Category: Partnership

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Blazing New Trails: From Subversion to Spiritual Transformation

Fifteen years ago, my teen-aged daughter Laura introduced me to Sara Evans’ song “I Could Not Ask for More.” Years later, this was the song I’d been singing for weeks in anticipation of the Trailblazing Boards of Directors Meeting. (see my previous blog). I was thrilled that Laura was excited to fly across the country with me to participate fully in this groundbreaking meeting.

Waiting to board our flight to Atlanta, I received an email response to a question posed within the Wisdom & Money board. I gasped.

The response brought the months long collaborative process of a joint leadership team from Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money into question. I knew that this email had the potential to destroy the collaborative partnership we’d worked so hard, and beautifully, to build.

This was just the sort of boulder in the road that used to spook the wild horse in me, sending me riding in circles of fear convinced that all would be lost.

Not this time. I knew the truth of the partnership we had all walked together. I was well practiced in the transformative power of our core practices of the Be Present Empowerment Model and Christian Wisdom practices. In addition, despite the message I was reading, I also knew how powerfully the email’s author had been an active and enthusiastic participant in all our preparations.

Cruising at 35,000 feet, my emotions began to settle. I wasn’t yet sure exactly how we would address this issue, but I was clear that moments like these were ripe with potential for transformation: personally, within our Wisdom & Money and Be Present partnership, and rippling out into our culture.

Only a few days remained before we would all be together. Many were already on their own circuitous trail to Atlanta, so phone calls weren’t possible. We also had a full agenda for our time together.

But I was clear. I was one of the three board chairs tasked with opening this joint board meeting, a historic moment in our long partnership. Powering through as if nothing had happened doesn’t work for me anymore and is definitely out of alignment with our shared values.

Together, we needed to find time to meet together and walk through this moment, trusting that transformation was possible. Even at this eleventh hour.

Agility is key when blazing new trails.

Those of us who were in Atlanta early began to image how we could have the needed conversations both with the Wisdom & Money Board (the recipients of the emails) and the Trailblazing Joint Leadership Team (those whose work together had been brought into question). The agenda was examined carefully. Alternatives considered. Topics consolidated. A plan slowly emerged that allowed time for the needed conversations while still holding to the essential parts of our board meeting. Each member was contacted and, when possible given traveling constraints, included in the conversation. All occurred in less than two days.

The joint leadership team agreed to meet early on the first day of our board meeting. First, we wanted to understand what was said and intended in the email itself.

The author shared the he’d had his own pondering time at 35,000 feet as he flew toward Atlanta, and he began to share the fruit of his reflections. Without deflecting or minimizing, he spoke clearly about his actions and his understanding of what happened that lead to the email and his awareness of the dangerous “subverting” impact of his words.

We all listened, honoring his struggle and his process. Then we each shared honestly about the impact his email had on us.

Witnessing the steadiness and power of the author’s process of coming to new sight –  both what propelled the writing of the author’s email and his articulation of his own movement to clarity and integrity – was beautiful beyond words. Together, we fully used one of our joint core practices, the Be Present Empowerment Model, in a way that supported and expanded his own personal leadership development and strengthened our partnership.

That which could have destroyed instead strengthened our partnership.

The following evening the Wisdom & Money Board of Directors had a separate meeting to address the issues in the email. Many on the board are new in using the Be Present Empowerment Model and had limited experience in the level of collaboration that ran through the Trailblazing leadership.

Most had not noticed anything awry with the email.

It would have been very easy for most of the board to have taken the comment in the email about the limited collaboration at face value. We’ve all experienced partnerships with skewed power dynamics, and too often we accept that as inevitable. I knew that it was important for the full Wisdom & Money Board to both to witness the writer of the email’s own emerging clarity about his behavior and to experience the transformative potential of our shared use of the Be Present Empowerment Model.

Again, he stepped in clearly. His insight into his behavior had deepened.

That which could have destroyed, and often does in organizations and partnerships, strengthened our shared trailblazing skills. It flowed through our Wisdom & Money Board out into the larger Trailblazing Boards of Directors meeting, thereby rippling out into our culture, so starving for just and equitable ways to be in partnership.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Blazing New Trails… Hold onto your hats!

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Blazing New Trails: Juggling Hats

Nine months ago, my Texas roots were in high gear. I struggled to grip the reigns as two organizations dear to my heart began preparations to come together for a Trailblazing Boards of Directors meeting in February. As we galloped toward our time together in Atlanta, I tried to hold onto my different hats—my Wisdom & Money Board Chair hat, my Be Present Vision-Based Social Change Fund Development Co-chair hat and my own personal hat as a participant in both organizations. That’s a lot of hats for a two-handed woman.

Part of my preparation was to let go of my attempts to grip all the reigns, while simultaneously learning the art of hat juggling in the service of stepping deeply into collaboration.

In my last blog, written just before I headed to The Trailblazing Boards of Directors Meeting, I wrote, “Here I am. Living a dream that has grown far beyond anything I could ask or imagine… It is not just possible, it is happening…right now.”

