Accepting Feedback—Even When It’s Hard

 

The Situation

It has now been a month since Lasse Holmes arrived to teach a class on Building with Clay-Straw at The Alaskan Ecoescape Permaculture Center, which is also our bioshelter home.  The first hour was truly an uncomfortable experience.

Lasse arrived, entered the construction site, looked at what had been built so far, and sat there for the longest time.  He looked at the terraces we had excavated, the house posts we dug into the ground, the trenches we had dug for the rubble foundation, the double-wall framing we had put up to hold the clay-straw and, finally, the roof. 

Cindee and I sat with him and wondered what he was seeing.  At first, Lasse was very silent, and Cindee and I began to grow a bit uncomfortable.  Then the silence drew on even longer, and our discomfort grew.  In my experience it is not a common thing for someone to come to your home and sit in silence—at least not for so long.

Finally, Lasse began to ask questions.  Is the header under the rafters lag-bolted to the garage wall?  How deep did you place the house posts?  What are you using for rubble under the walls?  Is the South-west wall leaning in?

This last questions caught me off-guard.  Clearly, that wall should not lean in.  The house has six walls and is not a rectangle.  If that last wall, which supports the rafters, is leaning in then it might not hold up under the weight of heavy snow.

“I don’t think so,” I said.  It’s an optical illusion caused by the slope of the hill.

Not Level

Lasse picked up my level and put it on the wall.  Sure enough, the wall was leaning in…significantly.  We had made a silly mistake, it turned out.  I thought some basic nailing was all we needed to hold that wall straight. The problem, it turned out, was that a six-sided structure has some walls that are not set at right angles to other walls.  For those walls, my original plan was simply inadequate.  What were we to do now to insure structural integrity?

My Meditation

It is difficult to be a beginner at anything.  One makes mistakes that are so easily caught out by those who know better.  For that very reason one of the hardest lessons for people, and certainly for me, is to accept the need to be continually learning.  It is a hard lesson because it means opening ourselves to criticism by those who know better, and criticism is always a bit hard to take—even constructive criticism.

Remaining open to new learning is also a hard lesson, because some things we learn change us from the inside out.  In the same way that my framing proved inadequate for a building, some of the things we need to learn cause us to rethink ideas that form the very structure of our understandings of the world and how we are to live in it.  Once we have learned such things they become a part of us and they force us to consider how we are to live now, if we are to live with integrity.  It is the nature of the spiritual journey that learning new things changes the way we understand the world which, in turn, changes the way we behave.   To be continually learning therefore means to be continually changing. 

A Christian Teaching: 

Proverbs 1:7  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

In Judeo-Christian spirituality this has always been connected to something called the fear of the Lord.  That is, people with a good spiritual guide learn that God is leading each person on a journey of faith, and that this journey is about living and learning.  There are consequences to not being open to learning, because that would mean being closed to the spiritual journey with God.  There are consequences to not being open to God’s teaching and guidance. 

Applying the Teaching to the World: 

Permaculture Principle #3:  Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

Permaculture is good at applying this same principle to the important work of creating sustainable practices for humans to thrive in the world with the rest of nature.  Permaculture asks us to observe and interact with our environment (Principle #1).  But permaculture also asks us to accept feedback, and to respond.  We need to pay attention to what is going on and regulate our own actions.  If something is working well, then continue whole-heartedly.  But if something is not going well, don’t just try harder; consider what is wrong with the whole picture and adjust.  Anything else is doomed to failure.

In Christian life this is called praxis.  Praxis means that we live in a way that puts our faith into action.  However, we also know that humans are limited.  They are limited both in their understanding of God and the world, and they are limited in their moral maturity.  We therefore need to be open to feedback, so that we can check how well our actions match our theory and our intentions.  Feedback opens our eyes to new ways of understanding.  And once we know something knew to be true, we simply cannot ignore it.

The Bible teaches this as the proper understanding of the nature of human life.  Over the centuries God inspired writers to share stories of Israel’s faith journey and to share God’s teachings and wisdom.  God inspired these writers to share these writings so that future generations could find what should be understood as normative—which means, how we should understand the way life should be.  The Bible teaches us the nature of God—always on the move, always at work to improve what needs improving to assure abundant life, ready to teach and guide.  The Bible also teaches us that faithful discipleship is about joining God in these efforts, as a part of our own spiritual journey.

Yet, I admit that receiving criticism—feedback—as necessary as it is, is often painful.  Lasse’s long silence while he measured the integrity of our work was uncomfortable.  When he pointed out the problem with the wall, I was both embarrassed and grateful.  I really do have a lot to learn about building, and so I was embarrassed; but how glad I am that we found out before there was a catastrophe! 

Tying the Rafters and the Walls Toether

Back to the Situation:

Feedback, properly offered and properly received, always helps.  Certainly, Lasse’s feedback on our six-sided building helped; we were able to take some remedial action to assure the building is sound.   How wonderful it is to connect to others, who can offer their perspectives and their talents. 

If only our human society would look at the feedback nature is offering to us, and consider what it means.  We know humans must reduce CO2 emissions drastically; we know we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels; we know we need to reduce consumption; we know that our relationship with non-human nature is out of whack; we know that our current patterns of organizing human society is not sustainable.

We have a lot of feedback.  Are we open to the learning God has placed in our path?  Can we regulate ourselves?