Memoir

September 1, 2022

Big Topics at Midnight: Ten Years Later

Tuesday, August 30, was the 10^th Anniversary of the coming out party for Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself.

I just finished reading the book cover to cover for the first time since it was published.

Of course, for me, this isn’t just a book. It is my own dance of words exploring my journey to come to know myself beyond the often unconscious but nagging dissonance between my heart and spirit and the injustice I experienced within and around me.

Ten years ago I wrote that I knew something different—and far more beautiful—was possible, for me and for the world. I wanted to live a life of justice and fairness for myself and I felt the responsibility to participate in building a loving community and world for my two children, Paul and Laura, their generation, and for generations to come.

I come from a long line of stubborn and tenacious Tipps family women,

and Big Topics at Midnight shares stories of my unstoppable searching. Bold as my focus was, however, it was and was not a journey that could be walked alone. Big Topics at Midnight also includes a diverse collection of fellow pilgrims—including many of you—and organizations that knew how to hold the vision we shared in full alignment with personal/organizational actions and structures.

In the book, I wrote about my life as a myth: The Eight-Eyed Steam Girl in her Little Red Boat. In that myth, I played with two images that are core to my being. I am a many sighted woman: “seeing” with my sharp mind, intuition, noticing interconnections between different aspects of life, my budding awareness of my emotions, my body. I am also a woman who is prone to intuitive bursts of insight that drop into my body like a boulder, mixing my inner fire and water in a way that creates a steamy blast.

Naming that aspect of myself was helpful. But naming itself is rarely enough for the transformation and alignment I was then and am still seeking.

Today, over a decade later, I am coming to both a deeper respect and honoring of the many-eyed and steam-powered aspects of myself, AND I am excited to be in the learning of how to direct my steam energy in a way that allows me to slow down enough to bring all of myself to participate in the way of justice, fairness and love.

For most of my life, when an intuitive knowing dropped inside me, the steamy blast led the way. I felt an urgency to “do something immediately” and was VERY frustrated when others couldn’t see what seemed so obvious to me. I pushed. I fought. I cursed. I always stayed in the conversation, but it wasn’t an easy staying for me or for anyone around me.

In the last year, I’ve realized several things. When I lead from my steam-powered response, I have no access to the variety of other things I know about the issue/situation: my quieter knowledge and experience. With only the steam power, I also am at the mercy of the urgent burst and, from that place, I have a hard time being in partnership with others as I can’t easily listen to their wisdom about the issue. In addition, I’ve never taken time to just appreciate this unique way that clarity drops into my body and knowing.

This past year the eight-eyed steam girl has used her little red boat to carry me to a new shore. I no longer need to let her take over in her explosive, exhausting way. While I want the powerful energy the steam provides and I need to share the clarity it brings, in order for the resulting action to be the movement that I really want, that energy needs to be contained and focused. That is the skill I am now learning on this new shore.

As I refine the process, I first want to stop and take time to honor whatever sight and clarity I am given. These are gifts, and I want to receive them as such.

Next, as I contain and direct the steam, I can take time to see what else I know about the topic at hand. I’ve been on this Big Topic journey for a long time, and I’ve learned some things. I want to give the quieter insights time to emerge and join in with the new steamy clarity that was given.

My urgency to act immediately, with steam blowing out in all directions, comes from a false belief that something horrible will happen if I don’t share what I see immediately—in other words, believing the lie that “it is all up to me.” In truth, since I believe that these intuitive knowings are part of my Spirit sight, I have come to trust that I will also be guided as to the best way to bring the sight I’ve been given to a conversation with my partners.

I am I ready to share my sight and listen consciously to others when I have added my fuller clarity and knowing to the contained and directed steamy sight. No more leading with my urgent fighting, pushing, cursing frustration. I am still responsible to share what is mine to share, but HOW I’m in it can make all the difference.

Now, from this shore, I can both honor the reality that I am an eight-eyed steam girl and act in ways that are in alignment with my heart and spirit and aren’t so exhausting to myself and others.

Near the end of Big Topics at Midnight, I wrote:

Godspeed, my friends, fellow pilgrims on the path and dancers outside the lines. Grandma Ann and I will twirl together forever, weaving beauty across the rips in the fabric of life in the best ways we know how. In this dance, those willing to be cracked wide open will find that our differences add to the grace of our movement. Will you join us, … hoping beyond hope that our dance across the generations would serve those yet to come?

