Mission + Strategy = Social Value

Poem for the First Friday of the Month

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that you kept company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

First Friday of the Month Poem

By Bertrand Russell 

Three passions have governed my life:

The longings for love, the search for knowledge,

And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.

In the union of love I have seen

In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision

Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.

I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].

I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.

But always pity brought me back to earth;

Cries of pain reverberated in my heart

Of children in famine, of victims totured

And of old people left helpless.

I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,

And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

Adapted

Take the Call

I don't know about you, but sometimes I have no patience for people who refuse to get involved or contribute in any way to making this world better, even in the smallest of ways. Frankly, I get so much enjoyment and learning from the work I do as a volunteer and a consultant in the nonprofit sector that I can't imagine why everyone wouldn't want this kind of reward. Now, I have a poem which succinctly sums up my feelings on the subject. The next time you meet you meet someone who has no concept of giving back, think about what Hesiod said:

                      
                                                        The best is he who calls men to the best.
                                                            And those who heed the call are likewise blessed.
                                                            But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.
                                                                              - Hesiod (Greek)

Believe in Miracles: A Poem for the End of a Long February, 2008

From The Cure at Troy, by Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise-up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term....

This was excerpted from Seamus Heaney, The Cure at troy: A Version of Sophocle's Philocetes (Noonday Press, 1991).

A Poem For February 6, 2008

Hello! It is snowing quite heavily here in the Midwest as I write this to you the morning after Super-Duper Tuesday. The trees outside my window are sagging with the weight of the wet snow...

As you know, I like to share poems that help restore the spirit for people who are doing the difficult work in the nonprofit sector. Here is a favorite writing that was given to me by a former board chair when I left a leadership position.  I hope it brings you the same joy as it has brought me.

George Bernard Shaw - One True Joy in Life (partly from the Dedicatory Letter, in Man and Superman)
This is the one true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;
the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances,
complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege
to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life
for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got hold of for the moment and I
want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.
-------------------------------
If you have a favorite poem that you have "leaned on" during difficult times, please e-mail it to me and I will post it on my blog. - Jean

Guest House, a poem by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Note:  I have often turned to poetry as a means for getting through the fires of leading a nonprofit organization.  So, from time to time, I will share an inspirational poem with my readers.