Tag: Be Present Inc

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A Vision Realized: Journey to a Vision

This blog started as a letter that took an unexpected turn. This is now the first in a blog series about my journey to a vision realized: the building of effective and sustainable partnerships across our human diversity right in the middle of this time of global divisions.  In this first blog of the series, I’m starting with my own journey from a spark of vision that stopped me in my tracks…and hasn’t dimmed for the intervening 36 years.

When I was around 30 I attended what I thought was  a simple weekend workshop sponsored by my church. By the I returned home, I’d caught sight of a vision that has illumined my path ever since. I saw myself, and you, as one part of our global family. I saw how the flow of money in my own life and in my nation’s commerce affects that global family. Given that, I understood that I had a responsibility to participate in money’s movement in a way that was in alignment with my love and respect for (global) family values and this earth, our fragile island home.  I saw how our global family and the flow of money are intimately woven into my faith. For me, life itself is a Spirit walk.

Khara Scott-Bey*

The vision was clear. The life I longed to live, the world I longed to be part of, was clear. But was it possible? Here? Now? Could I release my fears and my hyper-sense of responsibility and step into this vision? Would I be able to find others also longing to live in the midst of such an audacious vision? Was this possible in the middle of the beauty and mess, the love and the injustice that I could see inside myself and in the world around me?

My quest was to find answers to these questions.

It has been both a rocky and beautiful journey. Again and again, I slipped back into old habits of not trusting myself and going silent when I needed to speak. Again and again, in groups and organizations with beautiful missions and vision, I was disappointed when difficult times were met with old  patterns of traditional hierarchy or “best” (corporate) practices. I was afraid the beautiful vision both for myself and for community inside of organizations was impossible.

I was deep in this search in 2001 when my father died, and my half of my family’s financial inheritance flowed to me. Within 6 months of his death, I stepped into Be Present™ and Harvest Time (now called Wisdom & Money). In both organizations, I saw the alignment I was seeking in my own personal life embodied in an institution and a community that I hoped would support my vision of personal and cultural shift.

Could what I experienced in these two organizations be built on a foundation strong enough to hold the commitment to love and justice even in the hard times?

I stayed to see for myself.

Mind you, from many perspectives, these organizations were very different. Be Present was founded by an African American woman gathering with other Black women and girls while holding a vision that included everyone. By the time I stepped in, this work held EVERYONE—across diversity in age, race, class, gender, gender-identity.  For the first time in my life, I was in a community that looked like the world family I’d glimpsed at 30. Was it possible to build community across such vast diversity right in the middle of a world that was still divided? Could it hold when things got tough?

I stayed to see for myself.

Harvest Time/now called Wisdom & Money was founded by a white man who gathered together self-identified wealthy, and predominantly white, Christians. I stepped into this organization with a great deal of trust as Harvest Time was born out of the cross-class organization that hosted the retreat where I had my 30-year-old awakening vision. Harvest Time was formed to shift the focus of the ministry to people of wealth or from a culture of wealth.

I didn’t self-identify as wealthy until my father’s death and the subsequent inheritance. Since I’d had a powerful history with this organization, I immediately sought out Harvest Time to get the next level of support I needed to “engage with money as a doorway to spiritual transformation at the personal, communal and systemic levels.”** I knew that transformation of wealthy people like me was one part of a larger movement of economic justice that included everyone.

I stayed and watched and learned so much from both organizations.

Then a crisis hit at Harvest Time. The powerful vision remained, but the way forward was hard to see. I panicked, fearful that the powerful transformative work would be lost. I was afraid that yet another fabulous organization wouldn’t be able to stay within its beautiful vision in times of trouble.

But I’d glimpsed another possibility in my few years with Be Present. I knew there was a practice and support powerful enough to guide Harvest Time back into her own light. My mantra, that I repeated over and over again, was, “It doesn’t have to be this hard!”

Finally, Harvest Time reached out to Be Present, first as consultants and later as true partners. Be Present offered Harvest Time a missing practice—the Be Present Empowerment Model™. This model for personal and organizational effectiveness and sustainability helped Harvest Time/now Wisdom & Money navigate the crisis in a way that was in full integrity with the vision and mission. Instead of destroying, the crisis left us stronger.

Be Present found in Harvest Time/Wisdom & Money a partner organization audacious enough to dive right into the middle of wealth and faith and willing to stay in the journey with integrity.

My vision was not only possible,  but I am now living right in the middle of it.