Reading about Big Topics under the full moon

The journey of awakening and alignment of heart, Spirit and actions may not be the easiest one you’ve ever walked, but you won’t find any better way to joy and delight as you continue in a grace-filled dance, feet on our shared earthly home, heart filled with Spirit and Love, in partnership with our global family.

If you’d like a copy of Big Topics at Midnight, just let me know and I’ll send you one (or more if you’d also like to share a copy with a friend). It is a gift to you. Email me (nancy@nancymthurston.com) your address and I’ll mail you the book. If you’d like to send a gift in response, make a donation to Be Present® or Wisdom & Money, the two organizations that fully support me on this journey of transformation.

November 1, 2020

A Letter … and My Prayer

Dear Grace*,

It will be years before you walk on this planet Earth, but the same stardust and DNA swirls through both our bodies. You were the last thing on my mind when we began this wild year of 2020. But last Spring I remembered one special day, almost a decade ago, when you introduced yourself as my granddaughter from seven generations in the future. As if your life depended on it, you encouraged me to keep diving deeper into my work, into my loving partnership with all in this nation and on this beautiful planet.

It’s hard to know how to speak in ways you will understand a few hundred years from now. Just as when I read Biblical texts written two thousand years ago, when you read my words, things will be different. What I can say for certain is that I wrote from the truest place I knew and hope that my words will translate across time and space.

This journey has been full of Graces and grace. One Grace was a slave of our ancestors, Jacob and Margaret Tipps, seven generations before me. I don’t know the details of her life, but I discovered that living on a small plantation in the eighteen hundreds, she likely experienced brutality. Yet this Grace reached out to me and showed me that life is much bigger than I’d ever imagined. She refused to let me drift off to sleep again. You, young Grace, were right by her side.

My generation carries the responsibility to live our lives in such a way that yours is left with possibilities rather than the remains of today’s physical and spiritual toxins. I don’t want you to be born onto a planet split apart between those who have access to money and power and those who don’t. I don’t want you to struggle against a patriarchal undertow to find your own voice. I don’t want you to have to live among people who believe that the color of one’s skin is an indicator of value.

Instead, I long for you to be the person you were created to be, living in communities with others embodying their own fullness. In addition, I long for this for myself, my grandchildren, my grown children as I long for this for all of us who share this spinning planet today.

My book … this blog … my life’s work is my gift to further that end. I join many, many others around the globe now as well as our ancestors, working together to manifest that reality now.

Walking on this Earth between Grace and Grace, I am Nancy Ann Mathys Thurston. In Hebrew, both Nancy and Ann mean grace. In a world filled with grace and Grace, anything is possible. I pray that my story and your story will be intertwined with the stories of many, forming a web strong enough to beautifully support generations born and yet unborn.

Thanks be to God.

And blessings to each one of you readers on this first day of November 2020.

*This was originally the Epilogue (slightly edited) from Big Topics at Midnight

With All Saints greetings from my parents, Sue and Ed Mathys (snuggled next to me) and their great-grandchildren, Daniel and Amelia

June 11, 2019December 18, 2019

Blazing New Trails: Why Blaze Together?

11 Juneau, Alaska May 2015 This is my fourth blog about Blazing New Trails, specifically about a 15-year partnership between Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money and our most recent step deeper into our work together – the joint board meeting last February. At least, like the other three, it was supposed to be about the joint board meeting. Instead, all four are about the journey to get us ready for the meeting. I’ve been trying to take the direct path in to write about our week together, but, try as I might, this trail isn’t a direct one.

Trails of transformation, trails of effective and sustainable partnership, trails powerful enough to support a shift in consciousness are rarely straight. Or fast. And they aren’t simple to tame into mere words.

Organizations come together all the time, partnering for different reasons. Why is it path 5 that this particular partnership is cutting a uniquely bold trail, passing through my heart and the heart of our world? What does each organization bring that is multiplied and strengthened when we work together? While still continuing the work of each individual organization, what new is emerging in the this growing partnership?

