June 2020

Hi Friends, 

Welcome to week 15 of Advice From A Friend! Anything new with you this week?

Sometimes we want and need something new. We desire an injection of something different. We get super excited about our fantastic opportunity or idea and go heavy on preparation. We do all the shopping or reading; we mentally prepare ourselves and get ready to go. We start our new adventure, hobby, goal, and it’s incredible because we’ve made space for it.  We have it blocked out on our calendar; we have the energy, we have support. We’ve had the baby, we’ve got the promotion, we have the courage and optimism and are doing it (cue Eye Of The Tiger song in the background). 

For a while, it feels perfect. You are in that “all in habit-forming” phase where your commitment is strong, your armored up, and in your ready posture. The lack of sleep is like a badge of courage that screams #MOTHERHOOD, the 60 hour work weeks give you that satisfaction that you are needed and essential, you haven’t smoked a cigarette in 30 days, and you eye that dude on the corner vaping and you look at him with pity because you aren’t doing that anymore. Perhaps it is the re-commitment to your relationship that is amazing, and your current communication couldn’t be better. Life feels just right (for about 5 seconds). 

And then out of nowhere like a sucker punch to the jaw, you hit that phase where life takes a turn. The Eye of The Tiger gets traded in for some elevator music garbage, and you can’t make it stop. Maybe you get busier at work or home, someone gets sick, you’re on day 29 of no sleep, and you can’t remember the last time you washed your hair,  you get a bad review, you put 5 lbs back on, you sneak the cigarette or drink, and it’s all you think about, or someone disappoints you terribly. Life turns, and you realize you are in another phase of “the grind.” The baby is more colicky than cuddly, the job isn’t what you thought it would be and you hate it, you are hungry all the time, there is nothing new, fun, or shiny happening. No amount of acquisition or accomplishment stops the grind from getting to you, so you just welcome it in with open arms like a long lost, dysfunctional friend. It snuggles in beside you for the long haul.

There are so many funny movies depicting the grind of life. These movies seem stupid when you can’t identify or haven’t reached that phase of life yet.  But, the minute you can, it’s like a window to your soul. The movie, “Bad Moms” may feel like a ridiculous parody until you feel overworked and under-appreciated. Then, it suddenly feels like a warm blanket of laughter and comfort.  I was around 40 when I went with a group of friends to the “Bad Moms” movie.   I imagine if I had been ten years younger, or in a different phase, I might have even been offended by the crass jokes and references in the film. But because we were all, smack in the middle of the grind, we laughed so hard we cried. Where we couldn’t see our self, we could see one another. It was one of those “cleansing” laugh experiences that you wish you did more.

When Mike and I  watched the movie “This is 40” with Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, I had a similar experience in a different way.  We both found ourselves shaking our heads “yes” in fits of laughter, and sometimes uncomfortable realization, the entire movie. We depict these things in art, movies, essays, articles, and books because we are trying to put our finger on it.   We want to share the news, so we do not feel alone in our grinding plight. And because we wish someone had told us that we are not the only one grinding and we don’t have to do the grind alone.  

Much of our life is a grind. It is like those statistics that tell you how much of your life you spend sleeping. It’s a strangely weird amount of time that you want back to do something else. Perhaps that is too honest for some to hear. It doesn’t mean we aren’t grateful, or spiritual, or happy. I think we are led to believe that if we are truly living life right, we won’t ever experience that feeling of waking up at 5:30 am and thinking, what if I just don’t get out of bed today?  I remember when my kids were tiny and dreaming about going to a hotel for 24 hours just to sleep. Not even a fancy hotel, like any hotel, I wanted a bed, I wanted not to have to make any decisions for anyone or tend to anyone, and I wanted utter silence.  

It feels like we should get some kind of “grind protection” by things like money, family, the state of our health, work accomplishments, relationship stability, and position in the community. These are smoke screens. They laugh in the face of the grind. Honestly, I’ve yet to meet anyone to this day who doesn’t admit to the anchor pulling weight of the grind eventually. It may come in dramatic forms of a breakdown, a divorce, an exit, or an illness. Maybe we trick our selves and others for a while by super fancy stuff, by incredible contribution, by accolades from others, by keeping the roof over our head and food on the table, or by perfectly behaved children. It is when we scratch one layer deeper that you realize the breaking point is bubbling dangerously near the top. 

We do all the things we are meant to do in life to put up a good fight. We try to cure it by gratefulness, by counting our blessings, by prayer, by taking better care of ourselves, by serving others. But eventually,  that becomes another thing on a long list of “to-do” that only contributes to our big mysterious problem. The stuff that must be done, the boxes that must be checked, the appointments that must be attended, the hard conference call or performance review, the bills that must be paid, the people that must be fed, the business that is failing, the loan that is due,  the carpool that must be completed; they just hang there waiting to remind us that we are literally never out of things to do. Reprieve can be temporary, but it lurches back like a bad penny. 

What do we do in the “grind it out” phases of life? What do we do when we have this overhanging stress that feels like a low level but constant headache that we just can’t shake? Likely, you do not see mine, and I do not see yours because we are so very good at continuing life in the middle of the grind. A person can look so functional and even amazing amid their swim uphill. They can be riding their unicycle, juggling plates, educating someone in how to do’s, looking amazing, and all the while fearful of waiting for the first domino to fall so they can just lay down and rest. 

The irony of these phases in life is that, what we should do, and what we actually do, are not the same. We become masterful at busy, at anything that allows a healthy or unhealthy but easy to hide addicting quality- eating, drinking, exercising, shopping, working, criticizing, demanding, and Hamilton style never being satisfied.  Brene Brown would call this cognitive dissonance. It is the painful process of holding two competing truths together to reduce conflict. I’m a real disaster right now, I need to take care of myself and ask for help, but that’s such a snowflake attitude, so I’m going to press on. In fact, you need me to make a poster for the fundraiser; I’m on it!!! We want to be seen, but we don’t want to do anything to draw attention to our impending feeling of doom. The busier we stay, the more we engage in our outlet, the more protected from discovery we feel. But we don’t feel safe and we don’t feel right. It’s like when you have to hold a secret, it never gets more comfortable to hold, and it never weighs less. 

