Getting Our Act Together

I don’t write about politics, and I’m not about to start.

Except to say this…

We the people have got to get our act together.

I live in a small rural town, and I’ve come to see political yard signs as one more way to divide us rather than inspire us to become curious about our neighbor’s perspective. If I actually did put one up for this upcoming election, I suspect mine would be in the minority of those displayed in the beautiful valley that I share with my goodhearted, and like me, patriotic neighbors. Rather than sparking curiosity, I worry that it would only further fan the flames of division that are threatening the country that we the people all love.

The truth is, it has become scary as hell to bring up anything political (with anyone other than those who “agree” with us). With family who lean in a different direction than we do. With friends who cast their sacred votes differently than we do for reasons that make good sense to them just as ours do to us. With our neighbors who identify with a different political party than we do. With colleagues upon whom we depend for a job well done, but don’t dare broach certain subjects around the metaphorical water cooler. With the stranger in line at the grocery store who, nevertheless, is a fellow citizen of this country that we the people all love.

But if we the people are going to get our act together, then it’s time that we the people put on our big boy/girl/however-you-identify pants, and start talking with each other. But because it’s scary, because it feels like a bridge too far, we don’t do it.

But what if we did, and where could we start?

How about with one simple question…

How are you feeling about this election?

It’s a question that doesn’t demand to know what party we identify with.

How are you feeling about this election?

It’s a question that doesn’t demand to know who we are going to vote for and why.

How are you feeling about this election?

It’s a question that doesn’t demand to know who we blame for the mess we’re in, or to whom we attribute the progress we have or haven’t made.

How are you feeling about this election?

It’s a question that invites us to get out of our ideological heads and into our human hearts. It’s a question to which there is no wrong answer, just my answer, your answer, their answer, all of which are true, and many of which I suspect are the same, even if for different reasons.

Almost all fruitful endeavors, conversations, inventions, solutions, and relationships begin with and are sustained by good questions. Which, when asked and received with a sense of curiosity and grace, can lead to the next question. And the next and the next, and the next, until before we know it, we’ve found ourselves on some common ground, even if only a sliver. And a sliver is a place to start.

For any of us who watched one of the conventions, we were challenged to stop complaining and “do something”. If we the people are going to get our act together, maybe it starts with each of us doing something that connects us rather than divides us. Like talking with each other.

So, how are you feeling about this election?

I’m so terrified that you asked, but here goes.

I’m feeling hopeful, optimistic, scared, and yes, joyful.

Hmm. Tell me more about that. and why you’re feeling that way.

I’m a little less scared and a tiny bit more glad that you asked.

I’m hopeful that it will lead us forward. That it might pave the way for us to address the very real challenges that we the people face, and that our children and grandchildren will face after we’re gone.

I’m optimistic that it will embolden anyone who feels that their party has been stolen from them to take ownership of it again, because everyone is needed for we the people to get our collective act together.

I’m scared that too many of us will choose party over country, vote against someone rather than for something, do nothing out of despair that their vote doesn’t matter or in protest against an imperfect system, rather than exercising their right to vote in order to perfect our union just a little bit more.

And, yes, I’m feeling joyful that we might actually have a chance to bring a lot of us, from both sides of the aisle, a bit closer together, which is where the shit we all care about actually gets done.

So, how are you feeling about this election?

Righting A Wrong

What’s wrong is rarely the right question.

It implies that there is something that needs to be fixed, corrected, or cleaned up. Like maybe us.

But real life isn’t tidy. It’s broken, imperfect, and messy, which means that sometimes we are all of those things too.

It takes such courage to show up in the midst of our own emotional messiness. In those moments the right person asking the right questions at the right time can work wonders. The right questions can shine light into our darkness, open doors for conversations waiting to be had, uncover possibilities, kindle hope, and pave the way for next steps.

The right questions start with wanting to know what’s true. Not what’s wrong.

From The Rooftops

Recently I wrote a review of More Human Than Otherwise: Living & Leading With Humility by my dear friend and most trusted colleague, David Berry.

David’s book is for anyone in leadership, considering leadership, or wondering about leadership. It is a book to give as a gift to someone you know who is seeking to be the kind of leader others would willingly follow. If you are looking for a meaningful graduation present for someone about to step onto the leadership trail, look no further. While you are at it, get a copy for yourself and dive in. After all, you are more human than otherwise too.

