Be Present Inc

December 23, 2013

I’d Like to Thank the Academy

My favorite part of the Academy Awards is the thank you speeches.* I love watching someone take the stage amid cheers, take a deep breath and say a big grateful wow to all the work, support, energy and heart that led to that moment.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be on an awards show, but I think now, more than ever, I need to pause and give a big grateful wow.

Our world seems to be rocking and rolling and groaning. Fear spreads like wildfire across the surface of our globe and narrow bricks wobble beneath our economic towers of Babel. But there are deeper truths and wider foundations.

And the way to find them is through gratitude.

So here’s my acceptance speech, my list of thank yous and a big, grateful wow:

* I am grateful for the perspective of the horizon, that bigger picture that contains the close up details of each day. When the rocking and rolling and groaning of the world around me get loud and crazy, I can raise my eyes to the place where heaven meets earth and remember the long term view: generations in the future who will reap the harvest I help plant today; the mystery of Spirit that transcends and infuses everything; the new sprouts that grow even as the old crumbles.

* Unable to see the path ahead on this journey of life, I am grateful for my growing courage and tr

ust to take that next step. Mary Jo Leddy’s poem sings in my heart:

“We walk on the waters of gratitude

knowing there is nothing there

trusting there will be enough

to go on.” **

* I am grateful for this flesh and blood and bone body that I was given at birth. She carries me through every day. When I slow down to notice, I feel the tingle in my feet when I am grounded, a cloud of confusion when something smells “off” and I need to pay close attention to what is happening around me or a tickle on the top of my head when something feels right on. My wise body has much to tell me every time I stop to listen.

* I am grateful for paradoxes that meet me at every turn, and keep showing up even when I fight them. Paradoxes like living personally and globally at the same time or my conflict about putting my book in an online bookstore while supporting independent bookstores (as I spoke about in this blog).

* I am deeply grateful for every one of you and to others around this globe. We were born to be in community, to work together across our diversity. When each of us contributes, we have everything we need for equity, justice, joy and creativity.

* I am grateful for my partnership with Harvest Time , Be Present, Inc. and Community Wholeness Venture where I have both received and given in one smooth, continuous motion. And for Khara Scott-Bey, illustrator for Big Topics at Midnight and the drawing above. Her creativity invites me to delight and ponder. Working together with partners like these gives me great hope for the world.

So there’s my list. If you’re in the mood to share, I’d love to read yours.

Now is the time to celebrate how far we’ve journeyed, to fan the flames of creativity and joy that fuel our sight and work, to drop to our knees with a big grateful wow, knowing, as Rumi wrote, “There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’”

Blessings to each of you as the light of 2013 fades to a close and soon gives way to the dawn of a new year.

*This was a newsletter I wrote last month. As the year nears its end, I find that gratitude fills my heart. I am posting it here for those who missed it in the avalanche of emails that filled our inboxes just after Thanksgiving.

**Leddy, Mary Jo, Radical Gratitude (New York: Orbis Books, 2002) pg 38

November 2, 2013

Fracking

How do I begin to write about something as overwhelming as fracking?

I have good reasons why I’ve been silent on paper so far. Swamped with Big Topics at Midnight and opening Big Topics Conversations. Overwhelmed whenever I remember that right now rock formations are being fractured through blasts of chemical-laden water in order to free up trapped natural gas and oil. Troubled that this is happening in gas wells where I own a .01562501 royalty interest.

What am I to do with a paradox that wide?

Sell it and walk away, clean? Just like I could give away all of my family money and walk away, clean?

What is “clean”?

If I sell it, the practice will still continue and I will still be who I am. I won’t be absolved from responsibility. One way that money has made my thinking stupid* over the years is that part of me wants to escape from my complicity in a system I disagree with by pushing away my family financial legacy. I’ve tried to do the same thing with the privilege I receive merely because my skin is white. But I am still the same me.

Don’t get me wrong. I have sold stocks and mutual funds that aren’t in alignment with my values. But something more is required here.