Both Wisdom & Money and Be Present, Inc. are seeking root level change. Not charity, not even policy change, but a change of consciousness beginning with the individual and continuing through the community, organizations and systems. Both organizations are committed to living the same justice and transformation—personally and within the organizational structure—that we seek in our programs. Both are committed to slowing down and taking the time to be curious when something emerges that feels out of alignment, and to compassionately and consistently support each other in our movement.

This is a demanding process. It requires gargantuan patience and an ability to see the true Spirit of each other and ourselves no matter what behavior has emerged in the moment. All aspects of our work seek movement toward freedom, justice, equality and spiritual transformation.

That commitment to continual alignment of the interior and the external, the personal and the global, the organizational and the programmatic is the only way I know that we can move together toward manifesting the world we long for. This is no pipe dream about what might happen far off in the future. It is already happening in both organizations and within friends and partners in this work. However, it doesn’t stop there. As both individuals and these two organizations continue to work in widening circles—the families, communities, organizations and systems where we live our lives—the change ripples out farther than I can imagine.

This sort of work that requires both waking up to and seeing where behaviors too Banyon tree and bone with book often deemed normal and right in our culture but are actually disrespectful and unjust is very hard to do alone. That is why I stepped into Wisdom & Money and Be Present, Inc. seventeen years ago. And why I stayed. Since my awakening in my late20s (the topic of my book Big Topics at Midnight) I’ve been searching for partners committed to walking this path. It hasn’t been an easy search, but I knew I’d found strong partners in these two organizations.

Organizations that also recognized each other as partners.

Slowly over the last 15 years, these two organizations have taken one step after another to support each other, learn from each other and, last February, to join together for the Trailblazing Joint Board of Directors meeting.

It has taken me months longer than I expected to find words for the power of the growing partnership of Be Present and Wisdom & Money. My next blog in this series will look at the Trailblazing Board meeting and our current glimpse of the future of our work together.

August 27, 2018December 18, 2019

The Angst of Inner Spaciousness

It’s been quite a summer. A wedding. A Be Present Black & Female National Conference where I was part of a diverse group of facilitators. A gathering with two organizations looking at “Money and the New Community.” And a Wisdom & Money Board meeting. All as my little grandson Daniel keeps growing cuter by the moment.

All year I’ve been releasing some of my very old, entrenched habits that are seriously unhelpful. That work plus the alchemical mix of these rich events of the summer has stretched me. It feels as if the boundaries of my life have expanded, whispering of possibility.

More openness in my life is gift, but right now it feels strange.

Sometimes this new inner territory seems blank. Its emptiness feels like something is seriously wrong and, thus, is very disconcerting. I know inner spaciousness is part of the transformative journey, but it’s tempting to try to fill up the space so I can feel “normal” again.

In addition, some of my old feelings and habits have crept back in, uninvited, and are creating quite a ruckus. They turn cartwheels. They call out in their tricky sounds-good voices trying to entice me to let them stay. I hear them. I see them. While I can’t ignore them, I’m not letting them take root in the soil of my expanded inner space.

Neither of these experiences—the unsettling emptiness nor the clanging old voices—are passing on through quickly. Quietly.

I’m impatient. I want to savor and write about all that is emerging—all I’ve learned—what I see from this vantage pint. But new words fail me, and I’m temporarily left with echoing silence or jangling old words.

I’m learning that this is the way transformation works—just like being courageous means I feel my roaring fears and move forward anyway.

At a time when I want to be writing regular blogs again, diving deeper than I’ve done before, I’m slowing down to adjust to the new inner spaciousness and freedom.

It is the fastest way I know to move forward.

I couldn’t resist including:

May 28, 2017December 18, 2019

Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing lasts forever;

No one lives forever.

Keep that in mind, and love.*

These words have danced through my head all spring. For the last few months, almost a dozen friends and family have experienced a traumatic, life changing event. Sometimes resulting in death, but more often in an event that will change them forever. Even after “normal” life returns.

Friday afternoon, just as I was finishing a support group call with friends, police car after police car streaked down the street in front of my home. It was an hour before I knew what had happened. During what most expected to be a routine light rail trip home before a holiday week end, a white man began yelling hateful things to two Muslim young women. Three men stepped in to try to deescalate the situation. The ranting man pulled out a knife and killed two of the men and injured the third.