This gathering blazed new trails of partnership between Wisdom & Money and Be Present, Inc. In these times when so many partnerships and alliances are shattering on the national and local stage, we faithfully walked a way of collaboration that supported both organizations to fully embody their unique vision and mission while manifesting new opportunities of joint work together.

First, the cast of characters in this Trailblazing adventure: Clearing the trail are leaders within the networks of Be Present and Wisdom & Money. It is an “unlikely” organizational partnership: Be Present raises the visibility of Black Women’s leadership–from its founding to now–of a diverse, collaborative network of leaders. Wisdom & Money is a network rooted in Christianity that convenes wealthy people, almost all of whom are white, to engage with money as a doorway to spiritual transformation at the personal, communal and systemic levels. Wisdom & Money understands that the journey of spiritual transformation leads to diverse partnerships and sees working with wealth as one part of the larger societal movement of spiritual and economic transformation and justice. A part of Be Present’s mission is to collaborate with other nonprofits to advance a more resilient and equitable society.

Second, the road we’ve already traveled together: We didn’t just meet. This partnership began fifteen years ago in the midst of a crisis within Wisdom & Money, then called Harvest Time. Shortly before stepping into Harvest Time, I’d glimpsed Be Present’s ability to walk boldly into the middle of what looked like a hot mess (in this case, an honest and hard conversation about race taking place in a large, racially diverse gathering). The process I witnessed supported everyone involved to speak what was true for them, as together we collectively found a way through the discussion in a manner that honored everyone’s spirit and was faithful to the vision we were seeking. I was convinced that Be Present could help Harvest Time navigate its crisis in a way that could help us live more boldly into our mission.  Again, I rode in full speed ahead (though it took time) to support a consultancy with Be Present because I’d tasted the power of the work of Harvest Time (and now Wisdom & Money) in transforming the individual heart/Spirit and the economic system. I wanted the organization to thrive.

Much slower than I’d hoped for (but I can now see the rightness of the timing) began with hiring Be Present as a consultant. After a general consultancy, Harvest Time stepped into a Human Resources consultancy which supported Harvest Time to develop a prophetic and practical organizational policy and structure to make sure the Vision and Mission aligned with our organizational practices. In addition, we traveled the wild and demanding road together in a nine-year partnership in Mississippi.

The key that Be Present brought to Harvest Time/Wisdom & Money was the Be Present’s Empowerment Model, a model powerful enough to provide a process for the transformative work both organizations are doing: Stepping OUTSIDE the distress of oppression, our own historical distress and the culture’s glaring oppression. Each time we take that step, we find ourselves standing more INSIDE the clarity of our true and unique selves and thus more able to listen to others in a conscious and present state. From there, we can build effective relationships and sustaining true alliances.

In other words, we’ve been building this partnership for a long time. We were ready for this next step of collaboratively preparing for our Trailblazing Boards of Director’s meeting. A joint team of leaders from both organizations spent months collaboratively crafting an agenda where both organizations fully shared practices and leadership, as together we envisioned the shared trail ahead of us.

Drawing by Khara Scott-Bey

By early February, the time of preparations had passed. I was saddled up and ready to ride toward our meeting in Atlanta, spurred on by Sara Evan’s singing “I Could Not Ask for More” to all my gathering partners.

*I returned from this Trailblazing Boards of Directors meeting in mid-February. Once home, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote…but the experience and all that had opened up, both for me and organizationally, needed a bit of time to settle into me before I was ready to share my writings publicly. More “reports from the trail” to follow.

For more info about how these two trailblazing organizations support my work, check out my refocused and expanded website—specifically The Practices tab.

 

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Blazing New Trails: Holding a Dream until it Manifests

Three decades ago, I was gifted with a dream that would change the course of my life.

Let me be clear. What I dreamed had few details or specific images. Instead, it was an elusive, yet compelling foreshadowing of a particular possibility, a possibility poised and ready to be gifted to the world.

In 1983, Howard and I and our 9-month-old son Paul moved to California. My plan was to get my master’s degree and become a professor of physical therapy. Unbeknownst to me, this was not the plan. Our first Sunday in Palo Alto the three of us went to a small Methodist church near campus and, over the next 9 months, I was exposed to what would become my life’s work. The seed of my dream was planted deep within me.

There was Christian wisdom practice: Starting in January 1984, I was part of a weekly group that met before dawn every Wednesday for 20 minutes of silence, lectio divina (an ancient prayer form of reading a short passage of scripture and deeply pondering the message), and shared reflections. Through those mornings, and occasional retreats together at nearby Mercy Center, the wisdom stream of Christianity took root in the heart of my faith.

There were money and faith practices: A month later, I attended a weekend workshop with church friends put on by Ministry of Money, part of Washington, DC’s Church of the Savior. In those four days, I discovered a Christian path neither conservative nor liberal; one that held the radical wisdom of Jesus’ clarity about the connection between faith, money, and the world as our neighborhood. That weekend, the prophetic stream of Christianity also took root in me as I realized that all of my life, including my money, was part of my walk of faith. A walk alongside my diverse and global human family.