The collaboration between these two organization has grown step by step. Together we participated in a 9-year process of working collaboratively with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to give away a family farm in Mississippi. Two years ago, we held a joint Board of Directors meeting working in partnership to design and carry out the agenda. Following the board meeting, we held a Transformative Philanthropy Workshop using practices from both organizations.

The journey of partnership between these two organizations has required a simultaneous journey inward. The one thing I bring to each organization and the partnership between them is myself. It is clear that this realized vision also requires me to wake up to, then shift, the ways I have been participating in the very injustice and disrespect that I seek to shift in the culture around me. A glimpse into that process will be the topic of the second in this Vision Realized blog series.

*All of these illustrations are by Khara Scott-Bey, and all but the first one are from Big Topics at Midnight.

**From Wisdom & Money’s Mission statement.

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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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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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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.

 

 

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From “Shut Up and Follow” to “Step Up and Lead”

There was a voice in my head that told me to shut up and follow. It was finally loud enough that I took notice when, during a cross-class Bible study on Jesus, Faith and Money, it bellowed inside me, “Why do you—a white, wealthy woman—think anyone could benefit from your ‘privileged’ perspective?” I shut up.

There are lots of variations on this theme within the social justice movement. Men need to shut up and follow. White men in particular. And wealthy folks.

There is a certain logic in this thinking. For 6,000 years, patriarchy has upheld men and the masculine as ideal, while deeming women and the feminine as subservient. The whole concept of whiteness was conjured up around 1790 to give power to people with light colored, “white” skin (as long as they weren’t southern Italian or Irish or Jewish). The current demand by some in the social justice movement toward those with cultural power and access to shut up and follow, many would assert, is merely a desperately needed rebalancing.

But, for me, this logic breaks down quickly. At this moment of deep divides, both ancestral and current, we need everyone to stand up and step into the fullness of their leadership. The only way out of this mess is through the full, creative thinking and perspective of all of us.

That does not, however, mean that people like me can lead, unconscious of our assumptions of the “right” (i.e. “white cultural”) way of taking charge.

Collaborative leadership that includes everyone demands that each of us takes a level of personal responsibility that is rare in our culture. This requires a process of unlearning and learning anew that requires conscious awareness of ourselves, and sharpening our skills for working collectively within diverse partnerships.

I wrote Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Gender, Power and Class because I understood two things. First, my family’s white skin let us settle into a white-centered view of the world without any conscious awareness of that privilege. In the writing, I sorted through assumptions and perspectives to see what things were true, what things held only part of the truth and what was completely false and out of alignment with my values. Second, I realized that I’d been almost exclusively raised with the white male perspective of history and current events.

The “silencing myself ah-ha” in the middle of my Bible Study class led me to the work of Be Present, Inc. There I learned a model that has been invaluable in waking up to both the injustice woven into the middle of our culture and into the edges of my mind.

This model, called the Be Present Empowerment Model, was birthed through the leadership of Black Women with a vision for a world not constrained to the injustices they had experienced but rather a vision of the playground of life where all are welcome to bring our full, creative selves.

Here are a few of my learnings along the path from “shut up” to “step up.”

I need to take the risk to step in to conversations with as much integrity and justice as I can muster, and the humility to admit it and change when I stumble.

I need to release my assumptions that the world has worked for everyone the same way it worked for me, and really listen with openness to other’s experiences.

I need to slow-down awkward moments in my interactions so I can take responsibility to know what is true about me—even when I don’t like what I see—and what is an inaccurate assumption.

In conversation, I need to listen to myself—those powerful inner voices—to see when I am listening more to myself than to the other person and when my mind begins to shape what I assume I am hearing.

And I need to show up with my sight as one sight among many. We need to hear the beautiful diversity of everyone’s perspective, including mine.

It takes partnership with others for me to “step up” as much ease as possible. Someone to help me remember the goodness of my heart when I stumble. Someone to stop me when my behavior smells like it might be tainted with the very injustice I am working to shift—even when I am in public and embarrassed that I “got caught.” Someone to help me keep my sense of humor.

While “shut-up and follow” might seem logical from one perspective, at this moment in history our world needs all of us to “step up and lead” as one part of the global collective.

This is the 25th year of Be Present, Inc. In honor of that anniversary, I’ve been pondering my learnings over the 15 years I’ve been part of the network. I’ll be flying to Atlanta the first week of November where I am part of the leadership for Be Present’s National Network Convening and 25th Anniversary Fundraiser. I invite you to join me in supporting this groundbreaking work by making a donation to Be Present, Inc.