Post by Stefan Pasti on May 26, 2012 16:45:22 GMT -5
From the Section on Questionnaires in the “Solutions” section of “A Multi-Angle View of the Debt Crises” (p. 241-244)
(at www.ipcri.net/A_Multi-Angle_View_of_the_Debt_Crises.pdf )
Questionnaires—to bring forward perceptions and ideas, and to build consensus for collective action
[Note: Most of the following introduction is excerpted from the IPCR document “39 Suggestions for Preliminary Survey Questions (in preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives)”. That document can be accessed at www.ipcri.net/39_Suggestions_for_Preliminary_Survey_Questions_2.pdf This document includes 10 questions from that (“39 Suggestions…”) document (see Appendix L).]
a) Introduction
There are many important initiatives which are critical to overcoming the challenges of our times, but which are not quite “coming through the mist as much as they should be.” The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative can be very helpful in exactly these kinds of circumstances, as it encourages and facilitates a “constellation” of initiatives by which the best (in the view of the participants using these processes) associated with individual spiritual formation, interfaith peacebuilding, community revitalization, ecological sustainability, etc. can bubble up to the surface, be recognized as priorities, and therefore be brought forward as appropriate recipients of peoples’ time, energy, and money.
One of The Eight IPCR Concepts—and thus part of the “constellation” of initiatives referred to above—is “Questionnaires That Help Build Caring Communities”. The description of that concept offered in the document “Brief Descriptions of The Eight IPCR Concepts” begins as follows: “Organizations and communities of people often use questionnaires and surveys to identify problems and solutions, and to build consensus for collective action. Here are some example questions which are designed to be helpful in building caring communities. Hopefully, providing a few examples here will bring forth many more examples, and thus assist in building a resource base for future questionnaires that help build caring communities….”.
The questions listed in this section (of a larger “work-in-progress”) are, hopefully, the beginnings of a database of questions that can help build caring communities. In addition, this elemental part of community building can be also understood as one facet of a multi-faceted approach to peacebuilding and community revitalization.
However, the most significant role for these questions, from this writer’s point of view, is that they are a starting point for creating preliminary surveys, as preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives. The IPCR Initiative document “1000Communities2” is a 161 page proposal which advocates for Community Visioning Initiatives, “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”, and “sister community” relationships as a way of generating an exponential increase in our collective capacity to overcome the challenges of our times. Here is an excerpt from the “1000Communities2” document (from p. 47) which highlights the importance of preliminary surveys:
“This “1000Communities2” proposal includes a “15 Step Outline for a ‘1000Communities2’ Version of a Community” (see Section 6). Step 3 of that 15 step outline suggests creating a “Preliminary Survey”, and sending such a survey to 150 key leaders who represent a variety of fields of activity in the community. Responses and summarized results from “Preliminary Surveys” will provide:
i) evidence from local leaders of the need for a re-assessment of current priorities
ii) examples of local leaders stepping up in support of CVI
iii) starting points for public discourse about the importance of the CVI
iv) starting points for CTLC workshop content
v) starting points for some participants as they develop “Final Version” decisions (“votes”) on challenges, solutions, and action plans
vi) an aid to mobilizing a high level of interest in the CVI, and a high level of citizen participation
vii) an initial sense of support or non-support for the “sister community” element (an action plan which is advocated by the “1000Communities2” proposal at
ipcri.net/images/1000Communities2.pdf , see Section 5)”
This writer recognizes that many of the questions offered here as suggestions are not easily answered in one sitting. He also recognizes that although most of the key leaders (referred to above) could contribute something as a response to most of the questions, many residents of a given community may not contribute responses—either because it would take too much time, or because the questions explore complex subjects they are not familiar with. It is very important for communities of people to become aware that there are very difficult challenges ahead, and these difficult challenges will require some very significant learning experiences before we are able to resolve them. Refined questionnaires, with questions which most of the residents can quickly respond to, can be developed from responses to preliminary surveys like this one; and the refined questionnaires can do much to maximize citizen interest and participation in integrating new knowledge and new skill sets into the community.
People who explore the questions offered here carefully will also discover that there are many questions which touch on the subject of compassion for our fellow human beings. Many questionnaires are noteworthy for what they do not ask. This writer understands that it is now critical for us to access the storehouses of wisdom which have accumulated over the many centuries of human experience, and which have been confirmed again and again as essential to individual well-being and social harmony by the saints, sages, spiritual leaders, and sincere practitioners of all religious, spiritual, and moral “world views”. A significant number of the questions developed by The IPCR Initiative (see Appendix L.) have been created to assess whether other people see such a critical need, and explore how such a goal might be accomplished.
