Category: Community
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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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Tools for Creating Greater Belonging
Belonging is an essential need for every person. And, creating greater belonging is the main ingredient for community thriving and healthy democracy. But what do we do when our ability to foster belonging reaches its limits? Or when we are frustrated with being excluded from the communities that profess to be welcoming?
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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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You Don’t Owe Jack, But Love!
Love for One Another Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor…
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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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Eye of the Be Holder
Have you ever seen a cygnet? A cygnet is a baby swan. And they are super cute. And yet, when we talk of people who blossom into a more physically beautiful being than one may have imagined, we say that they were an “ugly duckling”, based on the tale by that name created by Hans…
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Who Are You Ashamed For?
Is it possible for humans to create or invite in the possibility of a shameless society? Or, is shame an integral part of group building and maintenance, without which there would be more chaos than we currently witness? One of the most difficult things about engaging with groups is the tendency of collectives to try…
The Roofless Church 