I think we usually go to one of the two extremes in these phases of life. There is a scene in the movie “This is 40” where Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd (but mostly Leslie Mann) sit their two daughters down at the dinner table and tell them that they are making all kinds of changes to improve their lives. Their life and marriage are spiraling out of control, and the option chosen is to dig in hard on rules, achievement, and perfection.  They decide (well mostly Leslie decides) to cancel the wifi, to eliminate gluten from the kitchen, they encourage their teenage daughter to trade in her electronics to become best friends with her younger sister and do things like “build a fort” instead of being with friends. It’s funny because, well it’s true. Control makes us feel like we can beat the grind. It’s empowering; it’s a perfect channel for our grind energy to move into.

The opposite extreme is the “Bad Moms” scenario when you see Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Katheryn Hahn combat the grind by running through the grocery store pouring boxed cereal in their mouths, kissing the older gentleman stocking the shelves and making mixed drinks in milk jugs. It’s watching a trainwreck, and yet, you can’t look away because, at some level, it looks very appealing. It is uninhibited abandon.  When you watch that happen in real life, it doesn’t look like that.  When you sit at a restaurant and hear a parent come unhinged at their teenager, or when you see a person pull their toddler down to give them a spanking in the middle of a grocery store, maybe you find out your pastor is having an affair, your neighbor is arrested for selling drugs, a teenage pregnancy from a friends daughter, a sexual harassment charge against someone at work.  You wonder if all of those things started with a long unending, numbing phase of “the grind.” I’m not saying it did, but I’m saying, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.  

There is no easy answer to the grind. It affects women and men, people with excellent strength of character, people affluent and poor, people that dedicate their lives to faith and are agnostic, people who have spent their career in study and are undereducated.  It affects physicians, bankers, life coaches, teachers, police officers, security guards, baristas, and stylists. It may look different in those scenarios. None of us are immune to its long-reaching fingers, but there are things we can do. We should try them. 

I think what helps me more than anything in these phases is being seen and being heard. It begins with admitting to some people I trust that I am deep in it. It is asking for help with things I may not usually even need help with, like taking care of dinner, carpooling, or not attending the family dinner or reunion. We know when we are spent whether we are willing to say it out loud, we need to get better at saying it out loud. It is paying attention to what I need, healthy food, good sleep, time outside, and media that doesn’t make me want to poke my eyeballs out. I can’t watch shows that make me contemplate the humanity of people in these phases; I have to watch shows that are light and funny. I can’t spend time with people that make me worry about things out of my control, or question myself and my integrity or tell me to buck up or listen while they tear other people down. I have to protect my space and who I’m letting in.  I have to practice a lot of patience with myself. I change my standards of what will get done, on what timeline, or how it will get done. I have to skip some mandatory meetings (it is so rare that a meeting should actually be considered mandatory ever).  I have to let my kid miss practice so I can sleep in, or ship them off to a friend for a sleepover so I can just be. I have to let go of the fear that this is going to become a place of permanence somehow, like I am suddenly going to become an underachieving slacker. I have to stop telling myself that someone may look at me and think, she’s so needy and incapable, I mean she can’t even attend the mandatory meeting. I have to take a nap, not because I’m sick, but because naps are awesome. I have to take care of myself in a way that feels right and not have to justify it to other people. I have to tell people what I’m doing and what I need.  I have to surround myself by people that I love, and that love me back equally well. 

Stand still, look close, take a nap

Advice From A Friend: Find your way out of the grind

Hello everyone, welcome to podcast number 14 and Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there. Are you staying in? Are you getting out?  Were you ever staying in or getting out? I wonder if this has changed for your family this week? 

I watched a weird amount of T.V. this week. My daughter and I got caught up in “The World of Dance.” I had never seen it before this week, but I love it. I love to watch amazing dancers express themselves through dance; it’s so beautiful to watch. I also watched Miss Juneteenth at the recommendation of a friend (it’s on Amazon prime). This is a story of a former beauty queen and single mother preparing her daughter for a Miss Juneteenth pageant. I have a strange fascination with pageant shows, which I don’t understand, but I think you should give this movie a try. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394158/

Maybe the reason I felt pulled toward T.V. this week is that I needed a distraction. I feel a little like we are in a collective “circling the drain, swimming against the current or sliding DOWN the slippery slope” phase of life. Disagreement in this country is not new or unexpected, but do you feel like we are moving quickly toward the “unhinged” phase? I don’t even mean just nationally, I mean in our backyards too. Fences have become big cement walls, voices have changed tones within families, conversations have become louder or eerily silent, more aggressive or passive-aggressive, battle lines are re-drawn, and the networks and social media have loved every minute of it. Meanwhile, I just want to watch “World of Dance.” 

Is it worth the fight? Do we have the energy to enter another disagreement? Do we have the words to defend, disagree? One of the phrases we try to use at my house when battle lines are drawn is “agree to disagree.” The purpose of the statement is to put the conversation to bed if it is going nowhere, and when opposing parties cannot sway the counterparty. It’s often about trivial things like what food we should eat, which superhero is the G.O.A.T. (it’s wonder woman by the way) or which movie we should watch.  It is a way of preventing us from saying something we regret because of a temporary emotion or state of mind. 

In a perfect scenario, “is it worth the fight” would be related to a checklist of pros and cons, an evaluation of the risk vs. the reward, and thoughtful consideration. But we don’t do that most of the time.  Is it worth the fight is usually related to, our pride, the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you have reached my last nerve, how tired I am, if I just had an argument with my boss, spouse, mother, teenager or if I am hungry. The “yes” or “no” answer becomes the fall guy to all our other stuff. This, my friends, is life. It is the “seeing me on my best vs. worst day” scenario.  

Let’s use an example to see if we can make sense of it.

