Faith and Hard Work in an Era of Upheaval
(part of a series from the “Shipwrecked Project”)There are many definitions of a hard childhood. By any definition Mario had a hard childhood. A childhood shaped by deprivation and struggle. Mario did not have a complete understanding of the reasons his father abandoned his children and his wife. Though his father at one time served […]
7 Stages of Disaster Recovery: How the Light Gets In
“There is a crack in everything. It’s how the light gets in.” -Leonard Cohen About twelve years ago I began collecting stories — stories that emerged from working with people who had survived disasters. There were so many lessons in these stories. After a time, I began to notice that the wisdom I heard and […]
SAVING GRACE
Loving Detachment When I desperately wanted to save my family from the ravages of the disease of alcoholism, I would have gone to any lengths to force solutions, would have said anything, done anything. And I tried in all the ways I knew how, to adjust, to shape shift, to mitigate what was happening in […]
WHAT WE KEPT SILENT ABOUT
I recently spent a few days with four white women friends. A real vacation of the kind I rarely take. No plans except to do whatever we felt like — or nothing. After 24 hours we fell into an accommodating rhythm. The coffee and plans got made every day. We ate. We walked. We talked. […]
RED LINE
I’m more interested in armor than vulnerability. In war, we don’t expose our throat to the enemy. When we are being assaulted, our poetic professions of pain do not cause a perpetrator to pause in their cruelty. We continue to believe all the displays of outrage and empathy, calls to higher ground and virtue are […]
ALL OF US. FOR A REALLY LONG TIME
Well, I woke up to a random story about how BakerRipley is a mean old for profit making a huge amount of money from running NRG. Nope. First of all. We’re going to need everyone. Everyone. I’ve never seen a long term recovery commitment work that wasn’t a 3-legged stool. Government Nonprofit and faith community […]
This is my campaign
There is a Middle Majority in this country that if you poll a 1,000 different ways it comes back the same —— We want universal health care. We don’t want people to go bankrupt because they fractured a leg or got pneumonia. We want our representatives to do what other countries have done and figure […]
The Power of I’m Sorry
An honest desire to help allows us to say “I’m sorry.” I am so sorry for your loss. For the devastation. For oppression. For your wounds that won’t heal and your hurt that has no remedy. If we are one with those we want to help, it becomes natural to express our sorrow for what […]