Reimagine. Rediscover. Recreate.

I recent read this article and loved it so much, I simply wanted to share . . .

Accompaniment, particularly with communities that have experienced the trauma of oppression and marginalization, is a process that starts by acknowledging the full humanity and dignity of the people we want to accompany. Recognizing (a.k.a. reorganizing our cognition) that there are systems of power, ideas, policies, beliefs, and attitudes that dehumanize some and privilege others is needed if we want to be able to join in the efforts of a community to transform its complex history and context. Accompaniment demands creating and holding the conditions for a dialogue among equals. We are challenged to suspend the certainty of our knowledge or expertise if we are to be open to listen, learn, and follow the leadership (information, knowledge, and wisdom) of those who are expert survivors of the reality we want to transform.

Accompaniment has a concrete material dimension of taking time and making an effort to displace ourselves and go meet people where they are. This means getting out of our comfort zone, walking to the encounter of “the other,” and making ourselves vulnerable to be challenged by them and their reality. In my experience working in Chiapas, Nicaragua, and central Mexico, this literally meant walking for hours, sometimes getting stuck in the mud and rain and getting so tired that you started asking yourself what you were thinking when you chose to do this! Accompaniment often means being pushed to your physical and emotional limits, but at the end of this effort the joy of having arrived at a community where you can eat, talk, and pray together is a reward and a reminder of why we started the journey, providing nourishment to begin again and work for a new day.

Accompaniment also has a temporal aspect. For trust (confianza) to develop, one must invest in the process and commit to continuity, often over many years, even decades. It also demands a high level of communication and synchronization, not just moving but moving together, with a shared rhythm (not unlike accompanying someone with the guitar and the piano—being on the same song and page). This means being willing to let go of privilege and control and accepting that someone else, namely, those who are more directly affected by the issues we are working on, are the ones who must take the leading voice. Accompaniment is never about parachuting in to save “the other.” It is not about discovering an issue, problem, or community, and then colonizing it, jumping to propose solutions that reduce the people to a problem without asking for their own definition of the problem or their ideas for solutions. It is rather always about sharing power, risks, and resources so that together we can heal, grow, and thrive.

Francisco Argüelles Paz Y Puente

Argüelles Paz Y Puenta, Francisco.  “We are Never Alone:  Some Thoughts on Accompaniment”, Comment Magazine, October 17, 2019

I used to begin every staff meeting with this question; but like most habits, circumstances and people changed causing me to forget about this question. In a post-covid world where I am desperately trying to keep some of the routines I gained and want to keep alongside the frantic demands of a schedule that requires multi-tasking to an unhealthy degree; I have decided it is time for this question to make a come back.

I heard someone say this past week that the dance of humanity is the interplay between necessity and possibility.

The inherent question is what is a necessity? (my wife and I frequently have this conversation!) And what space, time and energy to we give to the events, conversations, and activities that open us up to new possibilities?

The ability to build capacity – to give possibilities a chance – while attending to the necessities is a balance I feel I am constantly learning.

Without question, it involve a choice. For a period in my life, I was an avid marathoner. I finally stopped because the training required transformed my running from a “want-to” to a “have-to”, and my life couldn’t handle any more “have-to’s”.

I like living with possibilities, and so I will ask the question: are we busy about the right things?

One of the most memorable educational experiences of my life occurred at a workshop on jazz music, during which the presenters explained that jazz was classical music with improvisation.  Like most other young teenage boys, I had no love for classical music; but since I have always loved jazz, my mind was blown.  

The presenters explained the importance of knowing the rules, rubrics, laws and forms so well, that you are able to springboard from them to create something new.  This concept, they explained applies to music just as much as it applies to everything else that you do.  Know something so well, that you understand how to create something new that stands on its own. 

I recently read an interview that featured an excerpt from a conversation between a jazz musician and an activist speaking about innovation from their respective experiences.  The line that struck me was, “Innovation is not to get rid of something by simply getting rid of it, or by turning something around.  Innovation is to continue something that is indispensable.”^[1]

Innovation is a word that needs innovating.  It has become tired and overused.  I am not going to propose a new word, but rather propose a concept that may give us a means to reframe our thoughts about it.  

