tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83004828358342413292024-03-13T16:28:30.838-07:00The EDGEMy thoughts, reflections and learnings as I attempt to shift perspectives and challenge what I have assumed to be the "right" way. Join me as I Explore, Discover, Grow and Experience.
Welcome to The EDGE - the place where complexity and fatigue meets clarity and fresh perspectives.Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-49413681696222088472020-05-03T11:47:00.005-07:002020-05-03T11:47:51.607-07:00The Food of Life<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="3g3ol" data-offset-key="7c9ih-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: #242526; color: #e4e6eb; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another wonderful, disorienting day during the Coronavirus epidemic and I find myself sorting through my cookbooks and old recipes to remind myself of exactly how to make “Cora’s peach cobbler”. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="crvg7-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">That’s what I named it. A delicious dish, true, but for also symbolic of the person and times that brought this wonderful treat into my life and all that I gained from that seminal exchange. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="631dn-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">These last few months, being bottled up indoors has simultaneously released in me an ability to journey through past present and future realms. Today was no exception as I sorted through my recipes in their myriad forms (always one to seize the moment, I have them documented on note pads, typing paper, napkins, paper plates, old work stationery, and even parchment paper). In my sorting, I found much more than ingredients, proportions and words. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In my sorting, I relived and revived my life through</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6un9b-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Mr. Brown’s Rice Pudding (circa 1981), the only one Eric liked! I am sure I spend the first 20 years of my marriage (when I was a much more “active” chef), trying to replicate a dish even half as good</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="99bfn-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Daddy’s rendition of Mommy’s Carrot Cake (circa 2002), which he signed and dated as mom dictated (“Van S. Bird, Easter Even, March 30, 2002”). This one fills me with mystery. First, religious scholars, what is “Easter Even”? And where was I that Daddy acted as secretary?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="19qv5-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Zadisha’s healthy food guide (circa 2010) on all things fish and veggies, arriving after I shared the inevitable challenges of an aging body </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7eqnl-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Lavelle’s strawberry truffle (circa 2003), my hair stylist, who lived his life all the way, all the time, with all of himself</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="adud7-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Aunt May’s Shrimp Calypso (circa 1998) - clearly copped on my then employer’s dime as its captured on work letterhead - that is my go-to for the wok and big crowds </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dhdce-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Essence’s All-Purpose carrot cake (circa 1992), to place on my dear sister’s table, cut from a magazine and with a little Lionel Richie “on the side”</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b1p7n-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Dwayne’s eggnog and rum (circa 1990), jotted on the back of a paper plate (and after a lot of sips to verify its goodness) 😊</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6bab4-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Chef Joe Randall’s seafood gumbo (circa 2010), circulated during a cooking class in Savannah on a girls’ trip with five wonderful sisters </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6onsj-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Yanna’s quiche (circa 2006), a recipe provided through email in which she warns me to wait until she gets there to actually make it</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="21rb0-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• Andrea’s pine nut salad (circa 2000), which started me on my love of spinach (and pine nuts)</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="12fes-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">• The cookbooks, my favorite of which are 1) Home Economics (circa 1974), that taught me how to measure and what a braising meat meant; 2) Junior Leagues’ 80th anniversary edition, a gift from Alicia now threadbare from my experimentation; and 3) the Flying Biscuit, gifted from Phillip Rush, upon which I can claim the flakiest garlic cheese biscuits in town.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5d6s4-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">It’s over food - hummus & wine, martinis and calamari, turkey and stuffing – that we get to nourish our bodies and share the quintessential narratives of our lives. We realize anew that when we share our stories with one another, they are instantly altered by their receipt. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5jpdt-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">And like a recipe, when we share, we instantaneously get to edit the next chapter -- by moving forward, rolling back or flipping the ingredients! </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="30l6e-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">With others, our personal recipes are enriched: our feelings can be transformed into ideas and our ideas grown into visions; our parts can become wholes and our questions answered. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="br8f7-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">And our cobblers come out perfectly.</span></div>
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Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-42135498403220682282020-04-05T09:20:00.000-07:002020-04-05T09:20:47.352-07:00Constructing the post virus world: Thoughts for the sector<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In these uncertain times of Covid19, as humanity navigates
anxiety, distance, sickness and financial insecurity, our work in the social
sector is needed more than ever. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Even as
I seek ways to be helpful, I am traversing, (in my mind, while maintaining social
distance), both </span><u style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the now</u><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> and </span><u style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the next</u><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> of the crisis…and considering
the conditions that will equip us for what lies ahead.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Connection<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Amidst drastically reduced capacity and financing, the post Covid19
reality will demand more vital and creative alliances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even before Covid19, many nonprofit leaders, particularly groundbreakers
focused on driving social justice and equity, craved <i>genuine connection </i>--
authentic, sustained opportunities to talk, plan and partner together. These leaders
too often find themselves in environments of isolation and competition,
consumed by the tactical work of running a nonprofit business and its ceaseless
mandates of fundraising, operations, talent management and donor cultivation. They
know that strategic alliances and collaborative innovation are essential to
addressing the complex social problems that are the impetus of their work. Yet the
mental, physical and intellectual demands of their obligations leave them scant
time for all but superficial and competitive relationships (and unfortunately
philanthropy helps to fuel this competition-more on that in my next post). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Calibration<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Post Covid19 times will demand a recalibration of social impact.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeking to present themselves worthy of
attention and investment, nonprofits have for some time now attempted to adopt corporate
principles and buzz words - “Strategic” “Outcomes” Deliverables” among others. To
be clear, I believe that it is essential for our sector to employ data-driven
strategy and operations and to be able to articulate results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet for nonprofits, these “borrowed” terms and
their implied connotations cannot be the only and most important drivers; and the
search for acceptance and value cannot be stripped from an unrelenting stance
of equity and fairness. When engaging in community, work will not neatly
conform to business metrics: action will just as oft be <i>intuitive</i> as
strategic; implementation about the <i>process </i>as much as the outcome;
results <i>revealed </i>rather than delivered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As we move through this pandemic, we must honestly and boldly demand the
entire sector, including funders and nonprofit boards, to appreciate this
duality. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Compassion<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">To do well, we must be well. Moving forward, I
believe the first commitment we must make is to require compassion and empathy for
ourselves and others. The work of building strong, equitable communities is
hard. We can force it, fake it and make it for a while, but the sector must
also become skilled at creating nurturing, holistic environments that affirm
our role and value. Only in this environment can we establish the basis for the
novel world before us…one which requires us to be fully a</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">uthentic,
honest and straightforward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Nonprofits will be the lamp that lights community's path beyond Covid19 to our nation’s
collective metamorphosis. Now is our time to get this right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-83267420788625577292018-02-16T17:36:00.001-08:002018-02-16T17:36:30.304-08:00Life among the symbols<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #f8f8f8; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; filter: none !important; font-family: Roboto, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-shadow: none !important;">
It is the definition of exhaustion: debilitating and humiliating, to live your life in and among symbols that celebrate the belief that you are inferior, lazy, and immoral, even bestial. Buildings, streets, schools, parks and public spaces that honor men who simultaneously progressed and profited on the backs of the very ingenuity and diligence that you have persistently and resiliently deployed. Over your lifetime – and that of your great grandmother, grandmother, children and grandchildren – you learn to overlook and avoid these hurtful symbols, becoming numb or maybe compartmentalizing them in your mind as "the past," something that your own experience has by now taught you is not always pretty or deserving of remembrance. You assess your progress, your blessings and your own wonderfully diverse friends who you know don't feel that way. You ground and reground yourself by remembering that the need to subjugate you has always been driven by a fear of you and the greed of others.</div>
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This is what it feels like to go to Lee Elementary school or (Stonewall) Jackson Park, walk on Stone Mountain or sit in rooms lined with grim, framed visages of pale men who reviled you (I'll never forget when I learned the history of Joel Hurt, who built the building in which I worked for nearly 15 years. As documented in "Slavery By Another Name," by Douglas Blackmon, Hurt cavalierly built his wealth and fame on the backs of black convict labor, harshly disciplined and cruelly deprived of their most basic civil rights. I loved that building and thought (still think) it gorgeous. Yet from that point on, every click of my heel on those marble floors brought to mind the clang of chains on men who looked like my husband and brother).</div>
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Then Charlottesville happens and you're reminded that to many these symbols do in fact mean the SAME thing today as they did 200 years ago.</div>
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All sheroes and heroes are not created equal. While Lee may have been a brilliant strategist, it matters that he honed his skill by fighting to keep a nation in chains. Appreciating the fruits of men who broke ground on a new Atlanta must be reconciled with their tearing apart of families through an organized system of human chattel. </div>
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So you say "enough." Enough of avoided conversations and living surrounded by these ugly reminders and smiling through it. So you act. You speak up, cry, and march. Sometimes the emotion goes too far and you lash out destructively.</div>
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And then you are criticized for not being civil enough and adequately containing your pain. For not successfully monitoring the pent up frustration and being your most noble self. You're accused of equal responsibility, impact and intent as those who advocate the same hateful perspectives of those whose names adorn the walls and corners that shout their disdain.</div>
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It feels familiar. Blame the Victim. Deflect. Discourage. Discredit. The table's now turned. The script has flipped.</div>
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So much easier to handle.</div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-56465676069993795112016-11-20T06:13:00.000-08:002016-11-27T06:28:23.663-08:00My Two Selves<div class="s4" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.2;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s3" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.4px;">“As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are.” -Malidoma Patrice Somé (</span><span class="s6" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.4px;">Of Water and the Spirit</span><span class="s3" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.4px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I am an A</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">frican</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> American woman, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">hailing</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> from a </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">proud</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> African American family. I </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">honor daily </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">the fortitude </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">of </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">those who paved my way and who </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"></span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">sustain</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">me t</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">o this</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> day – </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">long </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">before the ships</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> that</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> delivered</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">them to </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">the </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">unholy </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">institution of slavery and its </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">subsequent </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">manifestations. We are a people</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> brim</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">ming</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> with life and love and steel</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">y </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">persistence </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">despite wounds </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">of aggression and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">wounds</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">self-afflicted</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">. We</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">persist. We hope.