One of the most persistent ironies in life is that with so many opportunities to provide real assistance to fellow human beings—and with the potential for such assistance to result in happiness “to those who extend help as well as to those who receive it”—there are still many, many people in this world who cannot find a “way to earn a living” providing such assistance.
Questionnaires can be created which will accumulate information, suggestions, etc. that can be of critical importance in resolving the above mentioned “irony”—and which can provide the above mentioned assistance to the process of organizing and implementing Community Visioning Initiatives.
[Additional Note: The concept of “Questionnaires That Can Help Build Caring Communities”—one of The Eight IPCR Concepts—developed from this writer’s exploration of “Quaker Queries”. It is worth including in this section (in the “Additional Notes” part of this section—at the end of this section) a description of the IPCR Concept “Community Queries” (which eventually became “Questionnaires That Can….”), and some commentary on the subject of “Quaker Queries”. I highly recommend an exploration of “Quaker Queries”, especially for people who are interested in the use of questionnaires as a way of building consensus on difficult issues.]
b) On the subject of Quaker Queries
--Below is a description of the community building concept “Community Queries”, a concept which eventually became “Questionnaires That Can Help Build Caring Communities” (this description is also in the Spring, 2005 issue of The IPCR Journal/Newsletter)
"Community Queries"— The concept of "Community Queries" introduced here is simply an expansion of the use of "Queries" by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), so that the concept applies to the geographical area sense— and the most inclusive sense— of the word "community." Here are 13 specific examples of "Queries" (from sets of queries used by three different Quaker meetings): 1) "Does our Meeting prepare all its members and children for worship, and for a life consistent with the principles of the Religious Society of Friends?" 2) "Do you seek employment consistent with your beliefs, and in service to society?" 3) "Do you weigh your day-to-day activities for their effect on peace-keeping, conflict resolution and the elimination of violence?" 4) "Are you concerned for responsible use of natural resources and their nurture for future generations?" 5) "Do you try to avoid wasteful consumption and pollution?" 6) "Are you working towards the removal of social injustices? Have you attempted to examine their causes objectively, and are you ready to abandon old prejudices and think again?" 7) "Do any of your interests, important though they may appear to you, unduly absorb your time and energy to the hindrance of your growth in grace and of your service to God?" 8) "Are you loyal to the truth?" 9) "When pressure is brought to bear upon you to lower your standards, are you prepared to resist it?" 10) "Do all adults and children in our Meeting receive our loving care and encouragement to share in the life of our Meeting, and to live as Friends?" 11) "When a members conduct or manner of living gives cause for concern, how does the Meeting respond?" 12) "Are you sufficiently conversant with our Christian Discipline to be able, when difficult questions arise, to consider them with an informed mind as well as a loving and tender spirit?" 13) "Do you live in accordance with your spiritual convictions?" Surely, it would be a valuable exercise for any local community, faith community, non-profit human service organization, etc. to invite all residents, members, employees, participants, etc. (as appropriate to the nature of the "community") to become involved in the process of creating a set of "Queries" for that particular community of people.
--Commentary on Quaker Queries from The Co-Intelligence Institute (see www.co-intelligence.org/QuakerQueries.html )
“Quaker's often use what they call "queries" as a focus for individual and collective meditation, consideration and prayer, guiding Quaker seekers in their search for greater love, truth, and insight into how to serve humanity and live lives that are consistent with their core values. Queries can be self-created, group-created, or drawn up by higher Quaker authorities as official mandates for exploration. They are intended as questions to live with and into.
“At a personal level, queries can be used to probe-in-depth into some issue or concern, seeking the truth of one's deepest responses to it. One writer suggests: ‘The object is to stir the conscience in a gentle but firm way, and, through self-examination, to bring about a change or reaffirmation of attitude or behavior.’ Others describe a query as a way of opening themselves to divine guidance and transformation which, as in other forms of earnest prayer, can happen instantly.
“In some Quaker traditions, the queries are used collectively to derive a ‘sense of the meeting’, an explicit, shared awareness of where they are at as a spiritual community of seekers, how they are doing, where they have fallen short, or where they want to go. Sometimes Quaker meetings (which are organizationally analogous to churches or temples) will share with each other their communal responses to the same queries, seeking support from each other in living more Quakerly lives.
“Queries, suggests Quaker lecturer Martin Grundy, can provide an occasion ‘to take a piece of the spiritual life of the meeting and examine -- wrestle with -- our understanding of how we are called to live as Friends,.... an opportunity for a corporate discipline of paying attention to what God might have to teach us.... Careful and prayerful consideration of the queries can be the outward structure that melds the individuals and the faith community.... [providing] a checklist of how faithful we are as we trudge along on our journey, together.’”
