In the mid-1980’s, I found myself on a journey that I had not anticipated. In one way I had started the journey in my late teens when I recall quite consciously deciding I was going to be a Renaissance Man, someone who could live by his wits and be good at many different things. I…
Recently I approached a checkout lane in a local grocery store when I overheard the clerk and a sacker having this exchange: “You’re still making $9.25? You’re kidding! Why would I stay here as long as you have and hope for checker job, when that’s all you make?” These two guys, likely about 21 (clerk)…
Thirty-one years, 11 months, and two weeks ago, Paul and I met for the first time. In the ensuing years I have said countless times, “I never had a chance.” Several weeks ago I downloaded a count-down app to my phone. Every few days I change the music it plays while a counter shows how…
One of the things I noticed as a new staff person at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in the early 1980’s was that both government and foundation staff were very helpful. They wanted Planned Parenthood programs to succeed. They valued sexuality education, clinical services, and advocacy. They got the point that to make every child a…
The countdown to my encore launch has begun. At 5:00 PM Central Time July 31, 2015 I am closing the door on this chapter of my life as the President and CEO of Diverse and Resilient. The following Monday, I will be attending more specifically to my work in community development with projects in Milwaukee and…
You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. – Tom Brokaw Most nights when I let Dexter out at about 9:30 PM, I…
Thus, in sharing stories, we have the potential for forging new relationships…. – Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (1994). The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. This week I have been contemplating the mediating power of words as I blog about community building. This exercise…
Reading in our culture has become so attenuated that all reading is now considered “good.” Children are admonished to read in general, as if all books are equal, but a brain bloated with truisms and clichés, with formulaic stories and simple answers to badly asked questions is hardly what we should aspire to. For the…
We become ourselves through others, and the self is a porous thing, not a sealed container. If it begins as a genetic map, it is one that is expressed over time and only in relation to the world… We do not author ourselves, which is not to say that we have no agency or responsibility,…
Grief, after all, is desire for the dead or for what’s been lost and can never come again. Grief is longing. This was stasis without fulfillment. This was the world stopped, meaning extinguished. – Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking More than a dozen years ago, Paul and I were in a serious train wreck with…