A Memorial Day holiday that, for two families, began with death, for one family, began with a hospitalization, and for all the rest unfortunate enough to have been in that light rail car, began with witnessing hatred and death and compassion.

I too will die one day. Maybe today. All that I think of as essential parts of my life will one day pass, maybe in the blink of an eye.

Tagore reminds me that I must keep that reality in mind, and still love.

Love. Open my heart again and again. Knowing that nothing last forever.

This is at the heart of my spiritual path, the container that holds my whole life and death (both the daily little deaths and, one day, my physical death). I have many freedoms and choice in my life, but I am not charge of everything life brings to me. Life and death have their own rhythm and power, in my life and in all of nature. Birth, life, death and rebirth are all part of the natural cycle of life.

How we live matters. How we die matters. How we savor life and then, when it is time, release life, matters. For me, life invites me to live fully—savoring the gifts that surround me—and to die open-heartedly—surrendering to the big divine love in every moment.

The Rule of St. Benedict admonishes, “Keep death before you daily.” Know that only by fully accepting death can we fully accept life.

In our death-phobic culture, remembering our death and honoring the transitory nature of life seems crazy. In reality, it is the only way.

*Illustration by Khara Scott-Bey. Poem by Rabindranath Tagore

This blog is dedicated to the three who bravely stepped forward Friday in an attempt to bring peace to a violent moment— Micah David-Cole Fletcher, Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche (The latter two died in the process). And to all my friends, and yours, whose life in these past few months has taken them to places they never would have chosen. And to my mother, Mary Sue Tipps Mathys, on this eve of what would have been her 91 birthday. Thirty years after her death, I still feel Mom’s presence and guidance.

January 16, 2017December 18, 2019

Steam Powered New Year’s Resolutions

Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions. However, this January demands more creativity than losing weight or exercising more. In a playful yet pointedly serious way, I penned my resolutions for 2017:

· Find a balance between honoring my own personality and being respectful. The deep longing of my heart often crashes onto the scene with the power of a steam locomotive. I wasn’t born with a gentle, slowly emerging gift. I don’t always show up in a way that this self-respecting, well-mannered girl was taught to believe was acceptable. Nevertheless, it is who I am…and I must find a way to be respectful even when I am all steamed up.

• Seek a diversity of ways to access knowledge. Over the years I’ve sharpened my thinking in the service of my steam-girl gift. Figuring things out, problem-solving, seeing down the road to what needs to happen next have been skills that are indeed of great benefit. But stuck there, the best I can do is guide the steam locomotive where I think it ought to go – knocking down things I believe are obstacles. My brilliant thinking and my not so brilliant thinking are both leading me astray more often than they used to. And yet, I can’t leave my mind at the station. Instead, thinking must keep company with intuition, listening to my body and prayer.

• Keep my feet planted in hope no matter what is happening around me. I hate roller coasters, and steam locomotives barreling down the hill run a close second. I don’t like physical speed, period. Given that I am by nature afraid of potential disasters down the road (or tracks) and I’m not sure that I can trust the locomotive mechanics or those who care for the rails, I’ve had to find courage from the bigger picture and things unseen. Life is unpredictable and uncontrollable, so I want to strengthen my ability to hold out for shimmering possibilities. I want to believe transformation is possible in every moment.

• Do the work that is mine to do, and let the rest go. Like the locomotive, my innards hold both the power of water—connection to the emotions, washing things clean, the power to erode rock slowly drip-by-drip—and the power of fire—sacred fire, blasting away all that brings us no joy, thus allowing real treasures to emerge and illuminate dark, confusing corners. I seek unity right in the middle of division and darkness. Uninterested in baby steps of minor tweaking of our current society’s injustice, I want to step right into the middle of collaboration and partnership: not merely flipping oppressed and oppressor roles, but stepping outside of that dichotomy altogether—now—through writing, conversations and collaborating with big topic organizations like Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money.

It is time for each of us to step into the fullness of our leadership—in all of our quirks and diversity—and to work together to build strong and effective partnerships.

While it may sound tempting to return to a “simple” resolution like losing 20 pounds, more is demanded of me this year. And of you. Resolutions come in all shapes and sizes—what do yours look like?