Say that your neighbor has a new puppy that stays outside a lot. The puppy is adorable, but still a puppy. The puppy barks a lot. At every car, at every squirrel, at every person walking by, that puppy is barking. Establishing that the dog is driving you crazy is not difficult because the dog is DRIVING you crazy. But what goes through your head? Maybe it is, I like this neighbor, we exchange butter and milk and watch houses when one of us is gone. Or, I hardly know this neighbor other than the obligatory wave while leaving for work in the mornings. Perhaps your neighbor’s kids get along with yours or don’t.  Maybe you are thinking, this is my neighbor that doesn’t take care of her yard and has no less than five cars at her house every weekend. Or, I know this neighbor does a ton of volunteering for the community and is always doing something nice for someone. Ultimately, we weigh the pros and cons that we know about the neighbor, fill in the gaps and hope that we get to a solution before we lose our mind and just call the police in a fit of unrelated frustration. Once the police, H.O.A., or other neighbors have been called or rallied, we find ourselves often in that familiar position of GUILT. We have overreacted, so we spend the next 2 hours lamenting to our spouse/friends who make us feel better because barking dogs are, in fact, annoying. We begin to justify our response once we have made it instead of thoughtfully considering our actions beforehand. We made the “is it worth it” decision in a fit of frustration and fatigue, and now we have to find a justification for why we did (introducing…. PRIDE). 

Is it worth the fight sounds like the question? Why do I feel compelled to call the cops on my neighbor whom I don’t know well or don’t like?  Why do I appease my guilt by calling the friend who will agree with me, vs. the friend that may hold me accountable about my choice? I think we can all agree; if I like or feel good about this neighbor, I’m not calling the cops. The answer lies not in my knowledge, but my understanding. 

Whenever I am caught in these traps of, what should I do, I try to go through a process. I ask myself a few questions, get some advice from some neutral friends (the ones that don’t always tell me what I want to hear) and then proceed intentionally. I ask myself if this neighbor were my best friend, my sister, or my co-worker; what would I do?  If I knew this neighbor was dealing with the end stages of dementia with her mother, what would I do?  If I knew this neighbor had just lost his job or got divorced, what would I do?  That usually tells me how I should proceed. 

That sounds all well and good, but here is the problem.  The “let’s give the benefit of the doubt” considerate attitude seems weak. The “I think this is the best you have to give” philosophy sounds soft. It looks like I am avoiding conflict.  It sounds like a trap, doesn’t it? It’s compassionate; it’s vulnerable; it’s acting in a way that requires deep and reflective strength. But what if we are the neighbor with the dog and not the neighbor making the phone call. Then this doesn’t sound quite so bad does it?

Walking over to my neighbor’s house and opening a conversation about the dog sounds pretty easy, until you are the one doing it. Admitting to others that we are annoyed and put off by an animal, the state of your yard, the nickname you might call me at work, the jokes you tell in the office, how fast you drive through our neighborhood, the homogenous skin color or gender at the directors meetings, your lack of dependability in a volunteer role, you get the idea. It isn’t about the neighbor and the dog, it is about us and what happens to us when we are in a situation of discomfort and feel paralyzed with what to do about it. 

What I do want to consider is this, making a decision to communicate and discuss an issue with the party it involves first, will rarely be a decision you regret.  If I, for example, call the police and bring that kind of stress into your life without talking to you first, I have set a tone with you as my neighbor forever. It sets a tone with our children too. It may even require neighbors or friends to pick sides.  The same is true at work, in volunteer roles, and in friendship. I didn’t trust that I could come to you to discuss your adorable barking dog, and in doing so, I missed the value of your perspective. I projected what coming to you first would be, and I told myself a story about it. I convinced myself of something without the context to back it up.

There is a place in our life for discussion. I think we need to find our way back to it rapidly. There are many “kill buttons” of discussion. Just a few that come to mind, making up stories in our head, justifying our actions after the fact, using the information we hear on local news sources or in inflammatory stories that aren’t fact-checked to make ourselves feel better. Chances are high you don’t do one of these things, you do all of them (I know I do). Being responsive vs. reactive is hard work. 

How do we get back to discussion and thoughtful consideration when we dig in hard on mask vs. no mask, B.L.M. vs. all lives matter and open the churches vs. keep them closed. These are hot topics my friends, and it feels like the space for discussion is about as big as my tolerance for shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor (VERY VERY LOW!).

The discussion involves the strength of PERSPECTIVE and the acceptance that our story is not more valuable than other persons. It also acknowledges that our action matters. There is power in our words and actions; we don’t forget how people make us feel. I ultimately get to decide what to do with that and whether I value you enough to care. My investment in your agreement can’t override my investment in your perspective. If I don’t remain open to listening, I’m not going to hear your perspective.  But, when I move through with perspective, it changes inflammatory debates into thoughtful discussions. It invites active listening, which requires some skin in the game. It doesn’t mean I may not conclude that my best option is to, call the cops, go to human resources, break up with you, stop following you on social media, or change our relationship to one of arm’s length, but when I do so, I made that choice knowingly,  NOT because I reacted but because I responded. 

When we make decisions with a lack of empathy, with arrogance, with a desire to be admired and with excessive blaming, we often end up in a place of regret. When we make a permanent decision from a place of temporary emotion, regret is almost always where we find ourselves. Our regret gets temporarily eased by our pride and the stories we tell ourselves.  These qualities make not a strong leader, a good parent or friend, nor an admirable community member. We need to trust ourselves to know that we will recognize the difference between discomfort and danger. The answer to the question, “is it worth it?” is, take the thoughtful time to decide.  Be open to direct communication, and you will likely come to a conclusion that may be a tough decision but one you will be at peace with. 

Pause before proceeding, think clearly, consider all the pieces

Advice from a friend: Regret can be avoided by open dialogue and better understanding of perspective

It’s our weekly check-in friends. This is lucky podcast number 13.  I wonder if there is ever going to be a week where I say, wow not much happening here, things are pretty quiet on the Southern front, let’s talk about our enneagram. We are not at a place to talk about the enneagram… yet. 

On the one hand, you may be longing for a week like that because you are tired of all of it, on the other, feeling like there is much work to be done and now is the time. I don’t see us downshifting anytime soon, but I think we can slow down. I guess we better get comfortable in our active stance and just take breaks when we need and ensure we get rest, stay hydrated, and find a couple of people that have our back. 

When people say life changes in a blink of an eye, sometimes it’s more like 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Watching it was like watching an ultimate “uncle” game without the release after the “uncle” not to mention the fact that it wasn’t a game; it was someone’s life and then the loss of it. 