(at www.ipcri.net/A_Multi-Angle_View_of_the_Debt_Crises.pdf )
Questionnaires—to bring forward perceptions and ideas, and to build consensus for collective action
[Note: Most of the following introduction is excerpted from the IPCR document “39 Suggestions for Preliminary Survey Questions (in preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives)”. That document can be accessed at www.ipcri.net/39_Suggestions_for_Preliminary_Survey_Questions_2.pdf This document includes 10 questions from that (“39 Suggestions…”) document (see Appendix L).]
a) Introduction
There are many important initiatives which are critical to overcoming the challenges of our times, but which are not quite “coming through the mist as much as they should be.” The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative can be very helpful in exactly these kinds of circumstances, as it encourages and facilitates a “constellation” of initiatives by which the best (in the view of the participants using these processes) associated with individual spiritual formation, interfaith peacebuilding, community revitalization, ecological sustainability, etc. can bubble up to the surface, be recognized as priorities, and therefore be brought forward as appropriate recipients of peoples’ time, energy, and money.
One of The Eight IPCR Concepts—and thus part of the “constellation” of initiatives referred to above—is “Questionnaires That Help Build Caring Communities”. The description of that concept offered in the document “Brief Descriptions of The Eight IPCR Concepts” begins as follows: “Organizations and communities of people often use questionnaires and surveys to identify problems and solutions, and to build consensus for collective action. Here are some example questions which are designed to be helpful in building caring communities. Hopefully, providing a few examples here will bring forth many more examples, and thus assist in building a resource base for future questionnaires that help build caring communities….”.
The questions listed in this section (of a larger “work-in-progress”) are, hopefully, the beginnings of a database of questions that can help build caring communities. In addition, this elemental part of community building can be also understood as one facet of a multi-faceted approach to peacebuilding and community revitalization.
However, the most significant role for these questions, from this writer’s point of view, is that they are a starting point for creating preliminary surveys, as preparation for Community Visioning Initiatives. The IPCR Initiative document “1000Communities2” is a 161 page proposal which advocates for Community Visioning Initiatives, “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”, and “sister community” relationships as a way of generating an exponential increase in our collective capacity to overcome the challenges of our times. Here is an excerpt from the “1000Communities2” document (from p. 47) which highlights the importance of preliminary surveys:
“This “1000Communities2” proposal includes a “15 Step Outline for a ‘1000Communities2’ Version of a Community” (see Section 6). Step 3 of that 15 step outline suggests creating a “Preliminary Survey”, and sending such a survey to 150 key leaders who represent a variety of fields of activity in the community. Responses and summarized results from “Preliminary Surveys” will provide:
i) evidence from local leaders of the need for a re-assessment of current priorities
ii) examples of local leaders stepping up in support of CVI
iii) starting points for public discourse about the importance of the CVI
iv) starting points for CTLC workshop content
v) starting points for some participants as they develop “Final Version” decisions (“votes”) on challenges, solutions, and action plans
vi) an aid to mobilizing a high level of interest in the CVI, and a high level of citizen participation
vii) an initial sense of support or non-support for the “sister community” element (an action plan which is advocated by the “1000Communities2” proposal at
ipcri.net/images/1000Communities2.pdf , see Section 5)”
This writer recognizes that many of the questions offered here as suggestions are not easily answered in one sitting. He also recognizes that although most of the key leaders (referred to above) could contribute something as a response to most of the questions, many residents of a given community may not contribute responses—either because it would take too much time, or because the questions explore complex subjects they are not familiar with. It is very important for communities of people to become aware that there are very difficult challenges ahead, and these difficult challenges will require some very significant learning experiences before we are able to resolve them. Refined questionnaires, with questions which most of the residents can quickly respond to, can be developed from responses to preliminary surveys like this one; and the refined questionnaires can do much to maximize citizen interest and participation in integrating new knowledge and new skill sets into the community.
People who explore the questions offered here carefully will also discover that there are many questions which touch on the subject of compassion for our fellow human beings. Many questionnaires are noteworthy for what they do not ask. This writer understands that it is now critical for us to access the storehouses of wisdom which have accumulated over the many centuries of human experience, and which have been confirmed again and again as essential to individual well-being and social harmony by the saints, sages, spiritual leaders, and sincere practitioners of all religious, spiritual, and moral “world views”. A significant number of the questions developed by The IPCR Initiative (see Appendix L.) have been created to assess whether other people see such a critical need, and explore how such a goal might be accomplished.
