McGrath and I just had the most delightful exchange in personal messages, and we decided to post/paste them here.***
Kevin,
About the July 6 Thought thread.
Just to reassure you, the only kind of change work I do goes in the direction of empowerment from the bottom, up. I am a pernicious little virus of a change agent in that. It is surprising and delightful how really vulnerable most organizations are to change of that sort, when people are equipped and released properly. Oh there is always a balancing effort to inhibit the resulting movement forward.... but stupidity, even in a corporately embodied sense, is always very vulnerable to real people making real leadership moves when least expected and AS least expected.
Not saying there is not real evil and crap and powerplay that goes on. Just wanting you to know that it is vulnerable to real, applied power.
~S~
***
Susan,
My remarks weren't aimed at you at all, and I've been trying to change things all my life myself.
It's just that I've become increasingly aware of how "change" can be hijacked by the wrong people with the wrong changes, and people can be manipulated into thinking that almost anything labelled as change must be accepted, with spurious word bites like "Make friends with Change."
So more power to your "pernicious" elbow.
Kevin
***
Kevin,
Oh I didn't feel aimed at. Just felt like a word on this might be in order. I know you try to change things. I bet they change most when you aren't even trying, just because you are being yourself.
That song [of yours] about the spring, in the drought. Real change can be like that, eh? Sometimes.
We have a spring here where everyone goes (not really everyone, I exaggerate) when their wells go dry, and where many of us go for regular water-fetching just because the home water tastes bad. It is quite an active gushing even when the rest of the county is bone dry.
I noticed too that under the pounding fall of water from this spring is roadbed rock that has been ground finer than gravel all the way to rocksand, amid other pieces of rock in various stages of water-grinding. When I see this now, I think of one dear curmudgeonly friend who admits that being loved well and persistently appears to have cracked him open in all the right places. And you know, I think your songs are just as pernicious as me, as water, and as love, and I bet many hearts wrapped way too tight in bands of bondage have cracked long after the listener went away, long after you packed up the gear and headed off home after singing.
I wish you water in plenty, and change in full measure where there is need of change. And I thank you for songs that have begun their work in me, as well.
And I'm sorry now we did not have this exchange in the thread. You can put it there by pasting if you like. Maybe people need to hear it.
~S~
***
Susan,
Glad you like that song, it's one of my favourites. It came after I'd seen the films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, though the image of the water in hiding is the only thing I took from them.
And yes, by all means copy the messages across if you like-- I've got to log off now, and do things.
Kevin
###