I first heard about fracking in 2006 when I was visiting my grandfather’s ranch on a pilgrimage back to my homeland of Texas (where I am now a partial owner of the “mineral rights” but not “surface rights”). The journey was one part of a larger pilgrimage into my ancestral history to Germany, North Carolina, Texas and, now, Oregon during the writing of Big Topics at Midnight. I set out on those trips when I realized I’d spent far too much of my life trying to cut out parts of myself that embarrassed me. Knowing that I need all of me to live the life I was born to live, I returned to the land of my family hoping to find clarity, healing and right action.

On the ranch seven years ago, I knew nothing of the actual geological impact of this drilling practice. Nevertheless, it felt to me as if fracking was cutting out huge holes in the body of Mother Earth while spewing toxic chemicals into our farmland and drinking water. As far as I could tell, fracking waste would be added to nuclear waste, piling up for future generations to deal with.

It didn’t make sense to me.

Gas prices are currently low. If we frack now, what will happen when high prices tempt us?

Is there no end to what humans will do to make money and exert control over the natural world? This is an escalating conquest that we won’t win.

My work is to explore and participate in the shifting of Big Topics like money, gender, race, power, justice, generational healing and soul. These topics are at the core, like the magma at the center of the Earth. Hot, molten topics. How we are in them—personally as well as in families, communities, organizations, systems, nationally, globally—is the underpinning of our decision making and values. My focus is rightly there.

Yet I can’t ignore fracking. It is hurting our shared homeland. In addition, it is part of the flow of money that pays my bills, funded the writing and now marketing of Big Topics at Midnight, finances my travels to open these conversations and is the source of my financial support of three organizations dear to my heart—Be Present, Inc., Wisdom & Money, and Community Wholeness Venture.

My work continues. Fracking continues. There are only so many hours in a day. I continue my spiritual practice of standing in partnership with a diversity of people right in the midst of the deep gaps that cut through our world.

Giving words to this hot topic is the next step on my journey. I’m listening for guidance about the following step.

* I play with the ways that “Money Made [my husband] Howard Stupid” in Big Topics at Midnight, page 241 after he made that comment about himself. From time to time, money has indeed made Howard’s and my thinking stupid. The important thing is how we work with that before it translates into stupid actions.

October 25, 2013

Little Topics in Wild Times

Life seems wooly and wild these days. Friends in crisis—financial and otherwise. Political polarity. It feels like the earth is shaking under our feet and the waves are crashing at the shores of our lives.

I believe we are in a transition toward a new paradigm that is better than the old, but my question today is how to stand in a time when the old is crumbling but I can’t yet see the future. As summer fades into autumn, I feel drawn to the small details of life.

The bright red leaves on a few trees.

The scurrying squirrels gathering nuts.

My sit-bones as I sit in the chair.

The sounds of birds or scraping as the neighbors clean their grill in preparation for a barbeque dinner.

Noticing these little details of life helps keep me grounded as I learn how to ride the wild shifts and participate in Big Topics Conversations. As we leave the blue moon and August behind, I want to feast on the abundance of delights that are all around me when I stop long enough to notice.

Rummaging through my computer, I came across this short piece (slightly updated) that I wrote for Jen Violi’s September 12, 2012 newsletter. Jen is a writer and book coach extraordinaire.

When I wrote those words I was just beginning my journey walking out into the world with Big Topics at Midnight. Much has happened since then, but the wild and wooly times continue. Before I dive back into preparation for my role at November’s Be Present, Inc.‘s upcoming event “Moving Forward in Action: Collective Leadership and Social Justice,” exploring “The Role of Collective Leadership in Community Organizing and Public Policy”–a rather big topic conversation–I stop to appreciate the flickering of the candle beside my computer and the brilliant orange and yellow leaves outside my window.

Photograph by Brenda Wills.

October 9, 2013

Swiss Cheese Woman

Before I can fully embrace the world’s diversity, I need to embrace myself in all of my diversity. Accepting who I am has been quite a journey. I stumble again and again. Below is an excerpt from Big Topics at Midnight where this question came into knife-sharp focus.