Innovation is not about creating something new.  Innovation is about rediscovering something that is already there and allowing it to evolve in a manner that we did not previously conceive or experience.  Innovation is about knowing something so well, that you know how to manipulate, all or a portion of it, so that it can stand on its own in the face of new circumstances.  

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^[1] Jacobs, Alan.  “The Blues Idiom at Church:  Recovering the Wisdom of Albert Murray.” Comment Magazine. Vol 41, No. 1 Spring 2023

In the wake of Georgia’s new voter laws, we have witnessed a number of corporations make public statements with boycotts and relocations of events.  Politicians have all weighed in, most notably Mitch McConnell and Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, who while responding to questions from a news correspondent, said the following: 

Mitch McConnell voiced his own frustration, stating, “So my warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics. It’s not what you’re designed for. And don’t be intimidated by the left into taking up causes that put you right in the middle of one of America’s greatest political debates.”^[2]

Today, it is not religion or government, but private corporations that bear the responsibility for the common good.

To be fair to McConnell, he has since stepped back his comments; nevertheless, all of it has brought an important issue to the forefront: “Who is responsible for the Common Good?” That is, who should take the lead, call into question, and even demand change?  

In an ideal world, we all share a responsibility; however, in reality, the answer lies with those who have the most power – which differs depending on where you live.

Rather than allow it to remain vague, I believe it is helpful, and even necessary, to know where to look.  It isn’t enough to need a leader, that leader has to accept the responsibility and let it be known they are willing to stand out in front.  

In the United States, that leader is the private corporation; and should we be willing to recognize it, they actually do set themselves apart as the entities with the most power (though not all have realized their full potential for caring for the common good.)

Centuries ago, this responsibility for the common good was held by churches and religion, which was symbolized by the physical structures that towered over the people below.  Some centuries later, it was government buildings that were the largest and most grandiose, signifying that they had the power to care for the common good. Today (again, not in all countries), it is the private corporations who reside is massive skyscrapers that set themselves apart as the most powerful and influential. In a given city, you can even see the industry with the most influence as they will occupy the largest and greatest concentration of buildings.  In Houston, it is oil and gas along with medical; in Detroit, it is automotive; New York – Finance; Vegas – Casinos; and so on. . . 

For better and worse, our corporations have the power to care for others – our very skylines symbolize their ability to rise above the rest. It is high time that they use that power to care for those who need caring, and speak for those who otherwise have no voice.

To be sure, corporations are flawed leaders, but no more flawed than religion or government has been when they leveraged a similar power. Just as they did, so can corporations champion the common good even while they themselves require just as much scrutiny. This is why, in the United States, the non-profit sector is so important, because they work in tandem with for profit organizations and individuals to guide their actions and champion causes on their behalf. When working at their best, non-profits are a collaborative arm with our corporations stepping into the fray when government and religion cannot.

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^[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/media/546802-jen-psaki-refutes-fox-news-reporter-on-claim-colorado-and-georgias-voting-laws

^[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mcconnell-warns-corporate-america-stay-out-politics-says-donations-are-n1263173

For the longest time, we have been wearing a mask. Not the masks we have worn for the past year, though I will admit that it does feel like “for the longest time.” No, these are the masks not seen, or perhaps even felt that have offered the world an illusion to our own convictions. They are the masks of our sinfulness – the communal and individual failures to see each other in the likeness of God. We have given words to love and inclusion without meaning them.  We have smiled over our anger, and glazed our eyes to the biases we hold.

For all of its horror, Covid has offered a silver-lined reckoning, for we have been forced to acknowledge our masks by physically wearing them. And now we see the mask for what it is. We have seen our racism; our division; our hate; our demand for superiority, winners and losers; our pride; and our greed. We have had to repent for those masks, in the truest sense – by collectively wearing one so that we may acknowledge what we otherwise would not.

