If I were to acquire a tattoo, it would say: “Proceed as the Way Opens.” “Let Your Life Speak” might also make an appearance, but I will save that one for another day.
Just the word “proceed” means a lot to me. Proceeding means getting off thy butt and moving. It means not quitting. It means persistence, grit and courage. To proceed is to be indomitable, to overcome, to keep learning. To proceed is to climb and to see. You can’t proceed in a circle, and you can’t proceed by staying in a place where you are comfortable. When we proceed we are leaving comfort and heading into challenge, into uncertainty, and into a place where we will be stretched and may be thrown into complete panic. Proceeding is secular, earthy and physical. To proceed is spoken (if not shouted) in a familiar dialect.
“Way Opens” speaks to me in another language. It uses a spiritual vocabulary. It is a narrative formed from Light. Way Opens is spoken in hushed tones, in an inner place, and from a place of respect.
To Proceed as the Way Opens combines work and faith, ambition and grace. It describes entrepreneurs and Quakers, risk-takers and lifelong learners. What it doesn’t describe is hermits, flawless people, or fraidy cats.
I believe for the Way to Open we must proceed with an open mind and an open heart. I would not want to go under the knife with a surgeon who is not open to new ideas or constructive criticism, or is unwilling to learn something new. I have no time for anyone who cannot bring themselves to say, “I was wrong” - or its close relative, “I could do better.” I would not want to send my kids to a school where teachers believe they have so thoroughly mastered their professions that there is nothing left to learn.
Nor would I want my kids to go to a school where the Head of School thinks s/he knows everything. I believe the best schools, the best organizations, get that way because everyone participates, everyone is responsible, and everyone is empowered. Rafe Sagarin, a marine biologist, wrote a book called Learning from the Octopus. He wrote the book after considering the Pentagon’s response to the 911 attacks – top down, static – and compared that to how nature works – fluid, diverse, changeable. Sagarin uses the example of the octopus: “Most adaptable systems, and the octopus is a great example, have a decentralized organization where a lot of almost independent parts are allowed to sense and respond to the environment. So the octopus doesn't use that great brain to tell arm one to turn purple and arm two to turn blue as it swims over a coral reef, but rather millions of cells spread across its body are each individually responding to that change in the environment and then giving camouflage to the octopus as a whole. That combination gives you a lot of what you need to be an adaptable organism.”
Sandy Spring Friends School is a decentralized organization. That is why our MS Head Jen Cort says that we use the word “community” to describe ourselves at least as much as we do the word “school.” Again, Sagarin says: “There's a very simple thing we can do in wherever we work that can shift us into this mode of having more sense of how the world is changing and having more ability to respond to it. And that is shifting from a mode of giving orders to issuing challenges, which is when we say, 'Here's a problem we're all facing; who among you can solve this problem best?' And every time we've seen a challenge-based attempt at problem solving, you get many more potential responses and potential solutions. You get them much quicker and much much more cheaply than the model where a small group of experts decides.”
There are Quaker principals at play here. We are all in this together, and every voice is important. Every voice is precious. And as we Proceed together, Way will Open.