The Invitation to Expand

 

The Covid-19 pandemic may be the most powerfully positive worldwide event in my lifetime of 77 years.  There are at least three reasons.

First, its disruption affects virtually everyone on earth in ways that are painfully unforgettable.  At the very least there is the specter of insecurity over however our future unfolds––individually and collectively.

As such, this disruption may very well be motivating enough to inspire action that creates a worldwide capability to respond constructively to crises that affect the human family as a whole.

The response I speak of is one that transcends superficial identities such as nationality and any form of social status.   

Second, a healthful response cannot be achieved by causing others pain.   The brutality of 911 prompted the US to say, basically, let’s go to war.  Challenges like Covid-19, though arguably more dangerous than 911, are immune to such immaturity.  The only meaningful response is one rooted in collaboration.

We are blessed with a distinct, if not unique, opportunity.  One where only an authentic appreciation for our common humanity will result in an outcome favorable to all. Read More

Presidential Debates We Can Celebrate

Person with head in mouth of whale

[A version of this essay 
was first published in September 2016] 

If the world got really strange and I were asked to create a format for the 2020 presidential debates, here’s my starting point.

No gotchas.  Just simple, open-ended, non-judgmental queries a candidate can either knock out of the park or hang themselves with––depending on how well they know the person in the mirror, and how willing (and able) they are to be frank. 

The suggestions below are designed to reveal a couple of things.  

    • One, the values and priorities the candidate carries in their heart.  Leadership, after all, is perspective that helps those we serve make healthy choices.  Clarity on values and priorities at the deepest place within us is where a healthy perspective begins.  
    • Two, how well a candidate employs life’s most important activity: learning from our experience––embracing what is, no matter how painful, and allowing it to teach us.  

Further, I wouldn’t spring these requests on the candidates.  I’d give them a few days to prepare their responses.  While none of these inquiries should be that foreign to a thoughtful person, what we want from them are answers that represent what they consider their best thinking.  Which is why I would also scrap the traditional debate format.  Out-snarking the other guy isn’t as illuminating as how appropriately naked each is willing (and able) to be.  Read More

A Primal Force of Dignity

Soccer player's foot pointed to a star

I’ve wept more than once with feelings I find hard to name as I take in the USA women’s World Cup championship. 

I search my memory.  Have I ever witnessed anything akin to it in spirit: women as a unit representing a primal force of dignity?  

The closest I can come occurred in 1963.  I was 19.

I watched Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech live on TV with a dozen or so African American cleaning ladies in the day room of a bachelor officer’s quarters on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, mine the only white face in the group.  

The “It” We’re All Getting On With

 

I went to college at 27, the oldest freshman Amherst had ever admitted I was told.  After my junior year I took a year’s sabbatical.  A romantic entanglement was getting in the way of my studies.  I needed time to allow the relationship to work itself out.  Turns out, that romance died at the same time I met the love of my life and two children who were to become our daughters.  Upon my return, a professor, learning of my year away, said, “Gee, I’m surprised.  I would have thought at your age you’d want to finish up and get on with it.”  That statement is one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me.

It led me to ask what was this “it” I would be getting on with––and why did I need to finish up my wonderful undergraduate experience in order to do so? Read More

Being Thankful for the Guy We’re Tired of Hearing About

What does the word “tired” mean when someone says, “I’m just so tired of hearing about Trump.”?

I belong to that club myself, and I’ve written I don’t know how many essays about the man.  But here’s what I’ve learned along the way.  The weariness we feel can open a door to the joy of existence.  How?  By spurring us to cultivate one of life’s most important skills.  Freeing pain. 

That’s because pain is exhausting, until we realize we have tools to free it, and use them.

In fact, pain is more than exhausting.  As our understanding of addiction deepens, leading voices (such as physician Gabor Maté, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) contend that at the root of all addiction, no matter the form, is the pain of a psycho-spiritual emptiness a person is attempting to escape. Read More

"I honor that we are killing the earth for the same reason I consider being an alcoholic a privilege: it is a doorway to the profound self-understanding required to make truly healthy choices."

The Essay: Honoring the Killing of the Earth