In the season when we are reminded that “we are dust and to dust we shall return”, we are humbled by a virus even smaller than that speck of dust. It has forced us to reconcile who we really are, and challenged us to live differently.

There is so much talk about where we go from here, but we know this – that we cannot return to what once was. When we finally take our masks off, we will have to remove more than one. When we finally feel the breath of life we share, that breath will be different. Could this be the ‘happy fault’ of this moment? Undoubtedly, we have removed the veil of racism, and the inequities that have existed under illusions of progress. As we have worn one mask, we have been forced to admit to many others we have been wearing for far too long.  But i cannot help but wonder if we are ready to see and hear our world, and all that dwells herein, for what and who we are without our masks?

If you had to name a book that just stays with you. . . one that you keep referring to over and over again – what would it be?  Mine is “What Should I do with my Life?” by Po Bronson. It is a collection of stories about people who decided to make a change in their life – most of them later in life.  

I remember when I first picked it up, I put it down. I wasn’t ready to read those kinds of stories because I felt stuck and could follow the advice they offered.  

Most people don’t want to accept their potential.  It hints of an accompanying responsibility to live up to that potential.  Acknowledging your potential is setting yourself up to be criticized for being willing to stand out, and nobody want to be laughed at.  That fear holds us back for a long time. – Bronson

I did not pick the book back up for several years, but when I did, I devoured it. I even invited the college students on the campus where I worked to read it with me as part of a book club experience.  As I do with many of the books I know I will reference later, I retyped all of my underlined sections so that I could access the words and wisdom more readily.

What happens when we start asking about the best-case scenario?

Admittedly, my life has been filled with change. A lot of it. Some of it has been received, some of it self-inflicted. Through it all, the words in Bronson’s book have kept me honest about why the change is necessary.  

In the adult world, the inevitable cocktail question is “What do you do?”  Most people hate that question because it seems to limit our person.  But it does serve a valuable purpose:  the question is how we hold ourselves accountable to the opportunity we are given. . . . A lot of people like to solve problems, but not many are willing to devote themselves to problems. . . It is okay not to have an answer, but it is not okay to stop looking for one. . . However, most of us look externally.  We look everywhere for the answer except inside ourselves, because there is a scary place.  There, we have no accolades and recognitions for achievement.  – Bronson

These days, everyone is talking about the need for change. Even in my own organization, people say that they are excited and ready, but there is a tone. . . In the whitespace between the words and in the silent pauses between the ideas, there is a tone that remains skeptical. We want change, but we are not sure it will be worth the work and the heartache.

What does it take for you to be unsatisfied with what you already know?  What is the motivation that finally moves you to what might be possible?  

Of the many things I have learned, it is that people really do prefer the devil they know more than the God they don’t. We allow our imagination to create a reality of worst-case scenarios rather than best-case ones.

What is possible? What is the best-case scenario? Change is the only way you can find out. 

This past week, I heard a question that struck a cord: “What is your silver spoon?” That is to say, what is the privilege with which you were born? 

I like the question because it recognizes that we all have at least one or two tools in our toolbox that give us an advantage – the trick is knowing what they are and how to utilize them. I also liked the question because it was asked by a person who one would not think to have much privilege, and yet they recognized that they did – at least a little.  Lastly, I like the question because it speaks to two philosophies I try to live in my life:  to see the good before the bad; the opportunity before the difficulty, and to focus on the question more than the answer. 

What is your silver spoon? 

. . . I thought mine was originally plastic. 

I grew up with a mother with Lupus. Of course, we knew less back then, so she was often so sick she couldn’t get out of bed. Since dad worked on the other side of town, beginning in about second grade, I came home with my brother to help take care of mom. There was an immediate positive:  mom was home. Always home. I had someone to talk to and someone who waited for me to tell her about my day.  But it also meant that while my friends were out playing, I had to help manage a house at a very young age. 