I saw a picture of a sign this week that said, judging a demonstration by its most violent participants but not judging a police force by its most violent cops is the language of the oppressor. (DOUBLE GULP) I’m going to need a little time with that one. 

A long time ago, a wise woman told me amid my struggle with a long-held belief that I couldn’t seem to make sense anymore if you think at 40 precisely what you thought at 20, you haven’t lived much of a life. I would answer if you believe at 40 differently than you thought at 30, that transition has included some discomfort, swallowing of pride, blood, sweat, and tears. The space we are in is not an easy one no matter who you are, I think we can all agree on that.  

I am categorically impatient in most capacities of my life besides listening and work.  But last week, I laid down on the ground for 8 minutes and 46 seconds with a bunch of other people. I wasn’t impatient; I was just heartbroken.

I’ve been thinking, reading, listening, thinking some more about racism. I have a lot of time to make up for, so it feels pretty intense. It is that same feeling of when I had my first baby. Everything was new, I hadn’t done any of it before, and it was a constant trial by fire- breastfeed or bottle, ear infection or new tooth coming in, solid foods yet or hold off, turn the car seat or wait two weeks, stay in the crib or toddler bed. Each decision was agonizing until I had made it, and the unsolicited advice, overwhelming. When I got to kid number two, I had a game plan; I knew who to ask, I had some wisdom under my belt so that I could act with more confidence and assurance. 

In 2017 when the confederate statue controversy became headline news, Mitch Landrieu, the then-mayor of New Orleans, made a speech.  If you haven’t read that speech, you should, it’s moving and powerful. Before I read the speech, I wasn’t sure how to feel about these statues and their removal. I just had never even thought of it before.  I didn’t understand what the big deal was all about. I mean, it’s a statue, right? I rarely look at statues because I’ve got places to be, you know. Unless I am on vacation or I’m visiting a site specifically to LOOK AT a statue, I don’t look. I’ve never lived in a city where there were statues on my way to work or where I ate lunch or by my kid’s school. No statues equals no thoughts on statues. So I made flippant remarks like, “what is all the fuss about?” Then I read the speech by a mayor I knew nothing about. Then I knew exactly why I was wrong; Mitch Landrieu laid it out for me.  He said, 

“But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront.

New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history; well, what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame—all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/we-cant-walk-away-from-this-truth/527721/

That is some thought-provoking stuff right there, right? That speech was written in 2017, and it changed my mind forever on the debate about confederate statues and why cities should vote for their removal. I read more, I thought more. I learned the language to use, I learned how to say it, and then, I started saying it. And then, it was kind of like my second baby, not so hard because I had some experience and wisdom to rely on. 

I feel like my education is happening all over again, but now there are new and more terms I need to know and understand. Just the process of defining words for myself, white fragility, protest vs. march, defunding, The Justice in Policing act, Anti-racist vs. I’m not racist, microaggressions, Juneteenth. I had to make some room for this, and I’m still doing that.  I’m not saying you have to know how to feel about these words, but it is time that you familiarize yourself with them so you can begin to navigate how you think about them.  It’s like we are having a first baby all over again. Don’t be scared of it, don’t let someone else tell you how you have to do it, don’t not re-think about it because you are sure your 20-year-old self was right. That means you ask questions, listen, read, listen, ask. Making sure I was asking all different people helped to, I asked a minority police officer; I asked a white friend, I asked a black friend, I asked my husband. I talked to someone who loves history; I spoke to my conservative friends and my liberal friends I spoke to everyone. I wanted to hear it from all sides.  

Some of you may know that I went to a Jesuit college. It had an enormous impact on me. Their dedication to education and service was amazing to experience in my late teens and early 20’s. I didn’t know why Jesuits were different from the parish/diocesan priests I had listened to my whole life; I just knew they were. There is a word that is known in the Jesuit tradition as casuistry. The word means specious moral reasoning. If you have listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History (Season 4, episode 5, 6, and 7), this may sound familiar to you as he did three incredible episodes on it (http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/35-the-standard-case).

 The idea is this, when difficult problems or ethical dilemmas arise, instead of approaching them with broad principles, you approach each challenge with details on its own. You begin with the microscope focused in, and then you turn the dial to move it out. It seems backward, doesn’t it? I mean, we can’t start by looking at a problem individually, can we?? Or maybe we do this, at our convenience, all the time.  

We have lived our lives believing that when we use principles and laws, things will be fair. If we use a law or spiritual guidance, then we can solve it, we will achieve the answer or solution. Only we know by now that not all laws are just, that people don’t always act with high moral character and that there are “versions” of history, of studies of everything. 

Recently someone asked me to describe in broad terms the general attributes of white vs. black vs. Asian people. Take a second to think about it. I was “today” years old when I learned,  that typically,  in this country if “we” meet a white person, with a negative attribute, let’s say obesity, we note that this INDIVIDUAL is obese,  we would never translate that negative characteristic to,  all white people are obese. But, if we meet a black person who, for example, was undereducated, we grabbed a big paintbrush and paint ALL black people as undereducated. 

Maybe this doesn’t sound right to you. Perhaps you think, Lori, you’ve got this one all wrong. But just think back for a second to your memories or what you’ve heard from friends, neighbors, patients. I look back through the years of the many stories I have been told about people who have had bad experiences, and they often sound something like this. When I was young, a black kid took my backpack. When I was a teenager, a black kid taunted me a parking lot, and I got suspended for getting in a fight. When I was a teenager, a black kid took my spot on the basketball team even though he could barely make the grades to play. 

It sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it? I mean, did you somehow manage to escape childhood with only black kids mistreating you?  Was there not an experience where a kid that was not black mistreated you, scared you, or caused you pain.  Why is it that we remember MOST when someone of ANOTHER color harms us? The black waitstaff, the black accountant that made us wait, the black electrician that came to fix our backyard lighting and didn’t finish the job, the black physician that was aloof. Or maybe you are avoiding the black person anyway because you don’t want a black accountant, electrician or doctor. Are you still blaming black people today for your childhood terrible experiences? Are you painting with your broad brush instead of remembering all the other lessons too?  Why do we take the time to describe people as the “black person” vs. just the crappy electrician who didn’t know the first thing about rewiring?  There are VERY few instances where we need to use skin color as a qualifier or descriptor. It isn’t like I’m going to know which black kid beat you up in your youth, so why use the word? Why do we do that? I don’t know, but I think we should collectively agree to stop doing that. 