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> We wo</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">rk. We heal. We dance. We carry. We stand.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I carry this fortitude </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">throughout my being…</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">in my decisive walk…my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">frequent </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">smile</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">...my hands</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">-</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">which oft speak </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">more </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">eloquently</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> than my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">tongue</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">…</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">even </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">my earrings that alternately </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">frame</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> and dazzle and swing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Yet on a given day, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">you may not</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> see much or all of this</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> surety. Because</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> as </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">an African American woman in America </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I h</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">a</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">ve found </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">that when I do express </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"></span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">myself</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> – </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">or </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">too much of </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">myself</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> – my affect</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> can be </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">received</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> for superficiality, my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">passion </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">for emotion</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> and my laughter for sport. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Or worse, not received at all.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> A lifetime confirms that a</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">ll of me doesn't flow in </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">sp</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">aces that aren’t ready or accepting of my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">way </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">of being and leading, both as a woman and as an African American.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">So </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> not uncommonly opt to not give others too much "stress" by </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">cutting off </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">conversations</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> I long to have and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">actions that need response. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">When I hear words that malign my womanhood and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">clan, actions that insult my intelligence</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> and</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> assumptions that </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">belie my worth</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I pause, considering when, how and if to respond. Asking myself if it is </span><span class="s7" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">really</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">up to me to respond. Guilt</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">ing myself</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> that I am </span><span class="s7" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">indeed</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> obligated </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">to </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">respond</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">. Even sometimes rese</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">nting that I am much to often </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">the only one </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">in the room who can respond.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">And</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> for </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">those times that I don’t temper myself, I do so recognizing that some will feel I’m “too much”, gone </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">“</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">too far</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">”</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">, pushed </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">“</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">too hard</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">”</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span></span><br />
<span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;"><br /></span>
<span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;">I roil at the necessity </span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;">my </span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;">dual </span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;">reality. </span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;">I am not alone. There</span><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.4px;"> are millions of me. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">As African Americans we deploy our duality for many reasons.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">We deploy our duality for</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> those who don’t have as many </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">opportunities</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">-- </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">defining our </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">stability</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> as their victory</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">We deploy our duality for</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">our children and families</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">-- </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">defining our stamina as their security.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">We deploy our duality for</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">stature and acceptance</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> --</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> defining our legitimacy by others standards. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">We deploy our duality for</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> one less hurdle on one less day –</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> our quality of life</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> defined</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> by America’s rigged scales.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I recognize and applaud a </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">growing generation of African American men and women who are </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">rejecting</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> the duality that </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">div</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">ides</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> their worlds, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">diminish</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">es</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> their strength and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">decreas</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">es </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">their impact. They are my daughters</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">,</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> my nephews and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">nieces</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">,</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> my friends. They seek </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">a</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">nd find lives and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">places that don’t requi</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">re the </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">“two-ness”</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">that separates and belies wholeness</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">they </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">refuse</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> to comply with those that would.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">On November 9, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I felt in America’s</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> choice a </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">diminished regard </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">for </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">all that </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">makes me real and important in this </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">world</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">. And, given the new regime convening in Washington, I </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">know</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">that</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> in days to come I will </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">be forced to play </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">my duality over and over and over</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> again.</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Unless</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">...</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">I </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">don’t. U</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">nless I </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">concede </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">that now more than ever it is time to </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">be all of who I am all of the time. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Wholly, authentically -- prayerfully lovingly – me. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Allowing once and for all </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">my </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">two to become one. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">And </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">believe </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">that </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">not only is my</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> one </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">okay, but is </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">in fact </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">just what the world needs. </span></span></div>
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<div class="s9" style="line-height: 1.575; margin-bottom: 11px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Howard Thurman</span></span></div>
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Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-58884072647901682292016-09-15T07:41:00.004-07:002016-09-15T07:44:03.963-07:00Life as Football<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A few weeks
ago I came home to a pale look on my hubby’s face (beautiful ebony skin not
withstanding) The Philadelphia Eagles had surreptitiously traded their #1
quarterback!</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I was totally surprised, and
instantly more juiced about the season than I had been to date. Plus, I had to try
to console my guy. We talked and came up with possible scenarios. He concurred
with most of my thinking, and a curious look crossed his face, one that I’ve
seen before: </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“You’re not bad at this. You
get it.”</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Honestly, I’m
not particularly knowledgeable about any team other than the Eagles and still mostly green on the sport itself, despite being a Philly girl since the age of 10 and
Eric’s wife since the age of 20. But I’ve lived through it all, “Silver Linings”
style (for those who’ve seen the movie). About 7 years ago, I decided to take
the plunge – and go all the way in. I love it. It’s good for my balance-no work
during football. It’s good for my marriage. Beautiful artistry, crazy, serious
strategy and heart pumping fun. Good stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But I’m sure
the reason I “get” it is because the rules that govern football are a lot like
the rules that (should) govern life. And, I believe if we remembered and
applied them more, we would be better off. Hey I know: the obscene salaries,
choreographed, chattel system dictated by big business, and a chauvinistic
attitude towards women and too many other people and issues suck. This is where
<i>the business of football</i> has been
able to move in our capitalistic society. But it’s not the game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In football<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are plans A, B, C, D and E (and a Hail Mary in the back pocket).</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> You expect that on any given Sunday,
Monday or Thursday, you may need any or all of them. So you prepare and then work
your plan(s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You have to dress up and show up.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> If you want a victory, you have to suit up and report in. And
it’s not about just showing up; you have to get on the field and get banged up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You have to show value to keep your space.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Unlike life, football does not deal
in long probations or drawn out scenarios. It’s not a matter of what you think
you are worth or can add given time. Space is precious; you may be loved, but
it doesn’t mean you keep yours. Also, if you don’t win, you don’t stay. And
everyone knows the deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The big picture is the bigger picture</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. Even teams that are hurting physically and
emotionally roll in and try to operate as a single organism for 3 hours. The
bigger picture of accomplishment is the one that draws them. The few that can’t
see the bigger picture usually weed themselves – or get weeded - out
quickly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You have to use the mind and the heart.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The play designs are scientific and intense. Learning
them requires skills – of many players who I would totally bet have trouble
with other technical learning. But
because of their passion, they learn the plays with the rest of the team. After
they use their minds to learn them, it’s their hearts that pump hope and
possibility into the play. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The folks in charge come from the ranks of those they lead.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Football is not a field to be seduced
by “shiny” new stars and wishful and academic thinking. Experience is required.