May 8, 2015December 18, 2019

Cosmic Cowgirl

It’s a cowgirl’s dream—mine anyway. Sitting high in the saddle, one hand holding on for dear life while the other is waving about in glee.

This is no ordinary horse I am riding. It is the planet Uranus. The far-out planet in our galaxy with a name that sounds like potty-humor but energetically represents cosmic revolutionary energy.

No wonder I have to work so hard to stay in the saddle.

The stars and meteors might scare some cowgirls, but I feel like I’m in paradise. Speeding through the Milky Way in the midst of a universe wider than my imagination, I can see the whole shebang: The shimmering possibilities. The horrifying consequences of human greed for the last few hundred years. I can see it all written on the surface of that fragile island, our earthly home.

I ride through outer space and inner space at the same moment. Bucking over bright Sirius heading toward Orion, then walking down Halsey Street admiring the outrageous pink and purple of the blooming azaleas.

It’s not easy to live galloping through the universe and walking on earth in the same instant—caring passionately about cosmic revolution and personal transformation with each step.

The thought of sitting in a “real” saddle makes my hips ache. Roller coasters or speeding cars terrify me. While I may be a scaredy-cat who likes physical comfort, this time I ride through the cosmos with ease.

How about you?

Are you a wilder explorer than folks around you would ever imagine? Do you ride high in the saddle? What are you discovering? Do you like to traipse around in two different places at the same time?

Life is too short not to take our own personal adventures. Yippee-ti-yie-yay.

I like to play and work my way around the big topics. That’s why I had to include myself in my book–Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself.

February 10, 2015December 18, 2019

Weaving in the Dark

I love the moon and the stars, but I am afraid to be out alone in the dark. My natural tendency is to be on alert for potential dangers, but that’s hard to manage when I can’t see anything.

I love my gift of clarity—catching a glimpse of the potential of how things might unfold in the days or years ahead. Sight, both internal and external, is my most trusted sense. But the sight I’ve been using is hindered in dark.

I am walking in spiritual darkness. I don’t feel lost or abandoned as happens in the dark night of the soul but I can’t see anything I recognize. I have a strong sense of the divine presence and a luscious dose of gratitude, but I can’t see where I am going. Even the next step feels overwhelming.

I’m very busy. Traveling often. Some say that my to-do list is too long and wide, and that I’d see more clearly if I dropped some things in order to open up more spaciousness. That doesn’t ring true to me.

Here is what I see—an image. That is all I have now.

I am sitting on the ground in front of a vertical loom. I’m weaving a rug that is two-thirds of the way complete. I can’t see the pattern on the rug. I don’t know what colors or types of skeins are being used in the weaving.

Behind the rug, hidden from my view, Spirit is very active with an unseen ritual. While I don’t know what is happening on the other side of my weaving, I am nonetheless personally involved in the prayer dance.

One of the skeins of thread in the weaving comes from this unseen dance between Spirit and me.

I am to keep weaving, trusting that what is emerging won’t be an ugly, tangled mess.

My mind is very unsatisfied with this image and this process. And yet here I stay, adding one row and then another.

January 4, 2015

Who Am I? Two Versions

It all depends on how you want to tell the story. There are always multiple perspectives, multiple doorways into the tale.

I often play with my bio. With a website, Linkedin, Facebook, blog (to name a few) there are so many opportunities for tweaking it. But I also have the bio that plays in my mind in the worst of times when all of life seems dreary and its counter point that plays in the best of times when I feel like I’m on the top of the world.

Here are two versions:

Dramatic Bleakest Bio
Nancy M. Thurston stands on the battlefield being pummeled from all sides—her own self-critical inner voice, a culture gone awry and steeped in injustice, and judgment from many in the social change movement who continue to see her (white skinned and wealthy) as merely the “oppressor.” She wants to be understanding and responsible, always moving forward. In her zest for niceness, she doesn’t take notice and stop those moments when she or others are being disrespectful and caught in injustice and status quo inequities. She means well.

Exuberant Brightest Bio
Nancy M. Thurston walks right into the middle of the paradox of herself and the world and comes out the other side still standing—joyful and holding hands with a diverse community of people, trees, animals, stars and rocks. She is committed to noticing disrespect in her actions and in her interactions, knowing that it takes justice in EVERY moment to create a just world.