This is how descriptive word association sunk its piranha teeth in and how it continues to survive. I “learned” to associate words like criminal, lazy, stupid, on the system, and disrespectful with black people. I heard people tell negative stories, and then I just started making assumptions. ALL people can be criminal, lazy, stupid, on the system, and disrespectful, but we don’t say that do we. No one ever talks about the white kid that stole your basketball and hid it from you in 3^rd grade. Back to the question above, what words do you think of when you hear the words “white people”……. The only word that comes to my mind right now is LUCKY. 

This is hard to swallow. It may be too much at once. I am fortunate that some of this information has come as a trickle through the years so I could wrap around it. Black Lives Matter was explained to me well a few years ago, so I am now well versed at explaining to others. If it is just too much to discuss right now for you, I recommend either reading the book, How to be an Anti-racist, or Stamped from the Beginning both by Ibram X Kendi or check out the most recent Unlocking Us with Brene Brown and Dr. Kendi. Then just think, and maybe try thinking the Jesuit way.

Casuistry specious moral reasoning is what allows us to look at facts and details and not the broad strokes that we’ve excepted as truth because our parents accepted them, and their parents accepted them. It allows us to focus in. 

Let’s try some examples:

One common belief held by white people is that a large percentage of Black Americans are on 

government assistance programs. What are the factors that lead Americans to need government assistance- poverty and lack of education? Black Americans don’t own the monopoly on either of those two things. If you are white, poor, and undereducated, you likely receive government assistance. If you are Asian or Latino poor and undereducated, you probably receive government assistance. If you are black poor and undereducated, you likely receive government assistance. Yet, we witness experiences like this,  “She’s buying a new purse and wearing designer jeans, and she’s probably on welfare” whispers the just loud enough white woman at the back of the line about the black woman checking out at the department store. Or a more recent example you may have seen on social media, while waiting in line to board an airplane, a white woman asked the black man in front of her to excuse her because first-class and priority boarding had started, he politely said, “I know, I have a first-class ticket” and she said, in a whispered tone just loud enough to her companion, “he must be military.” Yes, Karen, what on earth would a black man be doing with a first-class ticket on your airplane? 

Another common misconception is that black people aren’t as smart as white people. They have lower graduation rates and do poorly at school. What is our broad stroke here? The number of studies that prove how preferentially white children are chosen for gifted classes and black children are not, even with the same test scores, is in the hundreds by now. This doesn’t also account for how black students are treated in the classroom.

Further studies that discuss how this alters one’s trajectory in life is also accurate. These stem back all the way to Brown vs. the Board of Education when black teachers were no longer hired in integrated schools because white people were so mad that schools were integrating. We used our power in punishment. We had fewer black teachers, which meant we had fewer black students chosen for gifted programs. According to a new Vanderbilt University study published in AERA Open, using data on more than 10,000 elementary school students from the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten cohort, the study found that black students are 66 percent less likely and Hispanic students are 47 percent less likely than white students to be assigned to gifted programs. The researchers sought to examine this discrepancy and evaluate both socioeconomic and education factors that may be contributing to it. But in fact, those factors did not influence if students were chosen, even if the students were wealthy, they still weren’t chosen if their teacher was white. Only in the instance when the black student was taught by a black teacher, were students of selected equal caliber. These are the details; these are the truths; these are the facts. And they are not easy to swallow. 

I had never heard the idea that there are only racists and anti-racists in the world until recently. I didn’t understand it at first. You may be noticing a trend here. I don’t believe a lot of things the first time I read or hear them. It was right back to having a new baby again. But now I’ve had some time, I’ve listened and read and thought. If your anti-racist, you must begin by actively admitting the ways you are and have been racist. You have to accept things like; I can’t think of a single generalized negative word that describes white people as a whole, because I don’t hear people use them.  This idea that I, as a white person am not racist, means that I deny that I have been a part of the system that taught me that General Lee was an honorable hero, that I should read black authors during black history month but shouldn’t feel compelled to do so at other times, that black actors have the same opportunity to lead roles as white actors, and that people I listen to and follow on social media should be people that look like me. I mean we #hadablackpresident so that alone shows we aren’t a country steeped in racists, right?  I am a racist; I have acted in racist ways my whole life, and now I want to be an anti-racist. The forms I used are small, the techniques stealthy, but as we talked about a couple weeks ago, I acted in the small papercut ways of racism, not the KKK kind of ways. Things like, I’m going to introduce myself and meet you, smile and wave, and always stop to say hello, but I’m not going to invite you to my house because I assume you won’t want to come or I am not sure what we will talk about. Or maybe I DO invite you over to my house, so I can tell all my white friends that I had a black family over to my house, I do it for proximity “credit” not for connection.

I did it a few weeks ago when a patient asked me why so many black people are getting infected and dying of Corona at higher rates than white people, and I said, I’m not sure why perhaps it is because they have a higher incidence of diabetes. You know what the risk factors are for type 2 diabetes are- obesity, fat distribution, inactivity, family history, and race, including African Americans, Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. The awful truth of it is, if a person came in and said, my Asian grandmother has Corona, I would not say, is it because she has type 2 diabetes? After all, I wouldn’t assume she did? 

This, my friends, is hard. We must use new terms that may be unfamiliar and language we haven’t used before. We must not deny and say we aren’t racist; we must work at being ANTI-RACIST. It means we are aware; it means we will admit what we’ve done, the mistakes we have made, and actively work against them. It means if we are corrected, instead of defensive, we appreciate the chance to know more to be educated in another way. This is also why, when I read or listen to black people’s impatience with white people like me, I do ask for grace. I am trying, think of me as a new mother. I have to learn everything again for the first time, but I will learn, and I will get better. This impatient middle-aged white lady is asking for what she needs, which is more time to think and listen and learn and act. 

Don’t be scared of not knowing, start somewhere, listen hard

Advice From A Friend: Forget the broad strokes and dig into the details

Hello friends,

This is our 12^th week in this journey together. I feel like we have been around the world and back again, and we must begin our second journey. We must gather ourselves so we can show up. Take the time you need to do that, but don’t look away, your small steps are necessary, are needed and required for change. You may feel tired, apathetic, confused, enraged, unsure. I feel very certain what you don’t feel is content, this is not our moment in life to feel content. 