Relevance is expected. Credibility is achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s a long game.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The move of the Eagles signaled that for this year at least, we weren’t going
for titles and other glory. This blunt, focused call said that we’ll take at
least until 2017 to reshuffle the deck and figure things out. Yes, live in the
moment, but don’t forget the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The winners get love for the right reasons.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Everyone witnesses the winners emerge
through grit, hard work, and pain and commitment. You’re not being asked to
endorse or accept based on others’ determination. The winners gain our respect
and regard -- the best two pillars for lasting love that I have ever seen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They have coordinated colors.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Everyone, from the players, the field, and the fans dress up
in comradery. You dress up and you declare who you are for and how you choose
to be received. This is called a “brand” and I’m only recently realizing its
power and import.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s inclusive.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
The game brings together one of the most eclectic and diverse crowds this
nation ever sees. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s something to look forward to.</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> You know the days and times that you get the opportunity to
participate. You know what to expect – with an expectancy to be open for the
unexpected. You plan for this time and are explicit about the pleasure you
expect to derive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Works for me, but gotta go. Life’s about to kick off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-82035641145519723292016-08-14T17:26:00.001-07:002016-08-14T17:47:02.507-07:00From Here to There<div style="min-height: 100%; position: relative;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Working through
challenges with my back this summer has required me to make thoughtful</span> </div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">adjustments in my thinking </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">and behavior. I've had to be
disciplined to limit the content,</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">duration and frequency of my transitions.
When I have evening responsibilities, I moderate</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">my day. If I've got to do some
standing, I sit in advance. I've been strategically plotting </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">my path and,
whenever possible eliminating unnecessary action. It's my reality </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">and I'm
owning it.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I'm someone who's always
been comfortable with transitions--those spaces "in between" </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">and "during"
one destination to another. I know some folks who, like surgeons, slice through </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">one experience/space/consciousness to another without pause and I've
honestly never </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">understood how that works. I guess I've always believed that
much of what's most </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">important in life happens in the transitions, interactions
replete with smiles...interludes</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">where emotions - love and care or pain and
concern - trump words...silences </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">that bestow space and place to explore within
and expand outward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So this more precise
behavior is new for me and sometimes feels abrupt. And over this </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">period I'm
coming to appreciate what it means to limit the transitions in life.
Appreciating </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">using more of my "science" than my "art" in my
approach, thoughtfully navigating </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">my path without rest stops and budgeting my
time without padding for the miscellaneous. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I'm finding power in my increased
precision and clarity in movement as well as a </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">unique satisfaction in being
able to check off my accomplishments sooner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It's also got me focused
on the things in life that transcend the mundane. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Like if I want to ascend, I
have to reach. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For all the things I want to start, just get moving. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And really, when it's
over, it’s time to leave.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Now.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-55899111851221627272016-07-03T07:48:00.003-07:002016-07-06T09:49:22.104-07:00A Philanthropy for the Times<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The past year of intolerance and evil in our country
has me vacillating from distaste to horror to pain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We’re fast becoming a nation of haters. We’re hating
our neighbors. We’re hating our government. We’re hating change and even more
we’re hating change makers. We’re hating the rich. We’re hating the poor. We’re
hating ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a result we’re maiming each other in thought word
and deed. One at a time on our streets…50 at a time in nightclubs…1000 at a
time in our prisons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many are speaking out – in houses of faith, in community.
This is so fundamental and essential! Our collective voices have the greatest
potential to create collective care. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet changing hearts and minds and behavior is slow,
accomplished person by person and place by place. Though powerful and
important, it will not catalyze the transformation so urgently needed NOW. This
is where philanthropy can and must enter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Philanthropy - defined here as the dedicated nonprofit organizations
on the front line of providing services and the donors (foundations and individuals) who
provide critical resources - is being challenged to think and act differently to create the conditions for change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The times are calling for a “new” nonprofit
with a significantly enhanced ability to open new vehicles to engage and
mobilize diverse players with fresh and unexpected thinking. A “new” nonprofit unafraid to name and combat
inequity and racism and that sees assets in communities where others see
deficits. Nonprofits that leap over boundaries between the for-profit,
nonprofit and public worlds to create shared vision and innovation… and can turn
on a dime with smart, entrepreneurial responsiveness to dynamic cultural, economic
and political winds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Times like this also demand a “new” donor much more expansive
and courageous in who and what gets funded for the “new” nonprofits described
above aren’t philanthropy’s traditional beneficiaries. They will look and
function fundamentally differently and will come with leaders who don’t have –
or desire -- all the socially sanctioned endorsements and pedigree that makes
donors comfortable. Leaders who hail from the ranks of those they represent -- meaning
the voice they speak is their own – and who prioritize their constituents over their
beneficiaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even more important than funding the new nonprofits, donors
must be willing to extend their unique access and privilege that affirms the value of this "new" approach and secures them the opportunity for success. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Philanthropy is the sector most capable and responsible
for ushering in wholeness and connectedness that can mitigate the hate. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s what we’re here for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where do we start?</span></div>
<br />
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<b><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“Community cannot
feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are
giving way to the coming of others from beyond them — unknown and undiscovered
brothers.”</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Howard Thurman, </span></i><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Search For Common Ground </span></i><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-43925195788182781032016-06-06T18:12:00.003-07:002016-06-06T19:05:53.336-07:00The Stories of Our Lives<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I count it as miraculous that every day that we open
our eyes we get to write, and rewrite, the story of our lives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Having just celebrated a birthday, it’s not surprising
that I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am and how I got here. And even more,
about where I want to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now it’s true that we don’t get to dictate the prologue
or earliest chapters of our lives. But once past the beginnings, we do co-create
on the table of contents…as life constantly requires that we add to, revise or
delete these entries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chapter 4: Be an international singing sensation? That
one (totally aspirational), was deleted decades ago. Chapter 6: Gift the world
two amazing women. Check. Chapter 12: Sign up for the Amazing Race with my
youngest, Karima? Hmmm…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There comes a time that each of us has to pick up
the pen and begin to compose. And once we do this, we can no longer deny
authorship. We have to own the reality
that we get to create the characters in our life story. We choose to insert or
delete the drama. We decide when to alter the environment and when compelled, to
change direction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While we don’t get to erase what’s already transpired
in our life stories, we always get to write the next chapter. In fact, we keep
the pen the whole time, until it’s dropped – or plied – out of our hands!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m acutely aware that others will not necessarily
write my story the same way I will. It motivates me to be aware of what I do
versus what others see. But even more it reinforces for me the necessity of writing
my own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I get sad when I see people - of all ages - slow down
or stop their pens – or keystroke or swipes – prematurely. When they decide their
story isn’t worth it. That they’re too tired. Too lazy. Too old. Too… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m just too curious to see where my pen’s gonna lead
me next that I just don’t understand giving up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I get it. I’ve only got <i>my</i> story and <i>my</i> pen. And
don’t you know I’m gonna keep on writing til I run out of ink.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-67760071749169107212016-02-21T16:52:00.004-08:002016-02-21T17:45:24.073-08:00The Fury Below<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><i>Saturday, February 20; 1:15 pm<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><i>The Inn at Serenbe </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Over the
past year, I’ve been trying to give more attention and better care – to myself.