Aside from knowing how to do just about everything on the domestic agenda, I learned compassion. I learned what it meant to care for other people; to live as a servant – in best sense of the word. 

Yet none of that was really my silver spoon. My real silver spoon was that my brother and I were both treated as an equal member of the family. Sure mom and dad had the final say, but I remember a great many “family meetings” when we were all asked our thoughts and could voice concerns and solutions. Our family was a team, because it was the only way we would live the lives we all wanted and needed to live. 

Many years later, my silver spoon has helped me live as a servant leader and collaborator extraordinaire.  I often have a place in the hierarchy, but I just don’t think that way. 

I find myself frequently thinking about that gift, or silver spoon, which my parents gave me, as I watch the events of my world and life unfold. We have depended on power structures, hierarchical models and command and control leadership models for a very long time. As they begin to fail, we are asked to move forward with a different kind of motivation – one based on influence and desire more than power and fear of punishment. 

Perhaps it helps to think about our own silver spoons?  What is the privilege we received that now be shared with others?  

These days, I keep thinking about all the anger that seems to exist around us – where it goes and how people find their peace? I have circled around a lot of ideas, though mostly about the pain that people currently endure. 

I once read that individualism is the great protestant heresy. It is a harsh line, but I have always believed it to be true. This individualism, spurred by the religious convictions that have shaped the American ethos, has created the chasm that is now the Divided States of America. The rich have indeed gotten much richer, and the poor have gotten much poorer. As the images of the rioters in the Capitol continue to roll through my mind, it is the poor that I see. 

How can a person heal their anger if they are in a crisis?

What we are seeing unfold before us is not simply an expression of emotion, but an expression of economics. Thus the solution, perhaps, is first an economic path that gives people the peace of mind that they will be okay. Once the personal crisis has been alleviated, then it seems we can begin to appeal to their better angels. 

In my work, I have watched what happens when people are down to their last cents with no relief on the horizon. There is a level of desperation that looks a lot like the chaos on our TV’s at the Capitol. This is the consequence of the individualistic economic policies of the last few decades. This is the consequence of the greed that has been lifted up by our President. Both in action and word, he has told people they should be rich; and so the fact that they are not, leaves them angry. 

I understand. 

Connected to our economic woes are those associated with education, which has only been made worse in the Covid-required, virtual school. Many students have been lost and left behind without the in-person support of the school environment, which offers food, security, socialization and education. Long after a vaccine, Covid’s affects will remain, for we will have lost a population of the next generation. 

So how do we move forward?  Perhaps, it is time to rebalance our educational systems and accept that not all need a college education or an office to be successful? Thought we would never want to limit the potential of a child to perform in any environment, not all need to in order to be successful.

Allow me to work backwards:  For decades, we have taught that a college education would lead to one’s own personal success. This mentality was driven by an inherent American belief in the triumph of the individual capacity for greatness, and entitlement for those who “do good.” We have celebrated the “white-collar” and left everyone else to fend for themselves, not realizing that we were also making it harder for them to do so. Decades later, we have left people behind with little ability to claw their way out of their desperation. Like the movies we watch, they turned to a hero who they believed to be their savior. He was not, and now these people who clung so desperately to their personification of hope are now left wondering who will help them?

History is filled with so many examples of this narrative, which means history also offers them an answer: we learn to come together for the sake of each other. We admit that we need help. We prepare ourselves for change. We accept that the help will not always look like what we want, and then we begin to heal.   

Like so many others, I have watched the events unfolding in our nation’s Capitol with utter amazement. In the aftermath, I have read countless articles and perspectives about what should be done and who should be held accountable. I have heard from friends around the world who are mourning the state in which this country has found itself, with an inherent belief that the United States is supposed to be better than this.