There was the movement that would become Be Present, Inc.: I wouldn’t be officially introduced to Be Present, Inc. for 26 years, but in the world of mystery my path crossed with Be Present’s at Mercy Center. While Be Present incorporated almost decade later, this work had been birthed the previous year before when a thousand Black women and girls gathered for a Black & Female: What is the Reality? conference led by Lillie Allen. One of the first official gatherings of Black women and girls after that conference happened in California, at Mercy Center, around the time I first began retreating there.

I would learn later that this organization-to-be, and the Be Present Empowerment Model at its core, was the practice and the community I needed to live into my dream.

Fast forward to 2002. My few grey hairs of the 29-year-old me became a solidly salt-and-pepper grey at 50. Paul was in college, Laura in High School. I was a mess in the middle of a mess.

I struggled mightily with an organization I’d loved and was intimately part of for almost a decade.  I could physically feel the widening chasm between the powerful programs and people I loved and a growing disconnect between their vision and organizational behavior. Not knowing how to hold a paradox that wide, I thrashed around trying to do something, anything, to turn the tide.

At the same time, my father died and I inherited money. The walk of wealth and faith thus became mine. I needed help to navigate the process, and within a few months I’d found the perfect two places of support.

I stepped into Be Present, Inc.: I knew I needed more skills and mentoring to walk this transformation of spirit in a world filled with injustice (some of which was also caught, seen and unseen, within me). The Black women and girls I’d mystically met so long ago had expanded to include a wide diversity of people working collaboratively together. Within Be Present, I experienced an organization consistently operating within their vision and mission and skillfully using and offering training in the Be Present Empowerment Model to open up hot topics in a way that could nurture the blooming of personal and societal transformation.

I stepped into Wisdom & Money (then called Harvest Time, granddaughter of Ministry of Money): The Spirit had ignited this fledgling ministry just as Howard and I stepped into it, together.  We danced our way into a community of folks engaging with money as a doorway of spiritual transformation at the personal, communal and systemic levels. Again, it was, indeed, a hot door!

The dream buried deep within me in 1984 was manifesting in 2002. The intersection I’d seen in my dream – faith, rooted deeply in the wisdom and prophetic strands of Christianity, the movement of money, and equitable partnerships across diversity – had taken root and formed a bud. The collaboration between Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money deepened in ­­­2007 when it became clear that Wisdom & Money needed the model to navigate the hot door of money and faith in the midst of our diverse and unjust world.

Next week, the ongoing partnership between Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money – with me in the middle of both organizations – will bloom even brighter.

Now completely grey and 64, I will be flying with my daughter Laura to Atlanta for an event called Trailblazing Boards of Director’s Meeting and a training on Sustaining a Practice of Community-Engaged, Transformative Philanthropy. There, both Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money will take the next creative steps of deepening our partnership by coming together for a board meeting and training, working collaboratively together every step of the way.

Here I am. Living a dream that has grown far beyond anything I could ask or imagine. Partnership across difference, a Black-led diverse organization of leaders and a primarily white, wealthy, Christian organization, working together to support transformation from the personal to the global.

It is not just possible, it is happening. It is happening right now.

Drawings by Khara Scott-Bey

This is the first in a blog series Blazing New Trails. Since this trail is one that has unfolded so slowly, it has taken time to process and find words to describe that this has been and what I see. I’m slowly learning, such is the pace required for transformation trails.

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All I want for Christmas: Listening

All I want for Christmas … is to listen to you open-heartedly and to be listened to in the same way.

I’m playing a little here, singing a tune in the background, but wanting You for Christmas means, among other things, really listening to you and you to me.

Left to my own devices, I’m not always good at listening. I sometimes listen while also drifting in my own imagination, continuing to ponder some detail that has my interest. Or I’m not fully interested in what you are talking about, so I silently tune you out. Or I have different opinions about what you “should” think or do, and mentally build my case. Inevitably, in these half-listening moments, I miss the gift of you, and I get lost in the dross of my own opinions, assumptions and judgments.

I know better. And yet the listening guidelines I want to use aren’t the ones I learned in Sunday School: Be nice. Always nod and show I’m interested in what your saying by my body language. Don’t interrupt. Keep all of my focus on you.

This Christmas I’ve come up with a new set of rules that hold keys for the quality of listening I’m longing for.

Don’t act like you are listening. Over the years, I’ve perfected the nod and regular little affirming sounds to show that I am listening. I’ve realized that these affirming little gestures have absolutely no relationship to actually listening. I want to stop “acting like” I’m listening and start actually doing it.

Don’t just listen to you. Also listen to myself.  Conscious listening comes from listening simultaneously in two directions at once—to you and to the thoughts in my own head. When I listen to someone else, my thoughts naturally keep moving. The trouble begins when something you say reminds me of something in my past—something that feels similar to a story I’ve heard before or something I’ve learned when I was in “that situation.” Other times I quit listening because I feel your repeating what you’ve said a million times before. I must know what I am thinking, not to merely dive headfirst into my own ideas and judgments but in order to consciously step outside my reminiscing and back inside of actually listening. To you.

It is critical that I differentiate between past events and my assumptions. Being unconscious of that difference inevitably distorts what I am hearing into a mish mash of you and me.

