Posted in Inspiration
July 1, 2016
Last week at the Institute during an internal training for our new cohort of Associates, my colleague Alia introduced a practice called ‘Secret Angels’. For those who are familiar with the Secret Santa idea, it is quite similar. You begin by randomly choosing a piece of paper with someone else’s name written on it. Then, for the duration of your time together, you must show appreciation and affection for this person, material or otherwise. You cannot reveal who you are throughout the exercise and you are allowed to elicit the support and collaboration of others. On this occasion the Secret Angel activity lasted three days and we were not allowed to spend money. Rather, we had to think of creative and resourceful ways of showing love for each other.
Some colleagues gave gifts, homemade items, drawings, written poems, chocolate and more. Others offered backrubs and massages. Some offered to do favors. Others arranged and delivered statements of appreciation, acknowledgement and sweet words of poetry. For those three days there was quite a LoveFest in the office! And this of course felt right at home since love is an integral component of our collaboration lens.
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June 16, 2016
Language shapes reality and our consciousness. As neuroscience and leadership expert Judith Glazer says, “words create worlds.” World-renowned organizational consultant Fernando Flores, a former Chilean political prisoner, teaches that relationships, organizations, teams, and all forms of collaboration exist in language. Language alters moods and affects our bodies. It is fundamental to our success, and we need to pay attention to it. The Sum Of Us Progressive Style Guide is a powerful resource to help us more humanely “harness language in support of intersectionality and cross-sector power building” (pg. 2).
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April 15, 2016
I almost wept as I listened to the story of Dylan Siegel. At age six, he learned that his friend Jonah Pournazarian had a rare, incurable, and fatal illness. He rejected mom’s ideas about a bake sale and decided to write a book, So Chocolate Bar, (his word for awesome) and raise a million dollars to support medical research. And he did it! Now at age nine, his efforts are funding research that just wouldn’t have happened otherwise. The disease affects so few people that there was no incentive for drug companies or researchers to pay attention. This little guy thought that was unfair and decided to do something about it. How would you change the world if the life of someone you loved depended on it? How far would you reach if the possibility of failing never crossed your mind?
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January 18, 2016
First things first: shoutout to Coretta Scott King for founding the King Center in 1968. Without this institution, we would not have a national holiday celebrating her husband’s life and work.
For the past few years, in honor of Coretta’s wishes and Martin, I’ve been doing a little bit of self-education on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Last year, I discovered his speeches were on Spotify so I listened to about 4 hours worth. This year, I’m taking a long look at his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. (Coincidentally, the Letter has always been important to me because he wrote it on my birthday). Read More
October 9, 2015
This week we lost Dr. Grace Lee Boggs. She was 100 years old. The long-time Detroit political and labor activist, author, and philosopher was a source of inspiration for many of us at IISC and in activist circles around the country and world. Dr. Boggs’ life and work is the focus of a documentary film called American Revolutionary, which POV is streaming for free until November 4.
The following quote appears in a piece written by Olga Bonfiglio on the Common Dreams website, which profiles this remarkable (r)evolutionary. Read More
September 16, 2015
“We are … interested in generating stories, visions and futures that are hard and realistic and hopeful.”
Image from octaviasbrood.com
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit in on a session in Detroit with Adrienne Maree Brown, writer, editor, facilitator and consultant to social movement organizations. Adrienne’s offering was on the potential of “radical science fiction” to realize empowering visions of a just and sustainable future. After sharing some of her own writing, she encouraged participants to play with a sense of imagination grounded in realistic projections of current social and environmental conditions and trends. Read More
March 10, 2015
Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on 3/8/15 by Jen Wilsea
The news channels have been flooded for the last few days with photos of the Obama family crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the very bridge that Alabama state troopers and local police would not allow peaceful voting rights activists to cross as they attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965. That day is remembered as Bloody Sunday because police attacked the marchers with tear gas and billy clubs, resulting in the hospitalization of many protestors, including John Lewis.
Hour after hour ticked by as I stood on the main street in Selma on March 7, 2015. The sun was hot and I was getting sunburned. I stood in the middle of a sea of overwhelmingly Black Southerners waiting for our Black president to arrive. Words can’t describe the calm yet electric feeling in the air. It was powerful to wait, and to see the Edmund Pettus Bridge just a few blocks ahead, knowing that at any moment President Obama would stand there and speak to this crowd, this mostly Black, Southern crowd. Read More
October 1, 2014
We can “contribute to the degradation of human capacity or we can take a stand”. That was the bold call of Meg Wheatley this month when she presented on being a “Warrior for the Human Spirit” on her webinar for our friends at System Thinking in Action (STIA). Read More
September 30, 2014
I have a practice in most of the networks and collective impact efforts I support, which is to offer poetry at the opening and closing of convenings. I’m struck by how impactful and important people have said this can be for them. In fact, just recently a very well-respected member of the public health community was compelled to say that this is exactly what is missing from the movement, more poetry and artistic expression!
“Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.”
-Lucille Clifton
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July 29, 2014
I just facilitated the 6th Creative Change Retreat at the Sundance Institute in Utah. The amazing experience leaves me grateful to my friends at the Opportunity Agenda for trusting me with the design and facilitation of such a significant convening.
Today more than ever I am convinced that the change we want to see in the world is a change that demands the evolution of consciousness and culture. As the artist and the activist come together – as they become one – we will be able to join into a different kind of intervention.
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June 23, 2014
Check out the ways that love of her many identities frees up spoken word artist Jamila Lyiscott to be her full self. She reminds us that a full, loving embrace of yourself and your cultures enables others to see you more fully and embrace all of your cultures, while it makes space for others to do the same for themselves. That’s change making at a personal level that can radiate outward to the entire community. Read More
June 19, 2014
We continue to explore the power of love. Listen to Dr. Maya Angelou speak about the power of love to liberate the human spirit. She speaks of how her mother’s love liberated Maya to become her fullest self and how Maya’s love liberated her mother at the end of her mother’s life. She speaks of the unconditional love that frees a person to make their highest and best contribution to the world—a love that is at once personal and public, individually meaningful and essential to our collective lives.
“Love liberates. It doesn’t bind.”
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