In this issue:

1. Core Purpose of From the Four Directions
2. Leadership Story - Building Community, Growing Leaders
3. For Reflection - The Thought of Something Else by Wendell Berry
4. An Invitation to You

Core Purpose of From the Four Directions

From the Four Directions is a global leadership initiative of the Berkana Institute.

• We dream of a world where every organization, whether in business, government, or public benefit, knows how to bring out the best in us humans: our creativity, our caring, our desire for peace and health.
• We believe that changes must come from citizens and leaders working in their own communities across the planet.
• We support the work of life-affirming leaders (a leader is anyone who wants to help) in finding their clarity and courage to lead on behalf of the issues that most concern them.
• We work around the globe to organize local conversation circles on life-affirming leadership. Citizens and leaders name their hopes and challenges, learn from colleagues, and act courageously to move their hopes into reality.
• We network local conversations into a global presence of "people everywhere leading the way" to a future of possibility and promise for all.

Several weeks into his first From the Four Directions circle group, Jonathan began teaching a class called Leadership and Diversity at Fuller Theological Seminary. The 15-person class consisted of a diverse mix of age, gender, culture, vocation, and ethnic background. Usually, he would have taught from the front of the class. Instead, he gathered the students in circle.

"We focused on engaging one another with the values of openness, vulnerability, and honesty," he says. The class never used a talking stick, but developed an understanding that they would listen to each other and participate. Jonathan had planned to spend an hour during that first class teaching circle. However, three hours later, the students were still engaged in conversation. They chose to meet in a similar circle format for the rest of the semester.

Circle helped to release leadership within Jonathan's academic setting. The usual hierarchical, command and control classroom leadership model was replaced by a shared leadership style that fostered a richer learning experience. "We created personal bonds by hearing each other's stories," says Jonathan. "The students listened to each other from their perspectives, teaching each other from their lives and heritages, and engaged their whole persons."

"As community increases, lecture decreases," Jonathan notes. "We became a unified but diverse community. We focused on equipping and empowering each other to be leaders instead of followers-leaders that release leaders rather than create followers. We recognized that we were responsible for our own growth and took active roles in learning and in teaching others."

"Leadership is about relationship," Jonathan says. "It's about building courage in people to lead and to be led. The greater the community, the greater your ability to act as a leader." By bringing circle into his classroom, Jonathan chose to lead in a different way. He consciously nurtured a setting in which his students cultivated community and investigated the diversity of leadership as it emerged.

For Reflection.

The Thought of Something Else
Wendell Berry
(Shared recently by Toke Paludan Moller, Circle Host in Silkeborg, Denmark)

A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity -- another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
It's enough to grieve me --
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better [wo]man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.

The mystery. The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going.

-- a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a [wo]man can be
safely without thought
-- see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.

An Invitation to You

The From the Four Directions Network now includes more than 1,500 people in more than 30 countries. We would love to have you join us in this work. There are many ways to be involved:

• start a From the Four Directions circle
• participate in a circle
• make a donation
• contribute resources
• explore more learning together

The From the Four Directions Newsletter is published monthly. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please visit http://www.fromthefourdirections.org/, email info@fromthefourdirections.org, or call us at 801 377 2996.