Don’t put myself in your shoes. There is no way I can step cleanly into your shoes and not have them filled with assumptions that may or may not be true. Relationships are best lived when each of us wears our own shoes, or as my friend Rose puts it, where each of us stays on our own yoga mat.

Interrupt. Of course, I’m not talking about interrupting so I can tell you what I’ve crafted in my mind while you were talking. That only shows I wasn’t listening in the first place. On the other hand, the spiritual practice of holy interrupting is used when I am so caught on something in my mind and can no longer listen to you.

I don’t want to pretend I’m listening when I can’t. That is a lie. If I really want to hear what you are saying, though, and I can’t, the only respectful thing to do is to interrupt and ask that you wait to continue until I can listen again.

Interrupting isn’t the goal, of course. Ideally, if I notice my thoughts wandering off, I return to listening to you. But sometimes I can’t do that. And then I must interrupt.

While it can be embarrassingly easy for me to interrupt when I impatiently want to share my ideas, it is very hard to admit when I’m mentally caught and can’t listen. The first interrupting is rude (even though it can feel like an exciting conversation); the second is very respectful (even though it can feel rude).

Sometimes just speaking out loud is enough to bring me back to being able to listen to you. Sometimes I need to speak just a little to bring me back. Unfortunately, sometimes I have to fight my embarrassment and take more time to get over my listening roadblock. My goal is always to return to listening to you. Really listening.

It’s a precious gift to listen and to be listened to.

Listening to others in a present and conscious state is the second realm of the Be Present Empowerment Model®: Nestled between knowing myself outside the distress of oppression and building effective relationships and sustaining true alliances. None of these are easy for me, yet they hold the key for me to receive all the gift all of myself and to build strong, sustainable relationships both with you and with my global family. When I truly listen, I am participating in the change I want to see in the world.

This Christmas, I really want to listen. To you. And to me. Because all I want for Christmas is you and me, together.

 

This blog is in honor of my mother, Mary Sue Tipps Mathys, who died 32 years ago on this night, as the Solstice drew to a close and the light began its return. She was, among many other things, an amazing listener.

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The Gospel According to Wild Women: Advent

This is the holiday season—Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa—many different celebrations for many different folks. For me, this season is Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas; a perfect time to proclaim the story of this season that has settled in my heart and bones.

This may be the season where Christmas songs jangle along at every store, but it is more rightly the season of a bold and wild woman.

Mary was no passive teenager.  She listened to the outrageous invitation by an angel, who then waited with bated breath for her answer.

She considered carefully the request to bear the infant Jesus, one knit of a pure union of the flesh and blood of a human and the breath and spark of the Spirit of God. Divine alchemy for all of creation.

Mary decided she was willing to break laws and protocol, risking shame and banishment.  Her YES took the courage of a powerful and grounded young woman, wise and courageous beyond her years.

Mary was grateful that the Angel sent her to a woman who could understand the magnitude of the earthquake that shook her life.  Someone else who recently had her own life turned upside down by an untimely pregnancy; Cousin Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, pregnant in her advanced years, knew and understood.  As soon as Mary arrived in her home, without saying a word, Elizabeth and the baby in her womb leaped with joy.

Mary, with the divine Word in her belly, preached the Good News.  Her words proclaimed a new way of ordering life on earth, a way that would bring a depth of vitality for everyone. But to those who were invested in things staying the same, those who wanted to hold on to their own power, her words would be heard as bad news.

These were dangerous words.  Traitorous words.  Mary, filled with rejoicing, breaks into her prophetic song:

God has shown strength;
scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
Bringing down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifting up the lowly;
filling the hungry with good things,
and sending the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months before she returned to Joseph, a man also visited by angels and bold enough to say YES.  Tongues wagged around town at this scandalous couple.

Thirty-three years ago, I walked through advent with a pregnant belly, awaiting the birth of my daughter. She was filled to the brim with Spirit, one so fresh from heaven. At the same time, her unique body, just right for this world, was being knitted, one cell at a time safe under my heart.

While my belly stretched, she was preparing for her birth into this world that would be her home. An Earth so beautiful and varied beyond imagining: Land and sea. Light and dark. Insects and elephants. Neighbors nearby and around the globe.

I was excited to experience life alongside her curious eyes.

But more was required of me, mother of this child.

I knew that her body would be seen through the eyes of a culture that had expectations and assigned relative “value” based on details of her precious body – including the color of her skin and her gender. From my own experience, I also knew that shards of this crazy cultural injustice would weasel their way into her bones, tempting her to believe the lies.

Mary and her child Jesus of so long ago, pointed the way. Rejoice. Dance in God’s mercy. Love your neighbor. As yourself. Always remember the presence of God in our world and in each other. Live in the Kingdom of God, now, right here on earth as one part of the family of creation.

Advent: the season of wild women willing to take bold risks to carry the seeds of New Life.

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National Shadow and Me

One minute I’m holding my grandson, delighted by his giggles, and the next minute I find myself nauseated by the latest morsel of news. I love this country and delight in the daily pleasures and interactions of my life here. So much is beautiful. And yet, a dark and sinister shadow is also part of our national truth.

