Caux and the interns program has been the story of my summer for the last six years. Each year marks me with different events. This year’s second session was new. Again. A group like no other;  a coordination team like no other. New approaches, new sessions. New stories. The facilitation of the workshops is always new, and as we evolve in our approach to them, so the output evolves.

 

At a world open space on open space event in November last year I invited a discussion on ‘personal integrity in (Open Space) facilitation’. This was in part to explore what it means to hold space despite (or with?) our imperfections as a facilitator. In the Caux context, part of the answer is in meeting the same challenges that as a facilitator I meet out to the interns – particularly when it comes to moving out of the comfort zone. I generally feel like I’m up for a challenge, but there were a couple of particular occasions this summer – in arguably trivial circumstances –  when I felt in the stomach those butterflies that only fly when I’m outside the comfort zone.

 

The first was one evening when I’d been asked to be a human book for a library in the conference session that was underway. It was an invitation to share some of my story (in this case two chapters, ‘Caux summer lovin’ and ‘Kawaja in South Sudan’) with some strangers. Fairly innocuous stuff, and I’m certainly used to speaking in public. At the same time I’ve always had a bit of a complex about my story and whether there’s anything to it really worth telling– the story of white western privilege isn’t particularly du jour. And yet I regularly repeat the mantra to the interns – ‘everyone’s story has something to offer’. Really?  So push came to shove when another one of the coordinators said he would only do the human book gig if I did it... finally, I turned to an intern who hadn’t been listening to the conversation, but whose intuition I trusted and said ‘Yes or No?!..’. They responded with a definitive ‘Yes’. So we did it. Exhausting, stretching, enriching. And maybe even useful in some way for the people who came to ‘read’ us over the evening.

 

The second was considerably more trivial; down in Montreux the night before most of the interns left. Beautiful swim in the lake, sublime sunset. Epic. Then a trip to McDonald’s for fries (just setting to one side for a second any moral issues with the Golden Arches). I didn’t have my wallet with me, and sitting down waiting with another intern who wasn’t indulging for principled rather than financial reasons, I mused that perhaps if I sang them a song they’d give me some fries for free. She took this up, promising that if I sang for them and they didn’t give me fries she’d buy me some – challenge accepted. We ended up waiting an eternity in the queue; initially me nervous, then perhaps a bit more her as she realised I actually might do it, then as we came to the front me again. And then I shared my proposal with the poor person behind the till, who giggled nervously, disappeared to ask her manager, and came back and said sure! So G’day g’day for all the patrons ... and a free large fries.

 

So much to my ego sometimes that in the face of entirely unthreatening audiences I fear something. The reflections continue...

 

With thanks to Erica and Jess...