In the midst of my writing this week, I couldn’t get to where I wanted. I was writing in circles trying to figure out exactly how to succinctly say something (an impossible task for me). Instead I found myself trying to say 500 things at once.  I left it but each time I returned, I only had more to say.

 I have called myself to action this week by activities like, searching for black owned businesses (there is a great resource on Facebook called Blackest Blackout), by looking locally on my County’s Black City of Commerce, and by continuing to ask my friends for resources and direction. They have been incredible in their patience and responsiveness. Their response has not been, why now, their response has been, here’s how you can help. 

I also attended my first march this week, I mean of my whole life. Why do I want to say march instead of protest? Maybe because march sounds friendlier doesn’t it. The visual I get when I say march is one of peace and when I say protest is one of violence. It was at 10:00 in the morning, so that feels more “marchy” to me. March feels like a solidarity word, protest feels like a divisional word.  It’s no wonder I call it a march. This, I think, I need to spend some time thinking on.  You can call it whatever you want, but if it is calling you, you should consider showing up. I loved it honestly. It felt positive and communal, like we were reach our hands to each other and saying, I’m committed, I’m in, I’m listening, I’m here. It was an opportunity for young black students to address a large crowd, for a mayor to commit to an increased level of city commitment to minority growth and protection, for a congresswoman to call for more minorities to take part in politics and then, there was the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of utter silence on the ground. Hundreds of people on the ground. For me, it was the embrace of Jesus.

My post for this week is not ready. It’s just not and my speed of trying to make it ready, is making it sound worse and not better. In talking with Mike, we were reminded of a letter he wrote to someone in August of 2017 after the uproar in removing confederate statutes. It is a beautiful letter. It is what I am going to share today. I hope you love it, I hope you will spend some time with it. It’s timeliness despite being written almost 3 years ago is uncanny. It is worthy of your time.

I have a lot to be thankful for when looking back on my service in the U.S. Air Force, none moreso than the people who befriended me during my enlistment, most of whom were minorities. Black, Filipino, a girl from Wisconsin who had a pretty funny accent. That was my crowd.

One of my favorite stories to tell about those days is when I played for Davis-Monthan’s basketball team. I had to tryout and was pretty excited when I found out that I had made it.

The team was made up of enlisted players ranging in ages from late teens to early 40’s. We travelled all over playing basketball against colleges and other military teams in Arizona, California, and Texas. 

I was the only white guy on the team, and the punchline of my story is that my nickname was “Minority” and I had to carry all of the other guys’ bags when we were on the road.

The story usually gets a pretty good laugh and then I light ’em up for 20 if I can get up and down the court or they look at me wondering if I’m ever going to pass the ball even though I haven’t hit a shot(I wouldn’t hold your breath).

I was just a 20-year-old kid from rural Colorado/Nebraska that liked basketball and computers.

And here’s the thing…they really did call me Minority and make me carry the bags. Once. It was a joke. We all laughed about it, including me. 

And I could laugh about it because it wasn’t really racism. It was just pretend.

Over those 4 years I got a front row seat for the genuine racism with which my then roommate, Tee Augurson, lives every day. The genuine racism that my teammates and co-workers were subjected to in a restaurant on the interstate or some jerk of an officer or non-commissioned officer.

Even with that up-close and personal experience, I never knew what it was like to be the target of hatred that was truly fearsome. Not like my friends knew.

This hatred exists in the periphery. It fills you with a sense of foreboding that you can’t shake because you can’t identify the source, until it lashes out at you. You don’t know when it will happen and by whom, only that it will.

My description above is what I believe racism might be like for Tee, my friends, and their families, although I will more than likely never know for certain.

I didn’t acquire my description for racism in the Air Force.

I found it on my pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

One only need openly wear a cross on the streets of Jerusalem and you will find that there exists a population among the conservative Jewish Israelis that find the existence of Christians on their sacred ground, insulting and repugnant.

It infuriates them, and they want you to know. 

Rocks thrown at the windows of our bus. Beratement while walking from the Gardens of Gethsemane. Historical markers with the Star of David, Star and Crescent, and the Cross identifying religious sites of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity have been defaced, but only the Cross is scratched out.

In a region of constant war between Muslims and Jews for thousands of years, the only visible sign of hatred is for Christianity on behalf of a small faction of Jews.

The defaced signs bothered me. More than the yelling and maybe as much as the thrown rocks. 

It was, perhaps, a symbol of that racism manifested in physical form. A municipal statue, if you will, intended to mark a site of my God’s grace, transformed into a stark reminder that someone I’ve never met hates the very idea of me and wishes any like me harm. I wished the Israeli government would remove those signs.

Perspective. It sometimes seems impossible to obtain.

It certainly isn’t Right versus Left.

Not once have I ever been among a group of Republicans or Democrats and felt that hatred in the periphery.

The perspective is black and white. It is Jew and Nazi. It is female and sexual assaulter. It is sexual assault victim and the deck stacked against her. It is the American Muslim and American non-Muslim. It is gay and straight. It is the illegal alien and the legal citizen.

It is the less powerful and the powerful.

And, it is the minorities of the United States and our president.

But it doesn’t always have to be. I’m starting with me.

Mike

Start anywhere you are, answer the call, lets end racism, BLACK LIVES MATTER

Advice From A Friend: Take up space and commit to change

Hello Dear friends,

It’s week 11. What I thought I was going to write about this week was about celebrations and graduations. I have two sons in high school, so we know a lot of kids graduating. This is such an exciting time for families.  I love seeing kids I have watched grow up, have talked through periods of great difficulty and triumph with their parents and watch the pride in who their child has become and the excitement for their next steps. 

But I am not going to talk about that this week. If I do so, it will sound pretty hollow because something bigger is happening here, and our space is getting uncomfortable. What I am feeling is…… disappointment, shame, and sadness, and I’m not sure what to do with those feelings. I’m guessing you are feeling some strong feelings too. 

