Category: Communication
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Who Wants to Work For a World That’s Not Working With Us?
“I hate school,” says my 7-year-old almost every single day. “Oh really?” I ask with curiosity. “What do you hate about it? Tell me more,” I encourage even as I am continuing to make her food for lunch and pack her things to send her to the very place that she has just told me…
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Conversation Catalyst or Conversation Coward?
Usually I write poems or long blogs to express my thoughts. This time I drew a picture. The point of the picture—if it’s not obvious—is that I think we are at a critical moment in the world when we can choose to be #ConversationCatalysts and foster a #CollaborativeCulture or we can be #ConversationCowards and devolve…
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A Call to Restore the Balance
A bird flapping with one wing is grounded and spins in a circle going nowhere fast. – The Way
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Healing Nightmares
All of my life I have had really intense dreams, many of which are so solid feeling that when I awake, I initially can’t tell if I was dreaming or actually had the experience. Historically my dreams increase intensity until I listen. In recent weeks, l have had some really heavy ones. I am certain…
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A Conversation Among Equals: The Importance of De-ranking Conversations
The fact is that, whether we intend them to or not, most of our conversations happen in frameworks that are upheld by socially accepted ranking systems. And, when conversations happen in a context where someone holds a perceived “higher ranking”, it is virtually impossible to have the conversations we need to move our society forward…
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After Your Neighbor Calls the Police on You
Before reading this post, you may want to read the post, Before You Call the Police on Your Neighbor, to establish some context. So far every response to my blog post about someone calling the police on my family instead of knocking on my door to express their apparent concern for my dog has been…
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State of Confusion 2020
Sometimes I feel actual physical discomfort when I think about the decisions that are before our world over the next generation or so. I’m the type of person who will choose to try and see where other people are coming from almost to the degree of great emotional risk. I have listened to people of…
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The Comfort Paradox
The first time I heard the saying, “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”, it was in seminary. I heard it from a cohort leader who said it in a way that led me to believe that she made it up. She never said she made it up. But, that was her response, when I…
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Somewhere I Belong
You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great… — Maya Angelou “You don’t belong here.” For the first 5 or so minutes that this woman was talking to me, I was hoping that my short responses to her…
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Powerful Beyond Measure Part 2
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” – Marianne Williamson When I first decided to write about the full Marianne Williamson quote from which the above portion derives, I thought that it would be relatively easy. But it didn’t take long for me…
The Roofless Church 