Our collective journey of transformational change is inspired by a spirit of openness.
• It is an openness to see those who live and work with us with an honest reckoning of the present, and a progressive vision of the future.
• It is an openness to hear
the voices of those who have been too often silenced in the decision
making process, and to listen to their self-directed preferences.
• It is an openness to speak from the heart and to act through a respectful awareness of community life and teamwork.
Openness
to change and new possibility sustains us through inevitable periods of
conflict and disruption. It helps us overcome the real world hurdles on
our path toward de-institutionalized services and individualized care.
It creates the energy for us to realize our leadership potential in our
organizations and in our broader communities.
Today we invoke a spirit of openness to usher in a new era of aging in community. We declare our interdependence, and we invite each other into a dialogue about how to make interdependence our true way of being and living in community.
| INTERDEPENDENCE: Reliance on one another for mutual support or sustenance
Each
of us has our own unique passions, capacities and strengths. We
recognize these gifts as self-evident. And yet interdependence is not
self-evident — it requires acts of intention.
As human beings,
we live by and through cooperation with others — it is our destiny. In
spite of the emphasis placed on being independent, in reality we are
all interdependent. The nature of our cooperation with and relationship
to others changes as we grow, mature, and age. These relationships form
the basis of all true communities. Therefore, we seek to understand and
possess the skills necessary to be interdependent in healthy,
productive ways.
In declaring our interdependence, we recognize
that when we are united, we have endless possibilities; when we are
partners, we build community; when we are proactive together, we reduce
our fear of change, and when we cultivate the common ground, we grow
individually and collectively. |