In my last blog entry I declared that organizing is an act of love. I’m already anticipating the questions my statement raises. ”What do you mean by organizing? Really, what is love anyway?”
Last Fall similar questions arose at a training I attended. One of the presenters asked if anyone could offer a description of organizing. This is what I said.
Organizing is the art of creating and sustaining relationships based on solidarity, relationships that can challenge and ultimately replace relationships based on exploitation.
Later, when the training was drawing to a close, we were asked to shut our eyes and imagine the future world that we were all working so hard to create. I pictured a world full of organizers, all of them furiously working on meaningful projects and long term relationship building. The work was demanding and often difficult, but the organizers were nourished by thousands of acts of appreciation, because in this future, most people recognize that organizing is an act of love.
