I’m hanging out with my Tribe this week. A group of six dynamic women who gather twice a year on a university campus to share our collective experiences, ideas, and wisdom with next generation of a very specialized niche in local government – the Municipal Clerk.
Often called the second oldest profession (after the tax collector, get your minds out of the gutter), the Municipal Clerk serves as the bridge between the government and the governed. They serve as election official, legislative historian, and keeper of the city seal for tens of thousands of villages, boroughs, towns and cities across the globe.
Passion Fuels Creativity
Helping the next generation of these Clerks develop their skills and find their passion for public service is an honor and a gift for the members of my Tribe. It fuels our own passions, it fills the gaps in our souls that come from wanting to help others become the best versions of themselves.
The Urban Dictionary describes a Tribe as “a group of friends that becomes your family.” It goes on to say “the people that will be there for you no matter what and who you’re guaranteed to have a good time with……Once a Tribe is established, they stay together forever.” After we gathered tonight for our first dinner together since the spring, and to do some reconnecting around our personal lives, I realized the six of us are the living embodiment of that definition.
Tribes are not new
Historically Tribes were collections of families and extended families (clans) that lived together in community. There typically was a tribal leader, and loyal soldiers to defend the Tribes’ culture, possessions, and encampments if necessary. In biblical times, the Lord established the twelve Tribes of Israel, assigning each a particular inheritance which came with a particular responsibility to the people of God.
This is true of our Tribe as well.
We have our Tribe Leader. She not only keeps us organized and supplied with the tools to teach our assigned courses, but she also allows us the freedom to develop new curriculum, infused with our own personal creative touches. She motivates us, she keeps us focused, she is the provider, the mother, the driving force behind this endeavor and the one that at the end of the day, will pick up any slack because the mission is so important. She often does this to her own detriment, working herself to the point of exhaustion and illness. But she does so with grace, and no semblance of martyrdom. She is our leader, and we will follow her anywhere, hoping she’ll allow us carry at least one brick from her wagon.
We have our Judge. I say this not in a pejorative sense, where she is judging us all the time, but rather the balance on the scales. She keeps everything on an even keel, helping wherever she is needed, and supporting everyone with the most amazing encouragement you will ever hear from someone who is not your own mother. She is the ying to everyone else’s yang. She counter-weights the stress of running such a complicated academy, and is the calmest person I have ever met. She once told me, years before I joined the Tribe as a trainer, that I had “big energy, and I needed to learn how to channel that for good and not evil.” The Judge brings wisdom to our Tribe and is not afraid to use it.
We have the Bee, who is as diminutive in stature as she is in name. But the Bee has more heart and strength and grist than probably the rest of us combined. She flits and flies around doing small tasks that if left undone, become major problems. In doing so, she touches all of us. She provides courage for those of us that are afraid to face what we don’t understand. She has this uncanny knack for solving problems we haven’t even diagnosed yet. She is our St. Michael the Archangel, ever vigilant, reminding us of the power within in us all.
There is our Turtle. She is sure and steady on the outside, despite still reeling from a deep personal tragedy on the inside. She is resilient and strong, recognizing that keeping on is the best medicine for a wounded heart. She comes to the academy because of the Tribe, she says, but it is we are who are blessed as she gifts us with her quiet, inner strength. She shares with the students wisdom that only comes from having been at one’s lowest point and finding the light toward which she steadily makes her way. The Turtle reminds the Tribe that even in adversity, we are called to serve, and our suffering is lessened as a result.
We have the Fawn. New to the Tribe this session, she is eager to learn but admits to being more terrified than she’s ever been of anything in her life. Speaking in public can be scary. Speaking in front of an audience of your peers and colleagues can be even scarier. There are entire sections in the library devoted to dealing with this fear, yet the Fawn jumped into the Tribe anyway. Soon she will be a mother Deer, showing everyone her strength, grace, wisdom and confidence. The best part? She brings the wide-eyed enthusiasm and wonder of youth to the group, ensuring that our work here will go on.
Me? I am the Butterfly, constantly reinventing myself as I struggle to break free of the confines of my cocoon. I bring crazy dreams and new ideas to the Tribe and for some reason, they keep opening the window and letting me fly in. We try new curriculum ideas. We add new technologies. We don’t abandon the old, but we honor the past while moving toward the future. The medicine of the Butterfly is the ability to know the mind and to change it. It is the art of transformation. That is my role in the Tribe.
There is power in the Tribe.
We each bring our own unique gifts to the table, and together we light the way for others to see, learn, do.
So who is in your Tribe? Who can you rely on to pull you up when you falter? Whose ideas will you support no matter what because you believe in their gifts, their vision, their mission? Find these people and spend time connecting with each other over something that really matters. Because once established, a Tribe surpasses the confines of time and space. Your Tribe will be with you forever.