Like everyone I know, I get a lot of pressure from multiple fronts. But I’m
more acutely feeling…knowing…that this stress this time around is hitting me
harder and deeper than ever and cannot be handled in my heretofore energetic, ‘whatever”
way. This time there’s a lot more reverberation going on, the kind that might
leave me reeling and damaged if I’m not careful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">So I started
eating better. And I renewed yet again my commitment to moving my body more
regularly. But this is old hat, right? Probably 7 of 10 of us take these actions
the first 3 months of each New Year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">I know I need
to go further. Deeper. So I committed to asking myself-consistently-why I do
what I do and why I do it the way I do it? How much of it is driven from inside
and how much is external? And most importantly, who or what I am doing it for?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">Strolling today
at beautiful Serenbe, I’m coming to realize that there is ferocity within me
that I gotta get a grip on. Just like the grounds stretching out around me: although
it looks barren and sad, beneath there is a fury of activity going on. There’s buds
being formed, dirt being shifted, and life being born. Its happening precisely, routinely,
methodically, and scientifically as it does every year. It’s moving according
to Spirit’s holy design and brilliant plan, and knows how far and hard to push
and pull and stretch as it prepares for </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">what will be a glorious manifestation in the spring.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">I’ve asked
Spirit to help with what’s roiling inside me as well. I’m asking for help
to mold, shape, and pray it to a place where it serves the greatest good. Where
it allows me to act and react in ways that heal and not harm; ways that reverberate
with life and love and hope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">And, just
like Serenbe, I’m expecting a glorious manifestation too.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><i><br /></i></span>
<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"></span></i><br />
<h1 class="quoteText" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<i>"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism...destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.” Thomas Merton</i></h1>
</div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-22679595991600754552015-10-29T14:36:00.001-07:002015-10-29T16:24:07.893-07:00Lessons from the LIttle Black Dress<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All last week I participated in the Little Black Dress Initiative, sponsored by the Junior League of Atlanta. Its intent was to raise <span style="background-color: white;">awareness of the cyclical nature of poverty. Poverty limits your resources, your options and even the ways you can express yourself--making it harder for you to better your life chances. Wearing one single outfit for an entire week highlighted the effects that limited resources plays on the quality of life. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="background-color: white;">I confess to a number of conflicting feelings during the week. Like many of us, clothes are a reflection of who we are and what we want others to believe we are. Your clothes reflect you and my clothes reflect me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet, I was willing to make this choice--imagining a week of righteous solidarity with the working poor, all the while being committing not to go overboard </span><strike style="font-family: Calibri;">into</strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> a parity of the real lives and real struggles for so many who have limited options. I imagined being able to bring knowledge and insight in </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">responce to my request (via my big red button) to “Ask me about my dress”. I mean really, how was I to show my concern…my intelligence…my sincerity, if you didn’t ask??? </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I dropped the dress off to the cleaners on Saturday, I was feeling neutral. While I appreciated my</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">colleagues’ reflections on the experience and affirmed their honesty and courage, I had not personally had any emotional moment or aha revelations.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Until Sunday, as I prepared for the upcoming week. I did that common Sunday ritual of reviewing the week ahead and thinking through what I need to do. I’d be traveling out of town for some of the week, so I considered not only clothes for work but also for packing.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet I found myself curiously detached. I had plenty of clean pants, blouses and skirts in the closet and Lord knows, way to</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">o many shoes. But I didn't care about matching them to the week’s obligations. It felt like not the best use of</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">my precious day. It didn't rank as very important.
It didn't seem to matter. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, last week was full of productive sessions and positive
interactions for me, both professionally and personally. Over five days in the same
black dress, I had made good decisions; broadened my mind; engaged in great
dialogue and planning; and connected with important people in my life. I had
lived yet another incredibly fortunate week, chock full of opportunities to help
make this community better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And these experiences had everything to do with what I was
able and willing to offer and who I got to connect with and nothing to do with
what I was wearing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Duh.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I've always been abke to look myself in the eye squarely-- even if I don't always respond the way I should. Last week, since I had predetermined I had little to learn --after all I read these stats as a part of my everyday work, don't I ! -- my real role would be to drop this knowledge on others. Yet I was reminded that there's always something to learn about yourself and new ways of looking at things. I'm reminded we're all a work in progress, And mostly that everything -and nothing - is about you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thank goodness it all got sorted out. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Maybe the next time I get the chance to represent, I'll be more ready.</span>Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-9842271557803544192015-10-13T19:42:00.002-07:002015-10-13T19:42:13.206-07:00Equality, Equity and Myth BustingOctober 12 was Columbus Day, a day set aside to celebrate America’s discovery. By now we've busted the myth behind the story, revealing a tale laden with avarice and blood, widely divergent from the one that prompted the national holiday. Yet the celebration continues.<br />
<br />
This year the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta began to explore another myth about how people and communities prosper. We’re not alone. Civic leaders as diverse as Angela Glover Blackwell, Jeb Bush and Robert Putnam are introducing terms such as the “Opportunity Gap” and “Equity” into our shared lexicon. They are conceding that the long held myth of hard work and opportunity — the American Dream – does not adequately explain the staggering and growing rates of income inequality that threaten our national security.<br />
<br />
Equity, defined as “just and fair inclusion such that all can participate and prosper”, is an essential component of equality, or the lack thereof. This great picture illustrates the distinction:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://i2.wp.com/saportareport.com/leadership/philanthropy/files/2015/10/philanthropy.png"><img alt="philanthropy" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-892" height="225" src="http://i2.wp.com/saportareport.com/leadership/philanthropy/files/2015/10/philanthropy.png?resize=300%2C225" width="300" /></a><br />
<br />
The problem is close and personal. According to a Demos study, in Atlanta, the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings in 2011, compared to $7,113 for the median African-American household and $8,348 for the median Latino household. Also, a child raised in the bottom-fifth of income levels has only a four percent chance of rising to the top-fifth income level. Our region has an equity challenge that has led to staggering inequality.<br />
<br />
Addressing income inequality will require our collective courage to acknowledge historic, pervasive biases and structures, bounded by race and class, which anchor whole families and communities in perpetual poverty. It requires that we release the myth that providing opportunities for “more” – more scholarships, more training, more food – is all of and not just a part of the solution. Increasing opportunities that look forward and focus on improving chances that children will attain middle-class or higher incomes in their adulthood is important and good. But resolving the inequality of Atlanta’s African-American and Latino families who make $100,000 less than their white neighbors means we have to go further and deeper and fix the fault line that prevents all families and communities from sharing in the region’s growth and prosperity. It means we must recognize the links between opportunity, inequality and history. It means busting a myth we’ve grown comfortable with.<br />
<br />
As a region of dreamers, giving up myths is difficult and will demand our consideration, conversation and possibly our conversion.<br />
<br />
For the sake of our most vulnerable children and families, its time.Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-47229404332913409352015-04-21T07:32:00.000-07:002015-04-21T07:32:05.358-07:00Who Cares for the 96?A 2013 Brookings Institute study, dubbed by the <em>New York Times</em> as “the most detailed portrait yet of income mobility in the United States”, reveals that a child born in poverty in Atlanta has only a 4 percent chance of moving into a middle income bracket. <br />
<br />
Put simply: 96 of every 100 poor kids in Atlanta today will be poor the rest of their lives.<br />
<br />
The study shares some key causes: school quality; social networks; economic and racial segregation. School Quality? Check: Georgia ranks 48 percent nationally for high school graduation. <br />
<br />
Social Capital? Check: Only 13 percent of the region’s residents exchange favors with their neighbors.<br />