I know I am a mixed bag, just like all of you. But as I step into 2015 I want to soften the inner critical commentary about myself and play a bit more with the wild and bright parts.

How about you?

What “bios” are written on the walls of your brain? Which ones do you want to wash away in the new year?

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’d love to have conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to email me via the email address on the bottom of each page of my website.

November 30, 2014

Risk Being Different

I spent last week supporting my daughter as she filed papers to end her five-year marriage. We stood solidly, side-by-side, without any hint of I-told-you-so—because of support I sought and received very early in their courtship.

That support helped me to walk steady in our relationship despite the differences between what my daughter Laura wanted for her life and what I assumed was best for her.

While I needed to have a place with my friends to express my feelings, I had to learn to stop projecting my fears onto her. I came to learn that people—including my daughter—needed to make their own decisions. Once I had a bit of space from my concerns, I understood that she saw things I couldn’t see and that she had her own life path to walk. She was on an honorable journey that taught her many things.

Laura stood in line with her papers in hand a much stronger and clearer woman—more herself—than she’d ever been before.

Walking with Laura required that I acquire new skills. I learned to let my feeling flow freely, usually to friends, so that my actions didn’t flow from fear or assumptions. I explored ways both to take responsibility for myself and to honor Laura taking responsibility for her life. I explored drawing limits about my own actions and reactions that weren’t in line with my values. I desired to honor everyone involved, including myself, which sometimes included not acting with or participating in disrespect.

In addition, I needed to learn how to listen, really listen, without forming rebuttals or imagining a list of what-I-thought-made-the-most-sense while pretending to pay attention to her.

All that, while keeping my heart wide open.

Where our differences could have divided us, as they have in far too many families, our relationship strengthened over those years.

Odd as it may seem, these same tools that were so critical in the intimacy of our mother/daughter relationship were the same ones that helped and continue to help me walk through the Big Topics that fill my work.

Early in my life I assumed having a big heart, clear sight and good intentions, whether as a mother or as a global citizen, was enough.

I was wrong.

I needed tools I hadn’t learned in school to walk in the midst of the wide variety of our world.

I’d heard the admonition to practice “tolerance” and “honor diversity.” For me, tolerance (i.e. enduring) was an appallingly low goal. Honoring our differences, on the other hand, was much more complicated than it sounded—whether between family members or coworkers. Good intentions weren’t enough.

Building sustainable partnerships with people with who have very different life experiences and opinions is demanding. It means not getting my own way. It means having my worldview stretched, sometimes uncomfortably. It means being willing to see places where my actions don’t line up with my values or compassionate heart—and adapting my behavior as needed. It means keeping my heart open and staying in relationship with people who make me mad, even when I’d rather walk away.*

Whether as a mother, friend or Big Topic Revolutionary, I want to take steps toward authentic and sustainable partnerships. While I had many friends who have supported me in learning these new tools, the primary place of support and wisdom to walk steady right in the middle of difference came from Be Present, Inc.

This fall I’ve been in three Be Present circles, and I keep returning to their vision statement. It reads like the manifesto I want to follow:

“We are a diverse network of people willing to risk being different with one another, our families, communities, workplaces and organizations.

We are committed to a process that builds personal and community well-being on the strength of self-knowledge rather than on the distress of oppression.

Because we believe that enduring progressive change begins with and is sustained by persistent personal growth, we bring to people a model for personal and organizational effectiveness which replaces silence with information, assumptions with a diversity of insights, and powerlessness with a sense of personal responsibility.”

My daughter and I walked honorably through the middle of our differences. I have no doubt that she will walk into this next phase of her journey following her own inner guidance rather than my advice. As it should be. One person’s perspective—whether for my daughter or global social justice—is too limited.

The Be Present Empowerment Model taught me how to risk being different in all of my relationships. The learning curve has been steep and demanding, but it has shown me the way to be part of the change I so want to see in our world.

As you consider end-of-the-year giving, for yourself or as a gift in honor of someone you love, I hope you’ll join me in financially supporting this work so needed in our world, and families, today.

*There are times—for example in the face of persistent disrespect—when we need to end a relationship, at least for now. But walking away from people who piss us off means there is no chance for something new and transformative to happen. If we stay and continue to open the conversations, we will have a chance to see if new sight and doorways will appear.