Peter Block on Community and story telling

Peter Block visited Anand several times in 1990's and greatly contributed to the shaping up of the newly created Human Resource development Function at the National Dairy Development Board ( NDDB). NDDB was one of the many organizations that were created, nurtured and led by Dr V Kurien.

This was possible due to personal interest shown by Dr (Ms) Amrita Patel the then Managing Director of NDDB. Dr Kurien was not very enthusiastic about the idea..

I have invited friends and ex-colleagues who worked with Dr Kurien as also by those whose lives were touched by the work he did to contribute to this blog.

While I hope that this will happen soon, I thought of sharing the some paragraphs from the book as it does provide a way forward for moderating what finally appears on these pages.

"Community the Structure of Belonging"

by Peter Block(http://www.peterblock.com)

Community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To belong is to act as an investor, owner, and creator of this place. To be welcome, even if we are strangers. As if we came to the right place and are affirmed for that choice.

Story telling plays a noble and historic role in our lives and in society. Stories can give us a narrative to guide and instruct us.They are crucial to our knowing who we are; they provide a sense of identity. Some stories, however, become limitations to creating anything new...

We need to distinguish between stories that give meaning to our lives and help us find our voice and those that limit our possibility. The stories that are useful and fulfilling are those that are metaphors, signposts, parables, and inspiration for fullest expression of our humanity. They are communal teaching stories. Creation stories, wisdom stories, some times personal stories that have mythic quality even if they come from a person sitting next to me. .............

There are other kinds of stories that in their telling become a limitation.

Limiting stories are our personal version of the past. They are stories about the conclusion we drew from events that happened to us. Other limiting stories are those that are rehearsed or make the point that future will be a slightly modified version of the past out of which the story arose. Stories of this nature place us as victims of events or even fate. Limiting stories are the ones that present themselves as if they were true.Fact.

Our stories of our own past are heartfelt and yet are fiction. All we know that is true is that we were born. We may know for sure who our parents siblings, and other key players in our drama were. But our version of all of them, the meaning and memory that we narrate to all who will listen, is our creation. Made up. Fiction.

And this is good news, for it means that a new story can be concocted any time we choose.

Same with Community. The stories of violence, crime, wrongdoing that are constantly told are also fiction. The events may have happened, but the versions that let those events define who we are as a community - such as whether it is safe to go downtown, whether we need new leaders, whether people in this place are friendly whether we headed up or down are all fiction. The decision to tell those stories over and over again creates the limitation against an alternative future. This is why therapy and healing is really the process of re-remembering the past in a more forgiving way.The willingness to own up the fictional nature of our story is where the healing begins. And the possibility of restoration resides. In this way restoration can be considered the willingness to complete and eliminate the power out of the current story of our community we have and our place in it.

This creates an opening a new collective story. A new story based on restorative community. One of possibility generosity, accountability.

I think the words that Peter gives for differentiating between the useful and limiting stories are important for us to remember while posting stories here in this blog.

This blog is a community effort and we need bring out stories that bring out our "humanity", stories of wisdom and learning , stories that open up possibility instead of limiting.