<br />
Economic and racial segregation? Check: According to the Pew Institute, both income and residential inequality is prevalent in much of the region.<br />
<br />
Atlanta boasts communities that are thriving as well as those that are severely under-resourced and marginalized from opportunity. Yet while residents from all these communities walk the same streets, cheer for the same teams, patronize the same businesses, and dart through the same crazy rainstorms, there is a horrific distinction. For those who are poor, we have overwhelming data to conclude that their children will be poor too.<br />
<br />
How do we grow our capacity to love and support 96 percent of children for whom achievement has never been a given? Whose very lives have been designated for limitation?<br />
<br />
It requires fierce honesty and unwavering compassion and commitment across all sectors of the region to change the trajectory for these kids. Yet we fear to commit because it involves tough conversations about the things that scare us most...place and race and equity and compassion. Perhaps our greatest fear is that we'll come face to face with proof of our apathy and neglect.<br />
<br />
Children living in poverty are often sad…angry…hurting. This makes perfect sense given the odds against them. And something tells me they knew it long before Brookings did a study.Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-13009171734736328482015-03-31T14:16:00.001-07:002015-03-31T14:16:27.209-07:00The Power of Invitations<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A few weeks ago, I had
a conversation with friends about the difference between what it means to “be
invited” and “to invite”. It was a thoughtful discussion that helped me to clarify
the two nuanced yet powerful sides of an invitation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we are invited –
to a conversation or event… even a relationship – the host is affirming our
presence as important and our value as an enhancement to the experience. In addition to being a compliment, it’s an assurance
that, if and when we show up, we will be welcomed. Professionally and
personally, we often seek invitations to validate ourselves in some way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet while invitations
are most often positive and affirming, acceptance is not as easy. What if you
don’t know the host? What if you don’t know how you got on the guest list? And
one thing you can be sure of…most often, when you are invited…the agenda has
already been set.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When we invite others
to an experience it means that we are not only extending the positive
affirmations listed above, but also that we have something to share. It’s a selective
and self-centered perspective, in which we, as the host, determine that a
specific presence is needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s also risky. What
if no one accepts? What if the only ones who come are the ones who needed no
invitation? What does an unaccepted invitation mean or say about you or your
intent?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Bookman Old Style, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">When it comes to serving
our community </span><span style="line-height: 17.1200008392334px;">we've</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> got to be willing to do more of both – issuing invitations
and accepting those that come. When we do we acknowledge the need to seek and
receive a perspective not our own. As we get better at both inviting and
accepting, the circles we inhabit become larger and larger. We see more, learn more, grow more and create
more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And go more places. Together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-78522401654826867672015-02-12T16:49:00.001-08:002015-02-12T16:49:13.259-08:00What do we expect for our Children?<br />
The widening gap between our student preparedness and future workforce is alarming: between 2004-09, less than 50% of all students who entered post-secondary institutions earned a degree or credential within 6 years--yet by 2020 65% of all job openings will require post-secondary preparation.<br />
<br />
The students who will fill this gap are those who are not experiencing academic success today; students for whom educational achievement is not a given: whose family and friends haven't attended college; who hail from disconnected communities and distressed environments; for whom English is not their native language. We label them “at risk” and they stand out for all that they don’t bring to the classroom. These children will require a greater level of thoughtfulness, time, and resources if they are to attain posts-secondary credentials. And no matter how much the adults in their lives want them to be successful, they must also want it for themselves.<br />
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When I talk to these young people who persevered and overcome the obstacles above, they speak unanimously on one point…and it is both basic yet profound. Their first step to success began the moment that they understood what they could achieve...and even more that someone else believed and expected that they would. <br />
<br />
What would we do differently if we truly expected every child to succeed in life? Consider that most of us hold high expectations for the significant children in our lives and how this expectation serves as a beacon and guide for their path. In our professional and civic lives, we've likely sympathized, contributed, prayed, hoped, volunteered, and worked on behalf of “at risk” youth and believe in our hearts that it is possible for them to succeed. But do we fundamentally expect them to?<br />
<br />
What would it look like if we let every child know that their community expects them to be successful? Even more, that we need them to achieve for our collective success? Expectation, distinct from hope, shifts the locus of responsibility in relationships.<br />
<br />
Students won't ever care how much they can one day contribute until they first believe that their community cares about and expects that contribution. With expectation as a foundation, we can make a subtle yet powerful shift in our perspective, and ultimately in how we band together to support all children’s to be successful.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-87168902075332534242014-02-11T13:22:00.002-08:002014-02-13T03:46:18.550-08:00<h2 class="entry-title">
<a href="http://saportareport.com/leadership/philanthropy/2014/02/10/bridging-the-storm/" rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to Bridging the Storm">Bridging the Storm</a></h2>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span style="font-size: large;">A seasonal cold kept me indoors during last week’s snow storm, rendering me a helpless observer of many horrific stories unfolding – stories that stretched from hours to days. I understand there is no way for me to truly appreciate the trauma that others experienced, although it could be glimpsed well into the weekend from the nervous energy and weary eyes of family and friends. Last week’s events tested the measure of the region’s endurance and determination. It forced us to examine our leadership and decision-making in both the past and moving forward. It also tested our belief that we are all important, connected and better together.</span></div>
<div class="entry-content">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In this last test we passed with flying colors. Along with the horrors, I also witnessed bright lights emerging from the dark. These were the bright lights of neighborly kindness and civic pride that have always made Atlanta shine. Individuals and organizations rallied unbelievably quickly, generously offering blankets, food, water, shelter, help, hope and care to stranded travelers – and forming relationships that will never be forgotten. Moving from the television to computer to radio, I marveled at the bridges being instantly wrought across generation, geography, race, income, gender and faith: channels of authentic, unrestrained care that were truly inspiring.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I wish we were kinder more often, and that it could more often extend to the people and places where it’s most needed. Yet the power of our civic care on January 28, 2014 sustains my hope. As we held center stage in the national media, I sure hope the world didn’t miss the incredible thoughtfulness this region’s residents afforded one another as a tangible affirmation of who we are and what we are made of.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It is this reality that The Community Foundation aspires to see with our newest initiative <a href="http://www.oneregionatlanta.org/" target="_blank">One Region Atlanta</a>, and the reality to which I have devoted the last 30 years of my passion. It is this reality of our Atlanta region that will always get us through the storm.</span></div>
Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-81318950847219195752013-12-17T07:51:00.002-08:002013-12-17T07:51:27.831-08:00Give In To The ImpulseToys for toddlers; food for the hungry; blankets for those who are cold. This is the time of year that many feel the impulse to give – financially and with our time and talents. This giving is encouraged by society and resonates with our natural and instinctive charitable impulses.<br />
<br />
There are critics who proffer that increased giving during this time is self-centered and contrived. That both our impulse to give and our gifts are more a balm for guilty consciences about personal consumption than an “authentic” desire to help others. That our receptivity to appeals during the holidays somehow “count less”.<br />
<br />
Don’t buy it. Assistance between November and December is just as important as it is between January and October. Savvy nonprofits know this too. Just like shelters stock up on blankets in the fall and schools ramp up the fall semester in the summer, nonprofit leaders understand and adjust to the market and make a big deal of holiday giving. And the smartest ones take the long view – and the accompanying responsibility – of being grateful for today’s givers while diligently cultivating them to give tomorrow as well.<br />
<br />
As grownups, we know that needs exist all year long. But if we know that bright lights and festivities inside juxtaposed with cold and darkness outside leaves many people feeling alone and lacking, it’s more than right to respond. It’s essential.<br />
<br />