“I flew into Atlanta for the next session of my eighteen-month Be Present training on the issues of Race, Gender, Power & Class. Each time I arrived in Atlanta, Kate Lillis picked me up. On the drive across town, we’d catch up on our families and lives, continue to build our relatively new friendship and get to know each other. Just as we pulled up into her driveway, Kate turned and asked me, ‘Where did you grow up?’ ‘Texas,’ I snorted with disgust. The harsh tone of my voice surprised me, but I was too excited to be in Atlanta with Kate to give it any more thought. Until later.

Alone, snuggled under the covers in Kate and Lillie’s guest room, my body was tired, but my mind was wide-awake. I’d loved growing up in Texas, but my world expanded after I moved away at twenty-three. Year by year, I’d broadened my understanding of life. Simultaneously, I grew more self-conscious about my narrow childhood perspective, packaged in Texas-sized confidence.

Almost thirty years after I’d moved away from the land of my birth, under the covers in Kate’s home, I was horrified to realize I’d spent many of those years trying to cut out the Texan parts of me. Around midnight, I also recognized a larger pattern: I’d long been trying to extricate other parts of myself as well.

When I finally noticed that we had more money than many, I was embarrassed by my family’s upper-middle class and, later, upper class status. For a time, I wanted to give my family money away, not wanting to be wealthy in a world where so many had so little. Simultaneously, I wanted to keep all of the options that money gave me.

Likewise, I had recently realized how white my world had always been. As I heard story after story of experiences and perspectives of people with darker shades of skin, I wanted to rip off my white skin and the white-colored glasses that had kept me unaware of signs of racism during childhood and into my adult years.

The glow from the streetlight gave the room an eerie light as I considered other parts of myself that had faced the knife. It wasn’t easy for me to admit being a Christian, either. Jesus didn’t embarrass me, but far too many Christians did. Too often the radical heart of the faith was usurped by traditional US cultural values.

As a strong girl turned woman, I thought I’d avoided sexism. In the dark of night I realized that I’d been largely unaware of the ways I’d absorbed patriarchal beliefs throughout my life. I’d grown to respect my use of reason and logic—the skills honored in my family—and ignored my subtler intuition, gut and heart. I’d slipped unaware into the patriarchal way of valuing only one part of me. In addition, I was disgusted that it took over thirty years for me to discover how slowly liberation had come to my home state—married Texan women didn’t even have full legal rights until the late 1960s.

I felt full of holes, like a hunk of Swiss cheese. So much of who I was brought me shame. Projecting that onto Texas and onto the United States of America at the height of her world power, I tried to increase the distance between myself and the culturally affirmed values I no longer accepted.

Were these holes I’d cut out of myself destined to remain empty forever?”

No, I didn’t remain full of holes. Waking up not only extended the edges of my neighborhood, but it also helped me find my way back home to myself.

In January, I will return to a Be Present National Training Institute on Race, Gender, Power & Class, this time in California as one of the leadership team. This training has been key for me to find my way back home to myself and at home in the diverse world around me. I hope you’ll consider joining me.

*Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself (Portland: Rosegate Press, 2012) page 238, 239.

June 25, 2013

A Year With Big Topics at Midnight

Big Topics at Midnight and I stepped out into the world together under last August’s Blue Moon in Portland, Oregon. Yesterday, the two of us juggled justice, soul and our world with thirty amazing people in Littleton, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of June’s full moon. In between these two events, we’ve been opening conversations together in Redwood City, Atlanta, Oakland, Portland, Washington DC, Eastern Shore Virginia, Burlingame, Newport, Toronto, New York City –sixteen different events in seven US states and one Canadian province.

After seven years of the intimacy of writing, where the book and I were hard to separate, Big Topics at Midnight was born into the world. She didn’t feel like a baby, more like a teenager who had her own thoughts and her own life but still wanted me to stick around, not too close but always ready to pay for her adventures.

