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October 10th.
2007
SHARED SPACE
ECOR had yet another
milestone this past week. For the first time in the history of our
facilities we hosted a three-day retreat. It took significant
coordination and a lot of give and take from all those who regularly
occupy our facilities to make it work. However, I believe the key
ingredients to the success of the sharing the facilities were
communication and respect.
The leadership of the Cursillo community, the group facilitating the
retreat, was extremely diligent in determining which groups regularly
use the facilities on the days they would be there. Subsequently, they
began communicating with the other groups about how the space could be
shared. During this entire exchange those representing the Cursillo
community were tremendously sensitive and respectful to all others using
the facilities.
The reality is all of us live in a world, whether it’s our workspace,
public facilities or our homes, where we have to share space. I, for
example, on a fairly regular basis have to share my home with a herd of
smelly adolescent boys. Most of these lads have been coming to our home
for years. As such, most of them are pretty respectful with our
expectations about sharing our home with them.
Yet many times and places folks seem to either be clueless or don’t care
that they have to share space with other people. Sometimes this is
manifested in the shape they leave it in when they are finished (think
public restrooms) and other times it has to with their lack of
willingness to share (think armrests at the movies or taking two parking
places).
Maybe the most challenging realities for sharing space are between folks
of different origins such as the Israelis and Palestinians. Both believe
a very small piece of real estate belongs to them. Attempts at sharing
consistently fall short. And the two primary tenets of sharing space as
I suggested, communication and respect, are non-existent.
You may be shocked to know in a given year over 1000 people outside the
ECOR community use the gift of our facilities. Schools groups, community
agencies, fraternal organizations and others share our space with us. We
work hard with each and every one of these groups to keep communication
lines open and to keep the expectation of respect on the forefront. Our
wonderful facilities are a blessing and the best blessings are those
that are shared.
Blessings,
The Rev. Brian N. Prior, Rector
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