Our conscious is an impetus honed from childhood to be an internal guide for good and healthy action. We should embrace balancing the joy of receiving with the act of giving.<br /> <br />
So give in to your impulse to give this season! When we make choices that use both our logic and our instinct, we utilize all of our knowledge, which is true intelligence at work. And everyone gains in the process.<br />
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Happy Holidays!Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-44237251314315924982013-09-03T14:19:00.002-07:002013-09-03T14:19:43.663-07:00Embracing the 96A recent study, dubbed by the <em>New York Times</em> as “the most detailed portrait yet of income mobility in the United States”, reveals that a child born in poverty in Atlanta has only a 4 percent chance of moving into a middle income bracket. Put simply: 96 of every 100 poor kids in Atlanta today will be poor the rest of their lives.<br />
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The study shares some key causes: school quality; social networks; economic and racial segregation. School Quality? Check. Georgia ranks 48 percent nationally for high school graduation. Social Capital? Check. Only 13 percent of the region’s residents exchange favors with their neighbors. Economic and racial segregation? Check. According to the Pew Institute, both income and residential inequality is on the rise nationally and remains prevalent in much of the region.<br />
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Atlanta boasts a continuum of communities from those that are thriving to others that remain under-resourced and marginalized from opportunity. Yet while residents from all these communities walk the same streets, cheer for the same teams, patronize the same businesses, and dart through the same crazy rainstorms, there is a horrific distinction. For those who are poor, we have 96 reasons to conclude that their children will be poor too.<br />
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How do we grow our capacity to love and support 96 percent of children for whom achievement has never been a given? Whose lives have been designed for limitation? It will require fierce honesty and unwavering compassion and commitment across all sectors of the region to change the trajectory for these kids.<br />
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Committing fully and boldly is scary because it involves tough conversations about place and race and equity and compassion for others’ reality. Yet I believe that if we are willing to try, we may recognize that our greatest fear is the revelation of our neglect.<br />
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Just like your kids and mine, children living in poverty are often sad…angry…hurting. This makes perfect sense given the odds against them. And something tells me they knew it long before someone did a study and documented it for the rest of us.Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-29097044676987170072013-08-07T16:54:00.000-07:002013-08-07T16:54:19.104-07:00I saw a homeless man today<div dir="ltr">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">I saw a homeless man today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">To have the homeless in my view, to pass by or be aware of a man or woman nearby is not unusual or earth shattering.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">But I <b><i>saw </i></b>a homeless man today. And I flinched.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Perhaps because he was in "my way"...crossing an intersection where I wanted to steer my car, to get to my parking garage, to go to my job. And so I was forced to stop -- and see him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">He was walked slowly. It took him quite some time to cross the street, burdened with the multiple bags and accessories that contained his life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">I saw that both of his legs were heavily bandaged along the shins...clean white bandages that looked freshly applied. Large bandages that covered a wide swath. He looked in pain. I wondered then if he had just been released from Grady hospital or some other medical facility, seeking an isolated corner of this crowded, dirty and dust filled street to heal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Did he hear the cars behind me honking, urging me to make the turn and keep on moving? I doubt it. His world seemed complete in its full absorption of the task before him: to keep moving his legs and life forward.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Did he know that I was there seated in the cool leather surroundings of my car? Did he see me, beyond the vague and noncommital awareness that I would have had of him had I not needed to stop? His eyes remained downcast and his frown creased; he never looked up. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Did he suspect we might see in one another pain or shame or disgust or aggravation? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><span style="color: black;"> He didn't give me the escape of assuaging my guilt by proudly -- yet carefully -- handing him a dollar...or five if I was feeling generous. I wondered if he might relish this opportunity to stop traffic, for this moment at least to be the one in control of the circumstances. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">To be seen.<br /> <br /> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">I saw a homeless man today and I realized, once again, that in I am missing something fundamental. That my gifts to the shelters and contributions to church are all really nice but will never be enough. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Not until he can see me. And I can see him. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Without a flinch.</span></span></div>
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On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Lesley Grady <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:grady.lesley@gmail.com" target="_blank">grady.lesley@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Shameless, I know. Stolen from the creed that attention trumps all. Borrowed but not adherent to the name of a trilogy of novels that are currently popular. And, for all who might not be in the know", I'm confident you'll be Googling in the next 10 minutes…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But give me that long to make my case. In full disclosure, I have not read these books myself. And, from my limed knowledge, the topic of this essay is as far apart from the topic of the novels as is possible. Yet the distinction in title and meaning is all too real: <i>Giving</i> is the topic of this missive as it is always the theme for the season. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Toys for toddlers; food for the hungry; blankets for those who are cold. Wonderful giving that is encouraged and characterized by our natural and instinctive charitable impulse and responsiveness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There are those who suggest that it is also characterized by guilt; critics who proffer that increased giving during this time is self-centered and contrived. That both our impulse to give and our gifts are more a balm to guilty consciences about personal consumption than a desire to help others. That our receptivity to appeals during the holidays "count less". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Don't buy it. Assistance between November and December is just as important as it is between January and October. And savvy nonprofits know this too. Just like shelters stock up on blankets in the fall and schools ramp up for summer programs in the spring, savvy nonprofit leaders understand and prepare for the market and make a big deal of holiday giving. And the smartest ones take the long view – and the accompanying responsibility – of being grateful for the now and diligently cultivating for the future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As grownups, we know that people eat all year long. That kids need care. That the environment and politicians need to be monitored. But if it's cold, and dark, and we know folks are feeling even more alone and lacking, it's more than right to respond. It's essential. Because conscience is the impetus honed from our earliest years to be the motivator for good and healthy action. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It is a good act to balance for ourselves and our families the joy of receiving with the act of giving. There's much to celebrate and many reasons to give! At least fifty or so… </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 12pt;">J</span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Give, because giving</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Matters…Helps…Heals…Requires…Edifies…Flattens…Shortens…Lengthens…Widens…Raises…Simplifies…Renews…Actualizes…Clarifies…Overlooks…Reconciles…Expands</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Activates…Rebuilds…Nurses…Cleanses…Creates…Imagines…Defines…Proves…Holds…Impassions…Intrigues…Familiarizes…Adapts…Adjusts…Angers…Provokes…Enjoins</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Shines…Dignifies…Renews…Upholds…Teaches…Respects…Reinforces…Shouts…Whispers…Accommodates…Enables.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Most of all, give because giving is philanthropy in action…momentum that transforms each of us into instruments of change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Through all the seasons. </span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Happy Holidays!</span></i></b></div>