The facts of the riots in the Capitol this past week leave me at a loss for words, but they also offer a bit of relief because they are unifying. Symbols give words to that which is otherwise too abstract or difficult to explain. The last four years have been so horrifying that it is difficult speak about. How do you tell the story? What examples do you use? Children locked up at the border; Acceptance of rape, assault and locker room talk with an understanding that boys will be boys; entitlement in place of service and selfishness depicted as a value; the empowerment of racists; the censorship of free speech; the attack of the press; the permission to discount history and remain uneducated; the celebration of behaviors that are associated with the worst bullies – the list goes on and on. . . There are just too many descriptors to the horror. 

But now we have one:  an assault on the Capitol – at the direction of the man who calls himself The President. The pictures we have seen are defining. 

Symbols bring us together – they unite us beyond words. Now this country is ready to move on. Now we see that we must move on. 

The question I have asked many times, including in this forum, is what people will do with all this anger? How will they transcend the entitlement they bear, especially if they cannot see it as such?

I wonder, if perhaps it is helpful if we begin to rethink the idea of accountability? 

This is the moment when we allow ourselves to be held accountable.

To hold someone accountable, I would like propose, should not be associated with discipline or punishment, but with celebration. We ask that people account for what they have done; and most of us try to see the good in others. As a result, we are challenged in this moment to take an accounting for what has been achieved and for the people who have risen above the fray.  These are the actions that need to claim our headlines; let our silence to the rest be our condemnation. 

Typically, most people do not like to be held accountable because they do not want to hold a mirror to their potential. This is the anger of those we have seen on our screens over last few days: the anger of what they have become, and the belief that someone else is to blame. As they punish themselves before the judgement of the world, our challenge is to hold up a light that can outshine their darkness, and hold accountable those who give us reason to celebrate. . . or as it turns out, allow ourselves to be held accountable to their actions. 

I have often said over these past four years that I do think Donald Trump will live up to his slogan of making America great again – not because of him, but in spite of him. On January 20^th, the United States will have survived the most insidious attack any democracy could endure: the elected that becomes the entitled; the president that becomes the monarch. In doing so, the United States will prove that it has the capacity for greatness. 

This is our moment when we unify to celebrate the best of us; when we lift up their example rather than the example of those who only bring us sadness and horror. It is time to move on, a little wiser than we were before. 

Patience is never an easy lesson to learn, but it does get easier with practice. I think because we grow wise enough to know that what we want at first, is usually not what we really need, or want in the end. However, we live in a world that can offer us almost anything just as soon as we want it. We no longer have to endure commercials, or songs we don’t like, or even lines at the store. Even the answers to just about all our questions are just a click away. 

Until this year. This year we have learned to wait once again. We cannot just go about our lives with the convenience they were once afforded, and it has been painful. 

The season of Advent draws to a close this week with a reflection on the words of the Angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would bear a son, as would her cousin, Elizabeth, who was thought to be barren. Mary was but a teenager while Elizabeth was well beyond her child-bearing years; yet God brought about a miracle . . . a gift outside their own preference about timing. 

I don’t think we reflect on it very much, but pregnant women are a frequent reminder to all of us that it is patience is usually an active state so that we can be prepared for what is to come. If we allow ourselves to be transformed in the waiting, then there is a newness we could never have imagined – in us, and in the lives around us. 

I thought I knew what was best, but there was something better at the end of the waiting I had not yet imagined. 

I have had my own version of this lesson many, many times. I thought I was ready. I thought I had the answers. I thought I knew what was best. But there was something better at the end of the waiting I had not yet imagined. 

I have always joked that sometimes I think God has me confused with someone else, because the line that I draw in the sand is much nearer than the one I later encounter. They say that God never gives us more than we can handle, but again. . . I wonder if I have been confused with another. 

When Gabriel first appeared to Mary, she was afraid of the news he would bring. I think we forget that part. We forget that sometimes God really does answer our prayers. 

I know of many people, including myself, who lamented about always rushing from place to place; about wanting to spend more time with the people I love; about wanting a simpler way of life; about wanting time to be able to work on the project at home that I never had enough time for. . . 

. . . and now?  

It seems God answered our prayers. 

The question is what new life will come with a new year? 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!