Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win the Pulitzer prize for poetry following the release of her second book. She went on to publish over twenty texts and became well known in her home state, Illinois, and across the country for her outstanding contribution to American literature.
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What do I want badly enough to invest in pursuing it—in spite of the obstacles and competing claims on my time and attention, in spite of the risks and the guarantees of uncertainty, in spite of the risk of rejection and the possibility of failure?
I have asked this question for a couple of weeks running. I offered a few thoughts from a Barbara Kingsolver quote to get the conversation started: “elementary kindness…enough to eat, enough to go around… the possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed.
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Perhaps feeling wistful in these late summer weeks as we lean towards fall, I seem to have a penchant for all things poetic. Who better to read then, than my friend and colleague Danny Martin, who blogs at a site entitled, “The Art of Working WITH Life.” Danny wonderfully and naturally spouts poetry, his own and others’, as he reflects on what it means to live and lead sustainably. In a recent post on relationships, he writes, “sustainability is about learning to work with differences in a way that will allow us to address the challenges of everyday living and also thereby deepen the relationship with the world we live in.” In other words, it is about learning to love, or as Humberto Maturana has defined it, “respecting the other as a legitimate other.” I have noted that the whole notion of love resonates more and more deeply with people in leadership trainings. The mention of the word does not lead to the same kinds of winces, embarrassed grins, and occasional rolling of the eyes as it did even 3 years ago. What’s love got to do with it? “Everything!” a couple of people shouted in my most recent training in Connecticut. As we discuss it, we revolve around the many different splendors and interpretations, but at the end of the day most everyone agrees that while it may be difficult to define love, we know when it’s absent. And we know we suffer for its loss.
So with thanks to Danny for drawing my attention to them, I pass along these poetic ponderings of Czeslow Milosz, and invite you to consider the link between love and sustainability: Read More
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I am honored to be part of a listserv called “The Gamechangers Salon,” there is brilliance and passion in it. There is also a lot of anger these days, particularly given recent events in Washington. Following is my recent contribution to the conversation, coincidentally, my colleague Cynthia Silva Parker, just wrapped up her blog series on Power & Privilege with a post on Pursuing – something in the air at IISC! Here is my post:
In case you missed my earlier posts in this series, I am raising a series of questions about power and privilege in social change work at the invitation of the “Walk the Talk” zine/book project.
Today is the final post in this series. I want to end with a deceptively simple question.
What do I want badly enough to pursue? Read More
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Our first son was born on Saturday, he came two months early and he is AMAZING. Clearly I am gushing with joy, excitement and love! I have spent very little time with our baby (who hasn’t yet told us his name), but I am already enraptured by him – bonded, mightily connected. And isn’t that so much of what we talk about here on the IISC Blog? Love, connection – life, evolution. Read More
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Samantha Tan and I got married this weekend! What an incredibly joyful time! I can’t begin to do justice to the wellspring of emotion that seems to be bursting from within me, but I do want to offer a brief and relevant reflection for our readers.
Marriage is between two people, and it is rooted in their love from one another – it is a link, a commitment, a connection but it itself exists within the web of connection. Our wedding brought together a rich network of loving relationships from all aspects of our lives. Family, colleagues, long time friends and new friends, comrades, artists, children and elders – a well-woven web of love all connected to our own node of love. It was community, and it was love made visible. Read More
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In remembrance of our dear friend Jeff Stamps.
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“To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.”
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I was just talking to a scientist friend of mine. He told me, and I quote, that “unfortunately, in science, we fail 95% of the time, we inch along towards a breakthrough.” There is a lot of good talk about failure lately, but I don’t think I had ever heard it this way before. When I heard him say that I felt like I wished it was a widely known fact. Read More
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Last Wednesday, March 23, my colleague Melinda and I had the privilege of hosting a beautiful dialogue among a select group of Boston’s Black and Latino leaders. Following is the invitation that we sent:
We have all heard the news – the United States will be a “majority minority country” before the turn of the century. The historical significance of this demographic shift cannot be overstated – Americans are already contending with this emergent reality. Black and Latino people have been living side by side for a long time, there are many ways in which ours is shared experience, our histories are profoundly intertwined. We recognize strong alliances and cultural intersections and we also recognize old and new tensions. Read More
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