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Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-16036617545795717582012-11-30T13:36:00.000-08:002012-11-30T13:36:56.416-08:00Fifty Shades of Giving<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Shameless, I know. Stolen from the creed that attention trumps all. Borrowed but not adherent to the name of a trilogy of novels that are currently popular. And, for all who might not be in the know", I'm confident you'll be Googling in the next 10 minutes…</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But give me that long to make my case. In full disclosure, I have not read these books myself. And, from my limed knowledge, the topic of this essay is as far apart from the topic of the novels as is possible. Yet the distinction in title and meaning is all too real: <i>Giving</i> is the topic of this missive as it is always the theme for the season. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Toys for toddlers; food for the hungry; blankets for those who are cold. Wonderful giving that is encouraged and characterized by our natural and instinctive charitable impulse and responsiveness. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There are those who suggest that it is also characterized by guilt; critics who proffer that increased giving during this time is self-centered and contrived. That both our impulse to give and our gifts are more a balm to guilty consciences about personal consumption than a desire to help others. That our receptivity to appeals during the holidays "count less". </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Don't buy it. Assistance between November and December is just as important as it is between January and October. And savvy nonprofits know this too. Just like shelters stock up on blankets in the fall and schools ramp up for summer programs in the spring, savvy nonprofit leaders understand and prepare for the market and make a big deal of holiday giving. And the smartest ones take the long view – and the accompanying responsibility – of being grateful for the now and diligently cultivating for the future. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As grownups, we know that people eat all year long. That kids need care. That the environment and politicians need to be monitored. But if it's cold, and dark, and we know folks are feeling even more alone and lacking, it's more than right to respond. It's essential. Because conscience is the impetus honed from our earliest years to be the motivator for good and healthy action. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It is a good act to balance for ourselves and our families the joy of receiving with the act of giving. There's much to celebrate and many reasons to give! At least fifty or so… </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 12pt;">J</span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Give, because giving</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Matters…Helps…Heals…Requires…Edifies…Flattens…Shortens…Lengthens…Widens…Raises…Simplifies…Renews…Actualizes…Clarifies…Overlooks…Reconciles…Expands</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Activates…Rebuilds…Nurses…Cleanses…Creates…Imagines…Defines…Proves…Holds…Impassions…Intrigues…Familiarizes…Adapts…Adjusts…Angers…Provokes…Enjoins</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">…Shines…Dignifies…Renews…Upholds…Teaches…Respects…Reinforces…Shouts…Whispers…Accommodates…Enables.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Most of all, give because giving is philanthropy in action…momentum that transforms each of us into instruments of change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Through all the seasons. </span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Happy Holidays!</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span> Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-14813049625813812252012-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:002012-07-30T18:55:45.407-07:00Growing pains – Atlanta’s Transportation Decision<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For decades now, I’ve likened metro Atlanta’s
posture to that of a beautiful adolescent -- preening, insecure and cocky all at
the same time; looking mature yet still wet behind the ears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I stick by it. We’re a region that has boasted the
best of the best in our development, leaders, creativity and brand, yet we
still can’t commit to guarantee a quality public hospital; we move poverty
around the region like kids do the peas on their plate at dinner time; and even
now that we’ve stopped debating the value of more and better transportation
options, we don’t want to make the hard decisions to make it happen. We’re
brilliant yet we often don’t have a clue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is huge debate as to whether or not the
Transportation referendum will pass…if it’s good for us…who it’s really good
for…what it will yield. Let’s see:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We know it will cost and yield an extra
penny for an extra ten years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We know that every county in the
ten-county region will receive some payback; some more than others and some sooner
than later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We know – and this to my African
American brothers and sisters – that we’ll have to remain diligent and firm to
ensure that both the pain and benefit accrues to our neighborhoods, businesses,
and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>institutions as they do others. It
will take more than a TSPLOST to level this playing field. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I dig it. A penny may not seem like much but one percent
on every dollar I will spend for the next ten years seems like much more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet here’s what I believe, and it’s not on
billboards and fliers and the dozen emails I’ve received since last week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The TSPLOST will be an opportunity for us to finally
affirm our connectedness as a contiguous family of counties and cities, sharing
roads and rules and people and lives. We try to deny this and often rail
against it; as a lifelong Cobb resident, I confess that I brag about my county
and my tax base and the quality of my public services. My attitude has been
typically parochial: I don’t mind if you can figure it out in your county but
leave me alone if I have to give up something in mine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I also realize that the region we love is not
beloved by all. That the major airport and beautiful facilities and innovative,
entrepreneurial spirit we enjoy is distrusted and often derided in other parts
of the state. So tapping into what means more to me—the spirit of Atlanta--I am
ready to pay into a system and process that can help us out of our current
transportation hell. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as when we turned 18 and gained “grownup” designation,
this vote is one way for the region to plant a mature stake in the ground and take
responsibility for the outcome. We get to diss the haters and take the power into
our hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What we get to do tomorrow is to decide that the independence
the TSPOLST provides through self funding (ironically another milestone of
growth) are worth it. And that we get to hold ourselves accountable. There are
lots more technical and practical reasons to vote yes. That all public funding
for transportation is decreasing. That laws on the books are stifling. For a
good Q & A, click on <a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/transportation-referendum/faqs-what-you-need-1451877.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.ajc.com/news/transportation-referendum/faqs-what-you-need-1451877.html</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The list and process is messy, as messy as the
traffic we seek to avoid. Yet it’s the next step in our growth, as we mature to
the status of the great cities we admire, here and abroad. Yet I really want my
grandson to go after the job he wants and not just the one he can be assured reliable transportation
to. I want my nephews to receive relief from their asthma pain. I want to be
connected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Remember the pimples, aching joints, fluttering
hearts and new explorations of your teen years? That’s the growing edge on
which we find ourselves, Atlanta. Let’s take a baby step to claim our future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Vote yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-29305314890543127562012-02-16T17:50:00.001-08:002012-02-16T18:03:21.346-08:00Hummus & Wine<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Over hummus & wine I got to nourish my body and share the quintessential story of my life. And I realized – anew - that whenever anyone of us shares our story, it is instantly altered by its receipt. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We enter this world bellowing our stories naturally and effortlessly. As toddlers encountering the miracle of speech, we instinctively assimilate and bestow our experience – seamlessly -- upon the entire universe and all within proximity. </span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet as part of our socialization, we are taught what is acceptable and appropriate...an indoctrination that morphs into our relationships. In all but the rarest circumstances, we learn how to moderate, filter and withhold the chronicle of our beliefs and our passions. Sometimes this goes too far and we lose our voice, growing to fear the real, raw context of our lives, because we consider the passages to be final. We forget that we get to create and rewrite our story every day, every week, every hour- in the narrative of our time on this earth.</span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the service of community, without life stories, we are reduced to sharing the rhetoric of theory, programs and outcomes. For those of us in this important work, our honest inquiry and interaction is the binding which connects our singular chapters into a novel that supports collective experiences and aspirations. Chapters of collective connection. Collective understanding. Collective action. Collective response. Collective celebration. Chapters made stronger by time and wear.</span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When we share our individual tales, we simultaneously get to edit the next chapter -- by moving forward, rolling back or flipping the script! Through others' <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a>stories, the context for our personal story is enriched: our hunches can be transformed into ideas and our ideas grown into visions; our halves can become whole and our darkness light. </span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Just like hummus and wine--coffee & a doughnut…beer & pretzels…tea & cookies--we complement one another when we swap tales. For it's through our words that we communicate, but through our stories that we connect. </span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What's your story?</span></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-2118422224699240542012-01-27T14:57:00.000-08:002012-01-27T17:41:00.169-08:00Breaking Legs -- Georgia's 2012 Legislative Session<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Politics is theater and it seems this has never been more true! And, in the tradition of the theater adage that signifies good luck, we pray the actors on stage in Georgia’s Gold Dome -- our elected officials – “break a leg” this year.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In theater, because it’s considered bad luck to wish an actor good luck, they instead wish the opposite. There are multiple theories for the genesis of this tradition: one quotes the practice of curtsying, placing one foot behind the other, which “breaks" the line of the leg. Another points to ancient Greece, where folks stomped to show appreciation…and if long enough, they would break a leg. My favorite (and probably most apropos to politics) is ancient Rome, where blood thirsty spectators urged gladiators to “break a leg” -- essentially wishing them good luck by requesting they keep their lives and only cripple their opponents! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So back to the present. The 2012 legislative session began on January 9 and it promises to be active. Here are seven issues to track (one for each day of the week): <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;