The only trouble was that I knew more about writing than I did about marketing. Websites and blogs, YouTubes and interviews, Facebook and Ebooks, reviews and events… the list of things to learn seemed endless while time had very demanding limits. I’ve felt incompetent more times than I care to admit, only to have it shift to amazement that I could learn more than I ever thought possible.

The first few months of our outside-my-writing-studio-work were filled with a critical question—what am I trying to do with Big Topics at Midnight? Is my focus selling books? Am I opening conversations?

I am obviously trying to sell books. I didn’t order 1,000 all for myself. Since a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the books is split between three organizations dear to my heart—Be Present, Inc., Harvest Time and Community Wholeness Venture—I want to sell as many books as possible.

My primary interest, however, is to open the conversations. A few of the questions that have guided these “book events” are as follows:

How might waking up to your own heart radically transform your life?

How might waking up to injustice bring you to the front lines of this ripe moment in history?

Before us: ancestors. After us: generations yet unborn. How is your life impacted by a context that wide?

Parents warned us to avoid hot topics in polite conversation. Now, our silence is harming our earth, relationships and souls. Are you ready to speak?

The world churns as the old ways crumble. In the midst of it all, we long for justice and our hearts yearn to guide the way. Are you ready to exploring life lived in the midst of such a wide paradox?

The Spirit of giving? Simple. The process of giving? Complicated. Justice demands thoughtful attention.

These book events were are offered to facilitate people jumping from my story into their own lives. My hope was that we’d catch a glimpse of how together we can wake up and live more boldly, knowing that everyone, even our enemies, is our neighbor. Our ancestors at our back and generations yet unborn are encouraging us, calling us, pushing us into the dance of life that is just and filled with soul right in the middle of the gaps that divide us.

None of us has to do it all. Workaholism and striving for perfection are part of the problem. The divisions are deep. Hard work is involved, but so is delight and joy. Generations yet unborn are waiting for us all to fully engage in the dance of life.

Last July was spent with final editing and waiting. With the book at Sheridan Printers, I had a month to contemplate what lay ahead. Now I return to a month of slowing down and listening deeply. What does the upcoming year hold for Big Topics and me?

I don’t know. But I am eager to find out.

November 17, 2012

Midnight is No Time to Secede

Twenty-five thousand Texans have signed a petition to peacefully secede from the United States of America. I understand. I’ve spent much of my life trying inwardly to secede from places and groups (including Texas) that I didn’t agree with.

In the middle of writing Big Topics at Midnight I realized how much energy I’d spent trying to distance myself from parts of me or my world that embarrassed me—my wealth, white skin, cultural Christianity, patriarchy and even Texas. I wrote about this struggle in Big Topics at Midnight:

“When I finally noticed that we had more money than many, I was embarrassed by my family’s upper-middle class and, later, upper class status. For a time, I wanted to give my family money away, not wanting to be wealthy in a world where so many had so little. Simultaneously, I wanted to keep all of the options that money gave me.

A few Texans want to secede from the union just as I wanted to secede from Texas. When I finally woke up, I realized that this separation was in direct conflict with my heart, faith and values of living in harmony within our global neighborhood. The only way I could live a just life in our diverse world was to first accept the diversity that is me. Not blindly. Not trying to pretend that nothing is amiss in our world. But consciously, with open eyes.

We don’t have the luxury to cut and bail whenever we don’t agree. Our hurting world is teetering too close to midnight for that. We will all thrive together or crash together on this one planet we share. I am a Texan. Texans are Americans. Our world depends on us learning how to get freed from the “distress [and separation] of our oppression and to listen to each other in a present and conscious manner.”²

The time to run away with our toys and hide out with others like us has come to an end. And really, the world is a fascinating playground if we can do the work to “build effective relationships and sustain true alliances.”³

Big Topics at Midnight, pages 238-239
Be Present Empowerment Model, realms 1 and 2
Be Present Empowerment Model, realm 3