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Blazing New Trails: Awe

Howard and I took our year-old grandson, Danny, to a neighborhood coffee shop. After charming half of the room with his bright smile, he looked up. His eyes widened and mouth fell open as he threw up his arms, reaching toward the twirling ceiling fan. He couldn’t believe his eyes—the slowly turning fan was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

Danny, as usual, had no words for the amazing sight he witnessed.

At 65, I’ve experienced my own full-bodied delight and awe at themiracle of thirty-five people from Be Present, Inc. and Wisdom & Money, ages of 6-79, all gathered together at the Trailblazing Boards of Directors Meeting in early February.  Be Present has always included people of all ages fully participating in all aspects of the work, including Youth Advisors on the board. In addition, all board meetings are open. This meeting was opened even wider with the full collaboration of two organizations.

It took fifteen years of a growing partnership and six months to land at the threshold of the Trailblazing meeting with an agenda in hand.

A team of the leadership from both organizations met on conference calls for six months to craft the agenda. Initially, I could see absolutely no way we could cram everything into two days of meetings. Both organizations were in powerful growth moments with a full slate of things that needed to be discussed, plus we wanted to include storytelling about our individual and shared history. All in a two-day time frame.

I questioned our sanity to try such a crazy thing.

Margherita, my friend and Be Present’s Chief Operating Officer, reminded me that we were in the midst of an innovative practice of partnership and collaboration. Innovation requires stepping into the unknown with trust and has nothing to do with figuring it all out logically. Her words reminded me that I do know something greater than my fearful, whirling mind: we know how to hold the nuance of individual organization decision making inside a collective/collaborative design.

The wind of creativity blew away my attempts to figure it all out.

Together we crafted a beautiful agenda. One we were willing to hold lightly as both organizations knew that in reality, WE are the agenda. We shared a willingness to stop to address anything that emerges. Period. No matter how beautiful our plan.

Two days before we began, I received the email that could have subverted our partnership (which I described in an earlier blog). We needed to adjust our agenda, freeing up time to open up what had happened within both the Joint Leadership team and the Wisdom & Money Board.

Back to the drawing board. Through conversations, phone calls and creativity we combined a few sections and shortened another. While it was true that some of the topics we had hoped to cover would have to wait, we were willing to take a risk to see if a potential rupture could be transformed in ways that would strengthen our partnership.

That is the work that we do. Even if it means changing the agenda on the fly. I’m learning not to panic, but to step into the next unknown with agility.

By the time we gathered for the closing of our Trailblazing Boards of Directors meeting, our agenda had transformed into something extraordinary that defies easy explanation—truly an Alchemy of Spirit.

All thirty-five of us felt the magic we had created together. We headed home having experienced the power of effective and sustainable partnerships.

The twirling of Spirit toward justice, equity and transformation is happening around the globe, including in our midst last February at the Stone Mountain Inn. On land where the Ku Klux Klan ignited racial hatred and burned crosses of terror for forty years, we gathered together across all our differences, and the Spirit fanned the flames of transformation within our partnership.

Powerful as our week together was, however, a meeting alone isn’t enough.

Sustaining the partnership we experienced requires a commitment by the individuals and organizations to keep aligning our values and actions. Every moment. For every person. No matter how hard we worked on the agenda. Partnership means we have each other’s backs as we individually and collectively walk out of the addictions in our culture that are caught in generations of injustice, disrespect and inequality.

It takes time. It requires risk.

I look forward to the day when I can tell Danny about the wonders of the work that started long before he was born that will support the world he will one day inherit. When he hears these stories, I hope he still has enough of his child-like delight to throw up his hands with me in awe at what is slowly turning in our midst.

Looking ahead to our next joint organizational program offering, we’re in the process of creating a training centered around a core practice of both organizations—the Be Present Empowerment Model—and two additional two core practices of Wisdom & Money—Wisdom/Contemplative prayer practices and money practices. We are exploring using a format developed by Be Present—an 18-month training where we gather for a long weekend quarterly followed by an open conference where we share our learnings. We are in the midst of the early stages of planning, but this part we know: our Trailblazing Training in the Boston area will begin in 2020. Stay tuned.

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Blazing New Trails: Why Blaze Together?

11 Juneau, Alaska May 2015This 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 itpath 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 bookoften 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.

 

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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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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:

Daniel Gunner Thurston
4 months old
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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.