The right thing right now is just to dig in… Have you watched the videos of the police brutality and murder of George Floyd, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and the overtly racist engagement between Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper in Central Park? If you haven’t, consider watching. They are TOUGH to watch. Maybe you feel like you can’t take it, I’ve been in that space before. Perhaps you are worried about how it will make you feel or that it will keep you up at night (it will). Maybe you want it all just to go away because your response is so conflicted, and you’ve got a lot on your plate already; I get that too. I watched them once and felt paralyzed with how to respond. I watched them again and imagined that George was my nephew, and Ahmaud was my son, and Christian Cooper was my husband. That changed my response entirely.

My brain and my emotions are all over the place right now. I feel disgusted, sick to my stomach, embarrassed, humiliated, and defensive? It’s hard to write when I don’t have it all straight in my head. But it seems pretty silly to wait to talk about this when it looks a little cleaner. After the riots are over, once the tweets have been all cleaned up, I will forget what this, today, feels like. You know how if you are going through something really hard, but you don’t want to talk about it until you are at the finish line. You want to talk about it in the past tense when it is over, and you’ve wrapped it up, learned your lessons, and put the bow on. It’s after you know the outcome, you’ve received the diagnostic report, you’ve accepted the failure and moved on. This is not that; we are in the midst of the noisy center. It’s the perfectly messiest time and most necessary time to talk about it. We don’t have to solve it; we just have to start the conversation.

We are all on a spectrum with where we are right now.  I want to be sensitive to that because how I got here is not by someone shaming me into it. On the other hand, it is crucial to keep the focus on what ignited where we are. We can all agree that George Floyd’s death was unnecessary, and NEVER should have happened. It was an act of overt racism. We can also agree that this event was not a rare occurrence. If you’ve been on social media, you’ve seen the list of names. Let the messy begin. 

I like to start, as you know, with what people have taught me over the years about racism. When I feel charged after something in the world happens, even at the level of my children, I like to imagine what I would do if this person, child, co-worker, victim, or authority figure were my husband, mother, child, or best friend. This usually helps me to bring the event into my fold and resist the temptation to keep it at arm’s length. I don’t want to be on top of the mountain directing and judging what is below me. I want to be right next to it so I can see it and feel it and sit with it. Arm’s length is tossing away the oar and expecting the truth to come to us; I need the paddle so I can start rowing. 

My first thought was a conversation I had many years ago with a white woman who is married to a black man. This may have been the first time I realized, what I thought about racism, what I had been taught about racism, wasn’t the way people who lived with racism, felt. This family lives in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood.  We were casually discussing life and its annoying difficulties in raising children and being married. She started describing some of the reasons why she was so busy balancing carpooling with life. She said, “My husband hates to do kid carpool. He will not do porch pick-ups or sit in his car in front of a house to wait for one of our kids to come out from a playdate. He drives super SLOW and will never go over the speed limit, even if we are late.” I am embarrassed to say, when she said this, I didn’t get it. I thought her husband might be slightly overreacting and behaving a little paranoid. I certainly commiserated that she is in a tight spot if she has to drop and pick up from all the playdates and do all the front door pick-ups, but I mean, first world problem, right? Luckily, I listened harder and learned more. The reason this was difficult for me to understand, is that my husband speeds pretty regularly with absolutely NO, and I mean NO fear of the police. Do you know why my husband won’t sit in a car in front of a house to pick up my kids, because he is impatient, and my kids are slow.  It takes them 10 minutes to find their shoes, pet the dog one more time and say twelve good-byes. It is not out of fear of someone calling the cops because a stranger is in a car sitting in front of a house.

Furthermore, it’s never happened. He’s never been mistreated by a police officer, nor have I. It doesn’t mean we haven’t been ticketed (we both like to get where we are going), but we have never been rudely accused or mistreated.  When I heard this, I almost felt like I was in an alternate universe. Why had this not occurred to me before? 

Another African American woman I was seeing as a patient was telling me how excited her son was to turn 16. They live in a larger and more diverse city. At the time, I did not have a 16-year-old, and I said something like, “Oh my gosh, your life is about to get so much easier, he can drive himself, imagine all the time you will save!” She looked at me with that, “You don’t get it” kind of look. She was right; I didn’t get it. She was gentle and kind in telling me all the things she had to repeat to ensure he was ready to drive alone. Don’t EVER break the speed limit. Don’t EVER run through a yellow light. If you do get pulled over, get to the side of the road immediately and DON’T move. Don’t reach into your glove box, and don’t turn your light on. Put both your hands on your steering wheel and say, “Yes Sir or Yes Ma’am.” You do EXACTLY what the police officer says, and you stay calm and don’t raise your voice or ask any questions. As if that wasn’t enough, what got me was when she said, “You know Lori, the worst part is, it isn’t like this is going to get better when he is 17 or 21 or 25. I am going to worry about him getting pulled over by the wrong cop or being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the rest of his life and mine. His black skin doesn’t give him the privilege of the benefit of the doubt.” GULP…. That was even tougher to hear. 

The third is a collection of stories from a doctor friend of ours. He’s been asked by a stranger while in Starbucks buying coffee if he has some dope to sell. He’s been out washing his expensive cars and assumed to be the hired help instead of the owner of the cars. He’s been supposed by most that his financial success must be due to something illegal. The stories are almost daily and go on and on. I have to tell you, no one has ever asked my husband or me in a coffee shop if we have some drugs to sell, they ask me to do things like borrow a pen or watch their laptop.  No one has ever assumed that I don’t own anything that I live in, have, or am driving. I listened harder.

The craziest part of hearing these stories is that the storytellers don’t have a tone of indignation. They aren’t telling me to make me feel guilty or responsible; they are telling me because it is a regular part of their daily life.  I think they withhold the harrowing stories because perhaps they feel they had no more space to complain to their white PT or friend. They give me the PG version for fear I may get too uncomfortable if I hear the overt racism they had been on the other end of. 

You and I are not going to hold down George Floyd until he dies. We aren’t going to chase down a supposed black burglar and gun him down in the middle of the street. We aren’t burning a cross in our front yard or waving a confederate flag. We aren’t yelling racial slurs at our neighbor’s kid or tell a racist joke. We probably aren’t even denying someone a job or a scholarship due to their skin color. The absence of these actions is not evidence of our innocence. We are guilty of racism in a much more deceptive way.

