All of a sudden there are bees everywhere!
At the start of the ECON planning and structure sessions, I was asked to reflect on the State of ECON from my semi-long distance point of view. I had to be honest, and I started off with a laundry list of problems, issues, lacks and needs. But then I brought The Bee.
Geraldine Jensen started a nationwide movement of women fighting for better endforcement of child support. From nothing (she literally collected change from the couch cushions to take out the ad inviting others to join her in Toledo) she built a 30,000 member giant organization, led almost entirely by volunteers, that literally turned tghe numbers around The statistics went from a 20% collection rate to 80%, with lots of better rules and structural changes. They took as their mascot the humble bumble bee - there's no aerodynamic explanation, no physics to explain how the ungainly misshapen thing could ever fly - but it flies anyway! We can do it! they said, and despite the odds, the system and the power and the lack of money, training or "experts" on their side, they did it!
I suggested that the evidence is that ECON is a true Bumble Bee organization. There they are, in the most unlikely countries, with decades of dictatorship, distrust and corruption, with no foundations with local money, with awkward rules and little tradition of civic engagement...and here are teams from nine countries, smart ambitious dedicated young people, passionate elders who've transcended their history and lots and lots of experimentation, creativity and guts, making something happen.
After the language barrier was passed...(see previous post)...the metaphor caught on, and on we went forward with planning.
So as Kajo and Chuck and I are leaving Szczecin, we stopped for souvenirs. There was a stack of cups with this bee motif (see picture). And when Chuck and I were headed to lunch after Mass at the cathedral in Katowice, we passed by this doorway with a big BEE over the lintel (see other picture). We stopped into the Mariacka Church, one of Katowice's oldest, and the nature windows, in addition to spiders and peacocks and turtles...had BEES!
It's a little spooky, don't you think?
And in the department of extremely spookily weird....I just checked in to my hotel in Warsaw and flipped on the TV for background noise...and there, on the German channel, is tghe cartoon show called "Futurama", and tghe robot the one-eyed girl and the hero are locked in glorious battle with a planet of GIANT BEES!!!
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