. 
I think we have generally walked our talk. In those rare instances where 
self promotion has come to the fore, the charity of the community has risen 
to the occasion, forgiven the offence, and hoped for better. From the very 
beginning, it has always been clear to me that nobody owns all this, nobody 
has the Trade Marked method, the patented approach. It is the birthright of 
every citizen on the planet. What we have been freely given must be freely 
shared. Of course, that raises the interesting question -- do we do 
everything for free? Of course the answer is, No. At least I think the 
answer is, No. It is said -- A Worker is worthy of his/her hire... We may 
not be "free" -- but Open Space is Free. And anybody with a good head and a 
good heart can "do" it.

>On a practical level, we talked about the generosity of the OSLIST as a 
>key community resource of the OS community.  Some questions we wanted to 
>share with our community are



>§         Where is our marketplace for giving to care for and strengthen 
>the OS community?

I guess I am not quite clear what the question is here...????


>How does each of us live in that spirit of generosity, and how do we 
>strengthen our practice of that generous spirit.

I guess that is something that each of us has to answer on our own. My 
words for all this is something like "The practice of gracious spaciousness."

Thanks for posting this!

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

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