Power and force are not the same, though we often confuse them.
Power: the enduring capacity to have your intentions realised in the world
Force: the ability to push, cajole, or threaten others to do as you wish
Power pays attention to nuance, relationships and timing. It draws upon the energy and commitment of others rather than stifling them. It enrols. It understands that much is not possible, and that much of what is possible is not possible now. It takes into account and relies upon the web of relationships of which it is part. It is patient and inclusive. It takes a long, wide view of the world.Force is none of these. It demands. It is not willing to wait. It will use any means at its disposal to get a result - whether that is violence, the authority of hierarchy or position, or deception. It is of the moment alone. It has a narrow frame of reference. And it does what it does with little consideration of the cost.As a result power, as I'm defining it here, feeds itself and the possibility of making an ever greater contribution. And force eats itself over time, undermining the very ground upon which it stands. Power is alive. Force is brittle and fragile.Much of the time when we say that people are powerful, we really mean that they are adept at using force, because true power is rare, as is the mastery and sophistication required to exercise it.And much of the time we keep on using force precisely because we have not yet understood the practical wisdom, subtlety and capacity to relate that power would really require of us.
Photo Credit: stabbins lee via Compfight cc
We can learn a lot by making distinctions between things. When we're able to name differences - for example, between enlivening and deadening, generous and fickle, ethical and manipulative, truthful and untruthful - we make it possible to observe what would otherwise have been invisible to us, and take action on the basis of our observations.Being able to distinguish between 
The dishes need washing again.The clothes, folding.There's dust on the shelves, again.And the garden is getting overgrown.It's easy to complain about all this, to resent the repetitive cleaning-up that we have to do - of our houses, our workplaces, our relationships.But isn't our resentment really just an attempt to shield ourselves from the truth that the world is always falling apart, as are we?This change is the unchangeable nature of things. The second law of thermodynamics guarantees it. And without it there could be no life, because a world without disintegration is a world without movement, a world without living process, a world without birth. We owe our lives to the mess.So can we clean up what needs cleaning up in order to live and thrive, without hating the world for making us do it?Can we see the seeds of our very existence in the dust? Can we know it as an essential property of the world that produced us?And can we find it within ourselves to turn, hands-on, towards the sacred messiness of our lives and find some measure of joy and gratitude there instead of fighting, so hard, to be free of it?
It's probable that our conscious minds, the part we each so readily take to be 'me', is but a tiny sliver of light floating on a darker, more inscrutable background.Deep in this mysterious substrate lie a host of automatic processes - monitoring, regulating, pulsing, analysing, stimulating, suppressing. We don't have to do anything to make our hearts beat faster when we're excited or scared. And breathing, while amenable to control by the conscious mind, just gets on with itself when we're not looking.Alongside the complex but more automatic processes are parts of us - equally hidden from our direct experience - with immense intelligence, capable of making sense, following through on goals and plans, directing us, holding us back, moving us forward. As Timothy D Wilson says in 
If you were parachuted into your life from outside - into your life and body as it is today - you might start to see what's there through new eyes.Perhaps you'd be more immediately grateful for the people around you, for the love, support and attention they bring you that you had to do nothing to earn. And perhaps you'd see the difficulties in your life for what they are - difficulties to be worked with, rather than confirmations of your inadequacy.Enormous possibilities and freedom to act might come from inhabiting this world in which you're both supported and have problems towards which you can bring the fulness of your mind, body and heart.Being parachuted into your life might put an end to self-pity, because you'd come to see how the body you inhabit has been training, practicing all these years building skills, strength and an understanding of the life it's been living and the difficulties it's been facing. Maybe you'd see that you are precisely the one best equipped to deal with the detail and intricacy of this particular life. And perhaps you'd discover a way to look honestly at your situation and the resolve to deal with it, step by patient step.Maybe if you were parachuted into your very own life, you'd understand that everything that has happened to you - so far - is not a shameful failure but the exact preparation you need for living today, tomorrow, and for the years to come.
What struck me most at 
In the Jewish world today it is Yom Hashoah, or the day of remembering the Holocaust.Last night I joined a beautiful ceremony at the community which I call home. At one end of the room, a table filled with the shining light of tens of memorial candles. And in front of it, one by one, the testimonies of survivors and their families, woven together with prayers and with music composed by those who lived and died in the ghettoes and camps.Already in the 1930s, one of the speakers who was a child survivor of Auschwitz reminded us, the seeds of dehumanisation were being planted in public discourse, and in law, in countries across Europe. By the time the genocide and its unspeakable horrors began in earnest there had been years of acclimatisation in language, and in speech, and in shifts in public culture. The Holocaust, as Marcus Zusak reminds us in his extraordinary novel 
Our rituals give us an opportunity to rehearse a different kind of relationship to ourselves and to others than those in which we ordinarily find ourselves.This is exactly what we're doing with the ritual of a formal meeting where we take up assigned positions (chair, participants, etc) and give ourselves new ways of speaking with one another that are distinct from everyday conversation. It's what we're up to with the ritual of work appraisal conversations, which are intended to usher in a new kind of frankness and attentiveness than is usually present. It's in the ritual of the restaurant, where the form and setting gives us, from the moment we enter, a set of understandings, commitments and actions shared with both other diners and with the staff. And it is, of course, present in all religious rituals when performed with due attention, which call us for a moment into a fresh relationship with the universe, or creation, or the rest of the living world.The more we practice a ritual - especially if it's one practiced with others - the more we develop the imagination and skilfulness to live in this new relationship in the midst of our ordinary lives.It is for this reason that among the most powerful ways we have available to shift a culture - in a relationship, in a family, in an organisation - is to imagine and then diligently practice new rituals.And by naming them as such, by declaring that they are ritual, we can help ourselves step in and be less overcome our inevitable resistance, our anxiety, at trying on new, unfamiliar and much needed ways of being together.