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(The following is an excerpt from the Way of the Champion, by Live Oak Institute co-founder, Barry Barkan, it describes a slice of life at a daily community meeting at the Live Oak Living Center, which from 1986 to 2003 pioneered an elder centered community as the driving force of organizational culture change.) During the 16 years we have been at the Live Oak Living Center, there have been almost 5,000 daily community meetings. On any given day there is a discussion of the news of our rapidly changing twenty first century world. The elders meet political candidates and grapple with such issues as presidential scandal and war and peace and technologies that impact the very way life is formed. There is an uncensored sharing of complaints and suggestions and information about life in the home with its deaths, and illnesses and recoveries and comings and goings and state inspections and staff changes and daily menus. All of these events are grist for the mill in the life of the elders and all of them provide meaning to daily life. There is an active relationship to the future as the elders plan upcoming holiday celebrations and other events. Thirty to 45 residents gather each day as they decide what the appropriate response in our community should be to the tragic events of 9/11 or a recent court decision limiting the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. One of our fundamental assumptions that defines the Live Oak Regenerative Community is that everyone is capable of learning and growth at all life stages. Any other assumption limits people and imprisons them in a box. There is a continuity and regeneration of identity and personal growth which nurtures and supports self esteem as the elders learn from one another and have an opportunity to be seen and known as individuals. |
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"We have the right to worship and to pray just as we please, We have the right to raise our own flags way up in the breeze, We have the right to watch the clouds and sit under the trees, Our rights go marching on." |
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| Live Oak Resident Rights Song | |||
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Design by Sleeping Dog Productions |
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