text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">SB 127 – the rewriting of Georgia’s arcane Juvenile Code.<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Bill(s) to introduce financial need requirements for HOPE scholarships <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">HB 644 – implementation of the Affordable Care Act – the state’s design of a health insurance exchange product (even while participating in a national lawsuit); <o:p> </o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">T-Splost – July’s ten-county transportation referendum to fund regional transportation projects <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">HB 663 – revisions to “expungement” law regarding specific arrest records; this issue is seen as critical to facilitate employment opportunities <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Unemployment Benefits – the governor’s budget proposal to cut the amount and length of unemployment benefits<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Tax changes - Special Joint Commission recommendation for a $1 increase on tobacco and 1% grocery tax to offset a reduction in state income tax. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In the chambers of our political theater, we need our public representatives to “break a leg” and function smartly and respectfully. And, in the tradition of good audiences, we acknowledge our responsibility to be present, pay attention, and provide consistent, critical review. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Our communities are counting on it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-81285941358010197382011-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:002011-12-13T20:11:41.973-08:00Paying AttentionI have been loved. And through this blessing, I've been fortunate to have learned a thing or two about this amazing gift. I have seen how love can look and feel differently at different times, in different spaces, with different folks and different reasons. Love can be one thing when you're tired; another when you're hungry; and another when you're happy (and yet again something else after a relaxing glass of wine!). <br />
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Yet while love is experienced very differently, there is a consistent, common, connected constant. Attention. Where there is love, there is attention. The true lover of humanity has no choice but to see the disheveled vet on the street and the hollowed-out eyes of the homeless....the smog that hovers over all will sear both the eyes and the hearts of those who love the earth....while undetectable by many, an child's painful whimper is becomes a screech in the ears of loving mothers....and, unbeckoned, caring clans know when one of their own needs a hand, a conversation, an ear. <br />
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I pray for so much and so many! For myself, I pray for a sound mind and reasonable health. But most of all, I pray that I will love all those that I should and, even more, those who would lay claim for my attention. Who need to be seen. Heard. Felt. Encouraged. I pray for the patience and focus and perception and stillness and commitment...to pay attention. To love.<br />
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Here's wishing you an attentive holiday season!Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-39877639991082636022011-11-09T14:48:00.000-08:002011-11-09T14:48:47.696-08:00Let's TalkOver the past two days I have been in several discussions with SECF board representatives and members about the work of SECF's Government Affairs Committee. As foundations we find ourselves at an unusual and somewhat uncomfortable place...a place we have not been for some time. We face increasingly scrutiny and are challenged to both preserve what is necessary to do our best work while responding to unprecedented times of financial and social upheaval. We have tough choices to make and important constituents to defend. We have to be creative and flexible and smart. We have to do what it is that foundations do best.<br />
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As an organization of member foundations, SECF has to determine when and how we best communicate the vital role of philanthropy in society. How much do our members know, want to know or need to know about policies affecting our sector? How do we build critical, sustainable relationships with executive and legislative branches of government? How do we think and speak and act in a way that honors our members' interests and intent? How do we present distinct and sometimes opposing member perspectives on issues that affect the communities we are committed to serve?<br />
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Not unlike the topic of religion, policy conversations -public action, advocacy, politics - make the hairs on the back of our neck go up. Yet as individual foundations and as a cohort, can we afford not to have them? Can we authentically claim to seek a better society without understanding, deliberating, debating and engaging in how that society functions?<br />
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If you believe the conversations are necessary, there's no time better to begin than now. What do you think?Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8300482835834241329.post-35771187205360150632011-10-29T06:22:00.000-07:002011-10-29T19:42:56.048-07:00Southeasterly WindsSoutheasterly Winds<br />
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For the past five years, I have served on the board of the Southeatern Council on Foundations (SECF) a membership organization of more than 350 private, corporate, family and community foundations in eleven states. I confess that I took on this role hesitantly...after 21 years in Georgia and six at The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, I had chosen to have limited exposure and connection to the larger region, more comfortable dashing across the world from Hartsfield-Jackson than taking a road trip. I claimed southern roots through both my parents who migrated from their birthplace in south Georgia to the north in the 1940’s. Yet I knew in my heart my move to metro Atlanta was less about returning home and more a choice to move to what was then dubbed "The Black Mecca".<br />
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Weather lore has it that "When the wind is blowing in the South, it brings food over the fish's mouth". I've given a lot of thought to this sentiment as I've passed the quarter century mark in my new home and finally branched out into the region, a journey that I have taken in tandem with SECF. In 2006, I stepped into a boardroom filled with folks from our southern states...folks who loved their communities. I felt truly an outsider. As I’ve shared, I am more city than country.<br />
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Secondly, all were CEOs and so, despite being senior staff of one of the biggest community foundations in the country and managing many and assets, much of my reality and experience was different. Third, I am an African American woman, at that time one of two on the board, and while Atlanta may have been my "Mecca", the south's formal philanthropic sector was not. I confess, I couldn't figure out what I could offer this group nor what they could give me.<br />
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Yet as I look forward to gathering on Amelia Island in November for SECF’s annual conference, "Celebrating Wisdom, Demonstrating Value, Cultivating Hope", I know that, as the southeasterly wind feeds the fish, my SECF experience has fed me. Another quote by the timeless Seuss, summarizes it perfectly,<br />
"Congratulations!<br />
Today is your day.<br />
You’re off to Great Places!<br />
You’re off and away!<br />
You have brains in your head.<br />
You have feet in your shoes.<br />
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.<br />
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.<br />
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.<br />
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too."<br />
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I've seen places. I've seen closed rubber plants whose owners, long gone, still support the local community. I've seen hurricanes strike beaches at night and residents cleaning and repairing by the time the sun rises. I’ve watched ducks march in line and boogied to blues til midnight. I’ve shuddered, feeling the ghosts of my ancestors in renovated plantations and shared hot tea and biscuits with colleagues who have grown dear. I’ve come to love beignets, dry rub, crepe myrtle, wide spaces, green pastures, majestic mounts and washboards that turn into musical instruments. I’ve run past painful statues of black jockeys and given standing ovations to talented, gutsy kids from “the other side of the track”. But, most of all, even despite its resistant and oft frustrating cling to the familiar and fear of the new, I’ve come to love the resilience and grace and potential of the South.<br />
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In short, I’ve grown. And so has SECF. With each year and each other we are becoming smarter, more effective, more relevant. We are listening to our constituents – those who have been with us for decades and those whose attention we have drawn – as we seek to cultivate and embrace the huge power of philanthropy to make a difference in our shared space of this big country. To collectively create a stronger, better region in which everyone can thrive.<br />
To feed the fish.<br />
Look forward to seeing you next week!Lesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08262034294319231644noreply@blogger.com1