I’m no early adapter, but gradually I’m learning my way around the social web. Thanks to Google Alerts, I’ve made a lot of new connections–people far and wide whom I see as my teachers. They live in other places, deal with different challenges and have their own unique way of facing them, and each one broadened my own perspective. Here are a few that come to mind. I’ll keep featuring these connections here as I continue to meet and make new CS.
Kris Miner blogs about “restorative justice“–and in one of her posts, applied the concept of consequential strangers to that process: “What 
occured to me…was the power that Restorative Justice volunteers/community members bring to others. The volunteer community members come to RJ, sit in Circle with those court-ordered to attend. Really deep connections result. The power that happens is shared by everyone in the Circle. The authentic conversations, the self-awareness in a group setting really connects people.”
Chris Kilber reminded me that we often don’t think about our own impact on others whose paths cross ours–until years later. In his blog, he recalled a casual acquaintance: “…even though he was just one person I knew those many years ago, we had made differences in each others lives.”
Joe McCarthy, gave me a great new term: speed-dial friends “who are there for me when all I need is a witness – someone will listen with 
empathy, and withhold judgment – or when I need an active adviser – someone who will share his or her insights, experience, strength and hope.” Joe also recognized the importance of CS–on and off line.
Last (for now) but certainly not least, Ashley Boynes astounded me with her courage. Twenty-six years old, she’s the Community Development Director of the Arthritis Foundation of Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the documenting her sometimes painful and often frightening treatment for rheumatoid arthritis–she’s had it since age 10–and is a teacher, a role model, and an inspiration for others who must travel a similar path as she shares “the ups and downs, the trials and triumphs, the good, the bad, the ugly, the successes, and my personal hopes and fears as they relate to my condition.”
January 16th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Melinda: I believe the best way to learn something is to teach it. Your book is a fabulous compilation of learning relating to consequential strangers, and I am grateful to you and your co-author for bringing so much useful information together in such an accessible way! I learned a great deal in reading it, and am delighted if any riffs I’ve made on your themes help reveal any additional useful insights or experiences to you or others.
I’m glad you have taken up blogging, as that I believe helps expand the learning process (for blog readers … and bloggers). In a riff on two other inspiring authors – Oriah Mountain Dreamer and Martin Buber – I wrote about Oriah and Buber, I and Thou: Bringing All Of Who I Am to Blogging, in which I was channeling Oriah’s insights (inspired by Buber’s) with respect to how bringing all of who we are to our creative endeavors – blogging, writing, teaching – serves to inspire others:
“So when you write a piece of music [write a blog post / book] – let’s say if you’re a composer [a blogger / author] – and you bring yourself entirely to something that is larger than you, and you hold none of yourself back, you create a piece of music [blog post / book], which someone who listens to it [reads it], if they too bring all of themselves to it, they are able to directly experience that which is larger than themselves in their own way – it will be different than perhaps the composer [blogger / author] did – but there will be a similarity in terms of what they engage with.”
BTW, Oriah has also recently started blogging at The Green Bough./
January 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Thanks, Joe, for your comments–and compliments. Most important, it’s wonderful to find people who live in interconnectedness.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
[...] asking about CS’s in a Circle. When she let me know via Twitter, she mentioned me in her blog, the Twitter link took me there. (I left to go grab a link) and Oh geez in my true ADD form, [...]