Esse Quam Videri
(To Be Rather Than to Seem)
~ Cicero
Dear friends of Refuge,
Two years ago, while on sabbatical, I spent some time formalizing a core values statement for Refuge, mostly based on what I’d observed lived out on our team and in our community.
Years ago, I read Cicero’s words–Esse Quam Videri–and I was challenged to spend more energy on being and less on doing, or better said for this often-hyper doer, to let doing flow from being. Good values drive right behavior.
As many of you know, Bill and I returned from that sabbatical to a heartbreaking shipwreck that required every ounce of our mental, emotional, and even physical energy to repair. By “our” I mean every single person who worked at, supported, and drank coffee at Refuge! I remember pulling out the values statement during this time and laughing at it. As ridiculous as my grandiose words seemed at the time, I knew we—all of us at Refuge—would need to drill down into the core of our very beings to resuscitate the refuge and welcome Refuge was centered upon to survive. Sure, we’d need to raise money, to tighten operations and spending, to create better systems of accountability, but we’d need to do that as whole people.
Like the foggy, obscured outline of a great castle on the horizon, these values have never completely disappeared from our view. But I’m glad values are not measured at a place or moment in time. Less a destination, values are directional in nature, pointing the way and making space for detours and corrections.
The wreckage never defined us, and we never stopped heading in the direction of our values, but I’m grateful that for now we have time to pay closer attention to why we do what we do while we’re doing it.
I share our Core Values Statement with you today, not to virtue signal, but I am proud of so many people, both those who have persevered since 2022 with us, and those who have joined in since then. We are not perfect at all, yet we are all on the same page when it comes to what we value. Also, speaking of being proud, didn’t The Sketch Effect do a great job spelling it out for us!?
I hope you know how much I value you,
Kitti