I love this planet and country too much to continue to remain silent. It’s not enough to roll my eyes and walk away from behavior that I know is disrespectful or unjust. Spewing out my righteous indignation in anger might feel good for a moment, but that rarely results in individual or structural root-level change.

My love requires me to fully step into my responsibility as a human being and a citizen, and to look directly into the nation’s shadow, which also means looking directly into the ways this shadow has landed in me.

Let’s start at the beginning. Our nation’s founding supported the buying, selling and brutal slave labor of Black skinned people, the theft of Native People’s land through forced migration and genocide, and the constricting of a woman’s place to wifely domestic duties. The only people considered citizens, and thus to have rights, were white men wealthy enough to own land.

Over the centuries, we have made progress addressing racism and sexism, but the deeply buried shards of domination remain. “Progress” has primarily involved inviting women and people of color into the status quo, requiring them to fit inside the old, patriarchal system.

That which remains unexamined in the shadows is dangerous.

In 1886, eighteen years after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted to address citizenship rights and equal protection of the law for newly freed slaves, this amendment was twisted to give those rights and protections to corporations. Jim Crow and a whole system of blatant racial discrimination replaced slavery for Blacks while full citizenship was granted to corporations. Our entrenched system of hierarchical power-over has a long history.

As I considered what else I should include on this page, I sifted through my long list of ways the United States has led through domination: Pollution and overuse of natural resources? The widening wealth gap? Unequal pay? Encouraging immigration for cheap labor—for example, building railroads (Chinese), agricultural labor (Mexican)—while simultaneously demonizing or incarcerating those who came here to work? The rising chaos and incivility in Washington DC? Sexual assault and ignoring women’s accounts?

A daunting list. I set down my pen and called my friend Alease.

Alease recounted a phone call she’d received from another friend that morning. Her friend pulled into her faculty parking spot at University of California and was immediately surrounded by two police cars, lights flashing. One of the three policemen accused her of illegally talking on the phone while driving (she was using her car’s Bluetooth until she’d stopped and turned off the car). If I was stopped by police, my heart would pound and my (white) hands would shake, afraid they might give me a ticket. But this professor’s skin was black, and she knew that far too many Black people pulled over for inconsequential infractions (or no infractions) were killed by police. I shuddered at the stark difference between our fears, based solely on the color of our skin.

That which remains unexamined in the shadows is dangerous.

I got off the phone with Alease and checked Facebook before preparing dinner. A good friend recounted her terror upon learning that a woman was kidnapped and raped nearby. She wrote that it brought back flashes of “when my own body was violated…and the shame so thick around that memory.” My heart pounded as I read her words. The fear of rape weaves its way into my daily decisions: Do I leave a window open on a hot night? Should I risk walking to a neighborhood gym before dawn? Did I remember to lock my car doors?

That which remains unexamined in the shadow is dangerous, at least partly because the toxic shards of US domination values are stuck deeply within us. Some are conscious, but more often they are hidden in our inner shadows, unseen but ready to pounce when feelings of fear or vulnerability arise.

Today. Not just in the past.

For white skinned people like me (or for men with violence against women), it is a grave error to blithely assume that these events are isolated occurrences, not part of a systemic problem.

In the journey toward justice we must always begin by looking inward: finding the shards of domination that are caught in each of us, and root them out. But we can’t stop there. Transformation requires that we live in alignment with our values right in the middle of this culture that is still riddled with injustice. Luckily, we don’t have to do this alone or unequipped. This is a spiritual journey we can walk together, armed with transformative practices.

There isn’t enough space here to write about these practices that have powerfully supported transformation personally as well as within family, community, national and our global family.

For more information about these check out my newly expanded website. Together, in little and big ways, we can each participate in building the world we want for all children and grandchildren.

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A 35-Year Legacy of Black Women’s Leadership

“We cannot leave ourselves out of the dynamic process of creating and sustaining change; we are and must recognize ourselves as a part of what is and must be changed. When we do, we can take responsibility and model a new way to foster tolerance, promote peace, and work toward social and economic justice.”

Lillie Pearl Allen

Sixteen years ago at my first Be Present Conference, I caught a glimpse of this connection between myself and the peace and justice that made my heart sing. Below is a reposting of a Be Present Blog, the first in a series highlighting the 35 year history of the Black Women who laid the foundation for Be Present, Inc., beginning at the beginning, with Lillie Pearl Allen:

 “My community activism emerged over 40 years ago from my own history and experiences. I was searching for the answers to the following questions: “How do I get to know the fullness of who I am? Not just someone’s best friend, caring mother or daughter of migrant farm workers. How do I thrive in this world and not just survive while living in a culture where people make assumptions about who I am based on my race, my gender, my class?

I understood that my personal well being is united to a collective commitment to dismantle all forms of oppression. I wanted to live beyond the constrictions of oppression and I wanted other people to live in that way, too. I needed to have relationships with other Black people that were not based on our hurt, but celebrated all of who we were. And I wanted to build partnerships with White people that were not based on distrust or guilt, but emerged from our conscious understanding and true action. Today I am motivated by the knowing that it is possible to live in the present moment without barrier or hesitation from any past or present oppression; and that collective action that truly reflects the diversity of our communities is possible.