We are part of the 10,000 papercuts of racism, which kills people too; it’s just slower and less noticeable. We do it in ways like this, looking the other way when our white co-worker makes a fried chicken joke to our black colleague in the middle of the meeting. We do it when we don’t make eye contact with the black checker at the grocery store but have a full conversation with the white one. We do it when we ask our child if their black friend Eric is in tutoring because we have assumed that he is. We do it when we see young black people working out in a gym, or swimming in a community pool and ask them if they have the credentials to be there when we would never ask a white kid that. We do it when we have new white neighbors, and we invite them over to our home or church, but we don’t think to invite our new black neighbors. We do it when we don’t welcome a new black student to the class or to their parents to sit by us at a football game in the same way we would a new white student. We do it when we don’t complain about the super loud Metallica music that neighbor’s kids are playing, but we DO complain about the super loud rap music. We do it when we poke fun of kid’s names because they don’t sound like a name we are familiar with. We do it when we buy diapers and food for a white member of our church that has hit hard times, but we won’t buy them for our black members. We do it when we don’t condemn police brutality and a judicial system that treats you better if you are guilty and white than it does if you are innocent and black. We do it when we don’t acknowledge that since our country began, the primary people in power have been white and male, and they still are. We do it every time we use the phrase “race card.”  We do it when we justify racist actions by saying phrases like, this is a result of a few bad apples and end the conversation. We do it in 10,000 subtle ways without even thinking about it, and we’ve got to change what we are doing.

I have no idea what to do about any of this, literally no idea. So, I started with a Facebook post. 

I used a quote from James Baldwin after reading a lot of social media responses to the horrifying recent events.  Do you know who James Baldwin is because I had never heard of him? He is an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. He wrote, among many other things, If Beale Street Could Talk, which by the way, is an academy award-winning film. He also wrote a collection of essays called “Nobody knows my Name: More Notes of a Native Son.” Do you see the irony….. I didn’t know his name. I’ll give you a hint as to WHY, and it isn’t because I’m terrible with remembering names. It is because he’s black and I’m white. Ten thousand cuts, remember. 

Back to the point, James Baldwin said, “Not everything that’s faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” My trust in the process begins here. I am a part of a system that has rigged the rules in my favor because I am white. I didn’t start the system, but that doesn’t release me from the implications or give me a pass on accepting this as the best we can do. 

As you know, by now, I like practical applications. I do plenty of talking and not enough doing. So, I started by listening to some different podcasts. I googled and asked some friends what the best podcasts are to learn about racism. So far, my favorite is Scene On Radio ( there is one in season 2 episode 13 called White Affirmative Action, and it is fantastic). Do you have some others that you love, please send me your suggestions? I also went onto twitter and followed a thread that gave me lots of ideas of black authors, professors, actors, thought leaders, and scientists to follow. I love a new perspective. 

At a friend’s suggestion, I logged onto https://eji.org (Equal Justice Initiative). This is a fantastic website. They do incredible work in Public Education, Racial Justice, and Criminal Justice reform.

I took another friend’s suggestion and downloaded a book called “The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. 

 If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie (I would do both) “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, it’s also amazing. https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X

One more reading suggestion, if you have never read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr, it’s one of the most significant essays ever written, ever. It’s honest, poetic, and full of raw emotion.

https://www.al.com/spotnews/2013/04/read_martin_luther_kings_full.html

Beyond reading and listening, it also means I need to make some phone calls. I can call my city council members, school board, the mayor, my superintendent, and ask what they are doing to prevent racism in our cities and schools and what I can do to help. 

I can also donate to specific organizations that are invested in helping black people rise. Organizations like the Minnesota Freedom fund, Official George Floyd Memorial fund, Reclaim the Block fund, and Black Visions Collective are just a few. 

I can reach out to my black friends, and I can listen and listen hard. I can deny the desire to speak first and look for my credit and applause. I can re-posture when I feel defensive and respect their origin story and lens and ask, “What does help look like, or how can I do better?” I can stop myself from judgmentally questioning them with thoughts like, “I would never respond that angry way because it gets you nowhere, just give it to God or why do you let that bother you.” The truth is, after all, I don’t know how I would respond if my 17-year-old son were black and not white. So I ask myself, W.A.I.T (why am I talking!!).

Ethnocentrism, which is the entitlement belief that my ingroup is inherently supreme, unique, and exceptional. This is a real thing as much as I hate to admit it.  If I decide my FEAR and DISCOMFORT with words like racism, white privilege, and black lives matter is bigger than the TRUTH in those statements, then I am assigning rank to myself and my ethnocentrism. The truth isn’t ranked, and it doesn’t change because it’s hard to stomach, the truth is just the truth. 

What I cannot do, is practice eerie silence and, once again, allow this “episode” to pass. This isn’t a symptom, this my friends, is a disease. 

I have some work to do (I find myself saying that A LOT), but this work is worthy and necessary and timely. It means I must move toward active struggle and away from passive compliance. What I want is for my black friends and neighbors to know they can correct me, give me suggestions, ask for my help, and rely on me to listen and support. This feels like an excellent place to start.

 I’d like to end with this; there is a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles named Father Greg Boyle. He started an organization that became Homeboy industries. It is a company devoted to helping young men and women transition from gangs through education, job training, and employment. He has done fantastic work and is a genuinely gifted priest and writer. His books are honest, heartfelt, hard to read, and life-changing. https://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Boyle/e/B002LUR5B4%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

I watched a lecture of him once, and he said, “We must have a high degree of reverence for the complexity of the problem in order to do something effective.”

Where I am starting is that I must have a high degree of reverence for the complexity of where America is today. There is no magical sweeping solution where we all hold hands and sing a song or pray this into a solution. But we can do more and better. It takes all of it that we have talked about for ten weeks- being brave, both/and, asking differently, what’s in our well, saying I don’t know, freeing ourselves, W.A. I.T-ing, responding not reacting, being curious and changing our expectations to embrace our vulnerability. Our weapons are solidarity, love, truth, compassion, community spirit, and hope that we can do better. 

Roll up your sleeves, Look differently, Listen hard, 

Advice From A Friend: Embrace the messy, pick up your oar and row