One of the most persistent ironies in life is that with so many opportunities to provide real assistance to fellow human beings—and with the potential for such assistance to result in happiness “to those who extend help as well as to those who receive it”—there are still many, many people in this world who cannot find a “way to earn a living” providing such assistance.
Questionnaires can be created which will accumulate information, suggestions, etc. that can be of critical importance in resolving the above mentioned “irony”—and which can provide the above mentioned assistance to the process of organizing and implementing Community Visioning Initiatives.
[Additional Note: The concept of “Questionnaires That Can Help Build Caring Communities”—one of The Eight IPCR Concepts—developed from this writer’s exploration of “Quaker Queries”. It is worth including in this section (in the “Additional Notes” part of this section—at the end of this section) a description of the IPCR Concept “Community Queries” (which eventually became “Questionnaires That Can….”), and some commentary on the subject of “Quaker Queries”. I highly recommend an exploration of “Quaker Queries”, especially for people who are interested in the use of questionnaires as a way of building consensus on difficult issues.]
b) On the subject of Quaker Queries
--Below is a description of the community building concept “Community Queries”, a concept which eventually became “Questionnaires That Can Help Build Caring Communities” (this description is also in the Spring, 2005 issue of The IPCR Journal/Newsletter)
"Community Queries"— The concept of "Community Queries" introduced here is simply an expansion of the use of "Queries" by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), so that the concept applies to the geographical area sense— and the most inclusive sense— of the word "community." Here are 13 specific examples of "Queries" (from sets of queries used by three different Quaker meetings): 1) "Does our Meeting prepare all its members and children for worship, and for a life consistent with the principles of the Religious Society of Friends?" 2) "Do you seek employment consistent with your beliefs, and in service to society?" 3) "Do you weigh your day-to-day activities for their effect on peace-keeping, conflict resolution and the elimination of violence?" 4) "Are you concerned for responsible use of natural resources and their nurture for future generations?" 5) "Do you try to avoid wasteful consumption and pollution?" 6) "Are you working towards the removal of social injustices? Have you attempted to examine their causes objectively, and are you ready to abandon old prejudices and think again?" 7) "Do any of your interests, important though they may appear to you, unduly absorb your time and energy to the hindrance of your growth in grace and of your service to God?" 8) "Are you loyal to the truth?" 9) "When pressure is brought to bear upon you to lower your standards, are you prepared to resist it?" 10) "Do all adults and children in our Meeting receive our loving care and encouragement to share in the life of our Meeting, and to live as Friends?" 11) "When a members conduct or manner of living gives cause for concern, how does the Meeting respond?" 12) "Are you sufficiently conversant with our Christian Discipline to be able, when difficult questions arise, to consider them with an informed mind as well as a loving and tender spirit?" 13) "Do you live in accordance with your spiritual convictions?" Surely, it would be a valuable exercise for any local community, faith community, non-profit human service organization, etc. to invite all residents, members, employees, participants, etc. (as appropriate to the nature of the "community") to become involved in the process of creating a set of "Queries" for that particular community of people.
--Commentary on Quaker Queries from The Co-Intelligence Institute (see www.co-intelligence.org/QuakerQueries.html )
“Quaker's often use what they call "queries" as a focus for individual and collective meditation, consideration and prayer, guiding Quaker seekers in their search for greater love, truth, and insight into how to serve humanity and live lives that are consistent with their core values. Queries can be self-created, group-created, or drawn up by higher Quaker authorities as official mandates for exploration. They are intended as questions to live with and into.
“At a personal level, queries can be used to probe-in-depth into some issue or concern, seeking the truth of one's deepest responses to it. One writer suggests: ‘The object is to stir the conscience in a gentle but firm way, and, through self-examination, to bring about a change or reaffirmation of attitude or behavior.’ Others describe a query as a way of opening themselves to divine guidance and transformation which, as in other forms of earnest prayer, can happen instantly.
“In some Quaker traditions, the queries are used collectively to derive a ‘sense of the meeting’, an explicit, shared awareness of where they are at as a spiritual community of seekers, how they are doing, where they have fallen short, or where they want to go. Sometimes Quaker meetings (which are organizationally analogous to churches or temples) will share with each other their communal responses to the same queries, seeking support from each other in living more Quakerly lives.
“Queries, suggests Quaker lecturer Martin Grundy, can provide an occasion ‘to take a piece of the spiritual life of the meeting and examine -- wrestle with -- our understanding of how we are called to live as Friends,.... an opportunity for a corporate discipline of paying attention to what God might have to teach us.... Careful and prayerful consideration of the queries can be the outward structure that melds the individuals and the faith community.... [providing] a checklist of how faithful we are as we trudge along on our journey, together.’”