Shortly before venturing forth to Austin to meet up with the filmmaking whiz Silas Hagerty earlier this month, Nipun Mehta sent us both an email.

"You will be seen as CharityFocus volunteers," he reminded us. "Three guiding principles of CF: (a) everything volunteer, (b) don't ask for anything, (c) do small things."

Silas and I would be joining Nipun to create a video about the gathering together of a group called The Tipping Point Network, and as a New York-based producer of television and radio projects, I had to smile. These "principles" were counter to those of any workplace I'd ever known.

I was baffled and giddy and ready to receive them.

On a JetBlue flight out of JFK the next morning, I read through the impressive and varied bios of the TPN members and pondered the central question we hoped to ask all thirty, in sit-down interviews over the following two days (and then only during short breaks between tightly scheduled sessions) : what were the defining moments in their lives that would signal who they would go on to become, what each would seek to work for?

My own such moment felt close at hand. On an otherwise spectacular September morning five years earlier, I'd dropped my two cherished children off for their first day of school in Park Slope, Brooklyn--and some thirty minutes later, from a neighborhood street corner, watched while the first of the Twin Towers fell to the ground. As a crossing guard and I leaned into one another, a pure and immediate sense of knowing coursed through me--as if it had been there all along but was just waiting to be recognized. The only real thing left for me to do, I now saw, was love my way out of this life. Moment to moment and with good cheer, I'd seek to love my way out of my own life from the space of a broken heart. It was a model that would allow the whole world in. And one to which I had returned many times since, with gratitude.

From my bag, I pulled out an off-beat proposal of Nipun's--a TPN member himself--and began to read. Here was an idea he planned to circulate at the gathering, and with it came a precious introduction to the lessons of a gift economy. I smiled again. More lessons would greet me in Austin, I sensed. And more did.

Lesson One: There are No Fixed Roles in a Gift Economy

Nipun has variously referred to me as KarmaTube's coordinator, its program director, its visionary, and as a plain old volunteer. I love each of these titles--and for as long as I'm involved with KarmaTube and to the degree that I am able, will happily serve as its bee-keeper, its floor-sweeper, its tour guide or its tap dancer. Whatever. Because that's the point. A gift economy gives full voice to precisely the thing that's called for in a moment. Though I'm officially billed as KarmaTube's "interviewer" during our time together, and Silas as its "videographer," we each easily migrate among disparate roles. Using simple white tablecloths, good lights, and a quiet room all made freely available to us by The Crossings, Silas has created a lovely and inventive "set" for the interviews--and during the Q & A process, looks up from his camera to ask thoughtful questions that haven't occurred to Nipun or me to ask. I'm a time-keeper and note-taker, interview-wrangler, story-sharer, equipment-lugger, deep listener and--when Silas moves into the role of been-up-all-night editor--green tea-bringer. Nipun, who has never made a video before, asks the questions on the first day and is a complete natural. All the interviewees gets a hug before and after they sit down. As Nipun shouts with glee, "We're doing this thing Rocky style, man!"

Lesson Two: A Gift Economy Truly Permits the Gift of Presence

I've conducted a bunch of off-camera interviews in my work, but the interviewing this week has an altogether different quality to it. Gone is the nervous internal hum of the questions I "should" be asking, or the distraction of wondering what I might focus on next while the person across from me answers what I asked last. The need to push into the next moment gives way to an allowing for its simple unfolding. It is this spirit that permits me to see my interview with Bernard Lietaer, co-designer or the Euro and an amazing thinker, as an inspiring conversation. Not once do I look down at my notes. At long last, I can listen! And it is in this spirit that I am able to sense that Rachel Bagby, the healer and singer, would best be served by my locking the door to the interview room, preventing any unintended interruptions. When Rachel weeps while sharing her story, I am moved to do so, too. And it is fine.

Lesson Three: A Gift Economy Acknowledges Serendipity and Sees Kindness Everywhere

On landing in Austin and checking my Treo, a friendly message had awaited from Silas. "Hey, Jenny!" he'd said. "We need a computer mouse to edit the film with. Any chance you could stop off somewhere on the way here to buy one?" I was the last to board a Super Shuttle van packed with twelve passengers (including the delightful TPN members Malaika Edwards and Marion Weber, whom I was happy to get to know a bit) and at least as many pieces of luggage. It would be a 45 minute ride to The Crossings. Before stepping inside, I confessed my plight to our driver. And after dropping the last of us off, what he did was this: spend an hour of his own time driving me to and from a local Staples to get the mouse--and sharing his memories about fighting in the Vietnam War along the way.

TPN leader Susan Davis organizes a kind of scholarship for Silas and me so that we might stay and eat at The Crossings free of charge. In turn, the owners of The Crossings offer our room to Susan at half its regular price, in their own act of service. Sima Sanghvi , all the way from Berkeley, loans us her newly purchased computer, and proves amazingly graceful when it fails to work! At a crucial fork in the road, Ocean Robbins offers up his own computer for our use. Jim Mckay quickly picks up on the spirit of KarmaTube and composes a score for the video in record time, which he sends in from Brooklyn, with his blessings.

A grand dance, the steps of which could not have been predicted at the outset.

Lesson Four: A Gift Economy Sustains Both Giver and Receiver

In the end, Silas proves a true hero, logging tape all night and editing for 17 hours straight. Amidst clothes gathering in piles, equipment working and not, and many, many cups of green tea, he is happy--and so am I. "And the best part of all this is--we're doing it for free!" Silas shouts, grabbing his head. We high-five one another, carefully wrap Ocean's computer in my jeans jacket, and head off into the evening drizzle to screen the film--which the Tipping Point Network responds to with tears, applause, and a huge lingering group hug which they deposit Silas and me smack in the middle of.

"I've worked for money my whole life," I'd announced to the group before the lights went down. "But this kind of work, this service--small acts committed with great love and absolutely no strings attached--is truly like dancing with the angels."

And so it was.

KarmaTube "tripod" at the Tipping Point Network retreat: Silas Hagerty, Nipun Mehta, Jenny Douglas

Posted by Jenny Douglas | comments (11) | permalink | more 'KarmaTube' |