My enduring passion and work is about connecting, growing and learning together. I like working with people committed to building authentic relationships and sharing our collective knowledge so that we may accelerate the shift for social justice. I enjoy hearing and sharing experiences about our lives and initiatives, challenges and opportunities; and developing partnerships to move forward on the identified strategies and actions – all in the context of love and wisdom. My life is testimony to the fact that change is possible and that it’s sustainable. As President Obama has stated, ‘Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.’

The social justice sector is on the verge of major change. We are in the midst of a significant transfer of leadership from one generation to another. Organizations striving to increase their effectiveness are searching for organizational practices on how to better partner with each other, as well as to develop sustainable solutions and alliances where cooperation and equity thrive. Shifting the political agenda and expanding the scope of social justice to be more participatory rests on how authentically we organize and work together across issues and constituencies. Building power depends on our collective abilities to unite a multitude of sectors and bring together coalitions, networks, and progressive funders at the local, state, and national levels.

I believe that creating partnerships that reflect values of mutual respect, trust, and authentic partnership is not only the right thing to do, it is critical for a stronger and more effective social justice movement. In the 35+ years that I have been doing this work, I have seen how the issues of race, gender, class, and power are woven through the fabric of our personal relationships, workplaces, organizations, and communities, and continue to have a critical impact on people’s lives. I believe that in order to create peace and justice for all people, it is all our responsibility to critically examine the impact of these interconnected issues. It is from this understanding that we can build better leadership models and create healthier systems that sustain us. We cannot leave ourselves out of the dynamic process of creating and sustaining change; we are and must recognize ourselves as a part of what is and must be changed. When we do, we can take responsibility and model a new way to foster tolerance, promote peace, and work toward social and economic justice.

The transformative leadership model that I created and has been used throughout the country – the Be Present Empowerment Model® – teaches how to create authentic and honest connection between individuals, between individuals and their organization, and between organizations and their coalition partners. It provides a comprehensive and expansive orientation to leadership development, one that is grounded in social justice principles and values. Through this work people are better able to see the connections between self-transformation and social transformation. As a result they become more effective in thinking creatively, collaborating with others, dealing positively with challenging issues, and creating lasting partnerships.”

-Thirty-five years ago, in 1983, Lillie Pearl Allen led the Black & Female: What is the Reality workshop at the first Black Women’s Health Conference. Over a thousand Black women and girls participated in this workshop. This gathering marked the beginning of a social movement, created a legacy of leadership for justice that is inclusive of all people, and laid the foundation for the 1992 incorporation of Be Present, Inc.  

 Be Present is in the 5th year of our Black & Female Leadership Initiative that addresses both the lack and, too often, distortion of the voices and visibility of Black women’s leadership in the literature, historical record and dialogue on social justice movement-building. It also highlights the process as well as the achievements of using a collective leadership approach in creating a diverse national network of activists successfully moving social justice agendas in the United States.

My husband Howard and I will be part of the diverse group of Be Present leaders at the National Black & Female Leadership Conference, open to everyone, and held June 21-24 in Dahlonega, GA. This Conference will highlight Black Women’s leadership in building inclusive movements for social justice–movements that include everyone. If you are interested in joining us in June, check out the link to the registration form. Our commitment to inclusion is sustained by all of us working together to raise the funds to ensure access to money is not a barrier to participation. I invite you to join me in making a donation to the Conference Scholarship fund.

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Trusting Refrigerator Wisdom

My cooking claim to fame is that I can open the refrigerator, scan the shelves, then create a meal out of whatever is available. (Leftover Oatmeal Cobbler. Salsa and Vegetable Soup.) I may check a recipe, but only to play with possibilities. If I have a handful of apricots, I might mix together something Moroccan. Sprigs of cilantro could lead to Whatever-I-Have-on-Hand Enchiladas. Scanning the shelves, I am curious to find out what dish will emerge from the random ingredients I find there. No fears or what-ifs. I’m not concerned with tomorrow’s lunch or next week’s dinner. And I trust that whatever I make will be edible, and often delicious.

I’ve just come face to face with the fact that I have a very different approach to other tasks I need to accomplish. Particularly tasks that involve working collaboratively within organizations that hold a bold vision that makes my heart sing.

Instead of playing with what’s in front of me, I grab my tattered recipe for I-Need-To-Make-Something-Happen-NOW. Defaulting to distrust, I scramble in over-responsibility with things that aren’t mine to control and don’t notice the tasks that are mine to tend.

Throughout my life, part of me is always looking down the road a piece—weeks or years in the future. All too often, I focus that sight on potential pitfalls or possible brick walls endangering the path up ahead. I try so hard to be positive—and part of me is naturally that way—but my innate bias is to focus on what might go wrong. From there, my ironclad responsibility kicks into to full gear. Grabbing all the ingredients and tools I can find, I scramble to rigidly follow my inner “recipe” and try to “help” as a way to calm my preemptive fears.

My favorite life-refrigerator ingredient is my astute analytical thinking. Though it has served me well, in this case it keeps me focused on the recipe of Solving-Potential-Problems rather than the mystery of creativity. I need to drop my thinking into the soup pot and let it bubble on the back burner for a bit. Turning from the stove, I then need to squat down and dig in the back of the bottom shelf. There, hidden in the shadows, are my tucked away feelings. They’ve always been there flavoring everything I cook. Ignored, sometimes they taint the entire dish. To bring my cooking skills into my skills in life, I need to include my feelings as a valued ingredient.

Starting from a perspective of possibilities, I remain open to the mystery of what might emerge. The only way I can have the openness I seek is to release my need to hold tightly onto my beautifully constructed plans filled with desires for my own life and for everyone else around me.

Stepping into organizations with my Chef-in-Life apron on, I remember the vast array of options held in the mystery of the moment. The taste of the unexpected. The way the flavors of different ingredients innately combine to become something greater than the parts.

It’s really simple, even in its complexity: Face each moment with the same fresh openness that I have in front of an open refrigerator before dinner. Peek at a pre-determined plan, if needed, but just for ideas. Trust what I already know—my intuitive experience of years in the kitchen and in organizations.

All that is required of me is to show up fully with all I have to bring to the task at hand, enjoy the process, delight in the remarkable array of partners, honor my training by mothers and grandmothers, and relax into the mystery of all those who join me at the Table.

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The Journey Toward Justice

For a journey of the heart, it matters what I use as my guiding star.

My heart journey began when I woke up and realized that my perspective and worldview was too small and limited. I wanted to find a way to expand the boundaries of my heart and life, to live as one member of a global family on our shared earthly home.

There was no need for this sort of journey when I believed what the culture told me—that we were already a nation of freedom and justice for all. So much of the culture was set up to distract me, especially as one with more cultural access and power, to keep me from noticing the injustice and inequities at the heart of my nation.

I began my heart’s journey, a journey toward justice, by first waking up to the world as it was, contradictory with its glorious beauty and soaring vision alongside its profound injustice and disrespect directed at certain groups of people.

Once I woke up, I saw brokenness all over the place: our treatment of the earth; our power and access inequities based on race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, sexual identity, homeland or legal status. Many of these have hundreds or thousands of years of inequity behind them, but all are still riddled with injustice today.

Part of me is a fighter. Since I was a child, I’ve believed that the direct path is best and most efficient. Therefore, when I saw something wrong, I wanted to call it out and fix it.

There are compelling and very logical reasons to begin by fighting injustice head on. Once the cultural blinders have fallen away, injustice screams to be transformed from many directions at once. The need for immediate change feels urgent.

However, even stronger than the fighter within me was a longing for metanoia—a transformative change of heart. This required me to shift my orientation, both a spiritual and how-I-orient-in-the-world turning. To use metanoia, rather than fighting, my guiding star required that I begin my journey toward justice “outside the distress of oppression.”*

Those words—know myself outside the distress of oppression—are like a koan meant to shock me into a whole new way of seeing.

When the oppression, both within me and in the world around me, is so overwhelming and so flesh-and-blood real, why would I choose to begin outside of it? When the wrongs are so obvious (once I saw them), why would I choose not to directly fight the wrong and liberate the right?

And how can I, with all of my first-world, white skinned, wealthy, traditionally educated privilege, call myself oppressed?

The culture I was born into was complex and sophisticated. Its values were both honorable and grand (visions I love like freedom and inalienable rights, for example) as well as greedy and power-hungry (legal and tax bias toward corporations and people who are wealthy, or acting as if black lives aren’t as valuable as white lives, for example). I was schooled in these values in my public education, laws, popular novels, churches, playgrounds, advertisements, institutions and traditions. They seeped into my brain—as internalized oppression, prejudice against certain people, and a bias toward the status quo.

For me, I’ve struggled with the oppression of sexism (primarily internalized and directed against me) and with the oppression of a skewed world view that gave access and privilege to me—calling it normal and earned—while keeping me tragically blind to the inequity behind it all.

When I tried to stand within the mess of oppressor/oppressed, my sight was limited by the dichotomy, and I wanted to fight. Unfortunately, when I tried to fight the oppression I saw around me without simultaneously noticing and moving to transform the injustices in my own conscious and unconscious beliefs and behaviors, I kept slipping into the very injustice I was fighting to change.

But this journey isn’t only toward expanded sight and understanding. While metanoia is a transformation of the heart and Spirit—an internal realignment—unless stunted, it will naturally continue to unfold into a life that participates in the transformation of society.

That brings me back to “knowing myself outside the distress of oppression.” Who am I, who are you, who are we, outside the distress of oppression?  What is it that interferes with each of us and keeps us from living from the fullness and uniqueness that is our birth right?

For me, orienting myself outside the distress of oppression has been the most demanding journey of my life. Stepping outside the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy requires that I take responsibility for myself and continually align my beliefs and actions with my values of justice, love and equity. Self-knowledge and self-responsibility are the keys to both personal metanoia as well as sustainable social change. I need to act with integrity, no matter what injustice I am experiencing. Change is possible in any moment, but it requires someone (like me) to act, respectfully and honestly, and thus open up a space that opens the possibility for justice to emerge, moment by moment.

I have patterns, mostly unconscious, that still emerge from time to time. I get uncomfortable or scared and go silent. I don’t like sitting in my own fear and project it onto others. These behaviors tend to show up when I am tired, irritated or feel like someone is treating me unjustly. For me, stress is the doorway through which my old habits and unconscious beliefs tend to emerge.

But that is very dangerous. Most fracturing of relationships and partnerships, especially across cultural differences, happen in moments of stress or conflict. If I don’t learn how to change my behavior and thinking at the roots—seek metanoia—stressful times will continue to be moments when I am not able to sustain my values and respectful behavior. Instead of being part of the healing, I will participate in the brokenness.

My journey toward justice requires me to keep metanoia as my guiding north star. Only then can I keep my sight free and flexible enough to focus outside the distress of oppression. I walk on this journey with many friends and partners, mutually taking time to lovingly but firmly support each other as we navigate the path of justice. There is no need for shame as together we know we are on a journey of learning and alignment.

But even when my friends are not around, I am not alone. Spirit is always present. The natural world opens her arms to me. I am part of the human family. In addition, this journey has led me into a powerful, healing relationship to the diversity that is within me. Demanding as this journey has been, following metanoia as my guiding star is leading me on a joyful journey home.

 

*This is the first step of Be Present Inc.’s Be Present Empowerment Model.

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Black Women’s Leadership: My (White Woman’s) Leadership

From Facebook posts to last Sunday’s sermon, the influence and effectiveness of Black women’s leadership is indisputable. The mid-session Alabama senate race spotlighted the critical power of the leadership of Black Women. While this leadership has been long present, many other white-skinned people are just noticing it … and are deeply grateful.

However, it wasn’t news to me. I’ve been working in a network that was started by a Black woman, Lillie Pearl Allen, and whose foundation was built by Black women and girls. All aspects of our work for the past four years have been held within Be Present, Inc.’s Black Women’s Leadership Initiative, aimed to “raise the visibility of Black women’s leadership as key to social justice movement-building in the United States … highlighting the process and achievements of using a collective leadership approach.”

What is a wealthy, white woman like me doing in an organization highlighting Black women’s leadership? And why am I on the leadership team of next June’s Black & Female Leadership Conference?

This seeming contradiction is, in fact, not incongruent because Be Present, Inc. understands true leadership. This Initiative “specifically demonstrates the leadership of Black women in partnering with diverse people [like me] to create sustainable change that serves everyone in our communities.”

Black women as a powerful force building sustainable leadership for social justice didn’t start in Alabama with this election. Likewise, the crisis in American leadership—leadership for social justice as well as corporate and institutional leadership—didn’t start with the Alabama election or the current administration in Washington. These two things merely highlight what has long been true: Black women have always played a powerful role in leadership (even though largely overlooked), and patriarchy’s way of leadership (even when tweaked and updated) is tattered and full of holes.

2017 was the year I faced the ways I have internalized and acted out of “traditional,” patriarchal leadership. Some of my actions flowed from how I was schooled (often without words) to be in leadership as a woman: watchful and suspicious of my own power and wisdom, silent instead of asking for more information or addressing things that felt off, and truncating my sharing of insights if it appeared that others didn’t agree or understand. This was despite my self-image as a liberated woman. Others of my behaviors were solidly set in patriarchy: over attachment to my plan or idea of how something should be done, and my belief that work is best served when everything is organized and planned out ahead of time—unconscious of the fact that both of these flowed from a white, masculine framework.

I was supported and mentored in stepping into leadership aligned with my values and Spirit by an organization birthed and supported by Black women’s leadership. In this network, I’ve grown to understand the self-responsibility required for me to fully bring my sight and wisdom into a collective where everyone also brings the fullness of their sight and wisdom.

It’s been a very demanding process. I’ve stumbled in public and been unable to step into my leadership in a few places where I cared deeply about the work. But I was held as I opened up what happened, and I was able to catch a glimpse of what within me blocked my full participation and thereby shift my behavior.

A recent innovation in leadership theory is to “posit race analysis as central to effective leadership that can exercise power in social justice movement building.” Be Present has been doing that for almost 35 years. But the old ways cling tightly as “leadership within the social justice movement or more broadly, continues to be defined within a framework that assumes white males are the default leaders and a ‘leader and follower’ dichotomy is the natural order.”

For the last few decades I’ve understood the importance of keeping sight of the Big Topics—race, gender, power and class—and the benefits of collective leadership, but something shifted this past year. Leadership is only partly the theory, style or skills we use. Without addressing what is within me—old habits and assumptions—in a difficult moment, I far too often have defaulted to either going silent or trying to control, and reacted by getting angry or deeply disappointed.

Effective and sustainable leadership that moves from the heart and Spirit must begin with me, then move out to respect and honor my relationship with others and finally flow into the work that we do together.

As this year draws to an end, I am deeply grateful for the leadership and partnership of Black women. Thank you.

 

*Quotes from Be Present, Inc. website.