After posting the review on Goodreads I noticed a tiny box that could be checked to post my review on a blog, and checked it immediately. Why didn’t I think of that, I wondered, as it’s kind of a no brainer to share good news with as many people as we can, whenever and wherever we find it. In fact, given the state of the world, we should be shouting any and all good news from our rooftops to the world within our reach.

Well, this is me, shouting from my small but mighty rooftop.

David Berry asks us to consider what it takes to become a leader others would willingly follow. It is at once a question and an invitation. It is the question anyone desiring to lead well must not only continually answer but live into every day. Beyond that, it is an invitation to transformation, which is the journey of any leader worth her salt. Because transformation is what happens when we are willing to learn from and be changed by our experiences. All of them, and perhaps most especially, the difficult, painful, and humbling experiences that help us gain more clarity on who we are and how we are showing up in the world as a human being leading other human beings.

One of the many things I appreciate about this book is how David created a safe space for the reader’s own courageous thinking. He does this by modeling a critical element at the heart of leadership. What it looks like to go first. To be the kind of leader that says, “It’s ok. I’ll go first. I’ll show you ‘mine’ (the good, the bad and the ugly) so that maybe you will be willing to show me ‘yours’. He does this by sharing his own experiences, what he learned, and what has changed in him as a result.

It quickly becomes clear that David takes seriously his call to help equip and support the next generation of leaders. Leaders who will be courageous enough to become evermore self-aware. In multiple ways this book reminds us that telling ourselves the truth about who we are is foundational to being a leader others would willingly follow. To do that we need the help of others. Cultivating the practice of seeking feedback on a regular basis, learning in community, and engaging a therapist are but a few of the ways suggested in these pages.

I highly recommend this book for anyone in leadership, aspiring to leadership, of wondering if leadership is for them. To that last point, leadership isn’t confined just to those with the title. To be more human than otherwise is to answer the call to love, help, and heal the world within our reach, which sounds a lot like leadership to me.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday was rough. It was one of those days where I went from grumpy to angry to sad to flat to worried to afraid to lonely to resentful to frustrated to annoyed to hopeless to melancholy to…

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I simply had to live with it and let it pass. It was one of those days that I simply wanted to be over. End of story.

Thankfully, I am recognizing days like yesterday for what they are. A transition day of sorts, and as we all know, transitions can be tough as we move from one state or condition to another.

Transition days usually come on the heels of something big. A big event. An emotional upheaval. A long anticipated adventure coming to an end.

Transition days are when I need to practice not acting on what I think or feel.

Transition days are when I need to practice not taking things out on those around me.

Transition days are when I need to not take myself or my dark thoughts too seriously.

Transition days are when I need to hold my heavy emotions lightly.

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed. Whatever it was had slipped out during the night, and my heart was at peace.

What a difference a day makes.

On A Whim And An Audit

A lover of all things language, early in his college experience he declared himself a German major. Already fluent in Danish after living in Denmark for his senior year in high school, and with German under his linguistic belt, he was about to take his first class in Russian. Scanning his horizon, he imagined himself on his way to a life in academia.

But then something unexpected happened.

On a whim, he signed up to audit a geology class.

He’d loved collecting rocks as a boy, and thought, “Heck. Why not? It might be fun.”

And it was.

Before the semester was even over, thanks to a quietly charismatic professor who obviously loved what he was doing, this college sophomore knew what he wanted to do with his life. He would become a geologist.

His professional career spanned 38 years, leading him to become a world renowned expert in his field. As a research scientist, his work often dropkicked him out of the office and into the natural world. He engaged in field work close to home and around the globe, finding himself in circumstances that the world of academia might have had a hard time matching. Stranded on the top of an 18,000’ Andean volcano in fog so thick that the helicopter couldn’t find them, he and his colleagues had to find their way back down on foot. In the Philippines he made his way through shoulder-high grass, home to three different species of cobras, and oh-so-many other poisonous things, and lived to tell about it. Work in anti-American rebel territory in Columbia was done under the protection of a security force armed with automatic weapons. He rafted the Grand Canyon, attended a banquet as the guest of the Sultan of Central Java, spoke at the UN in Geneva, and was momentarily mistaken for the Crown Prince of Japan.

Regardless of where we find ourselves in life, it’s easy to get stuck thinking that in order to find success we have to follow the rules, check off the right boxes, and make carefully calculated decisions. We have to stay the course and follow the route we’ve mapped out for ourselves.

But maybe not.

At least not always.

This geologist would say his professional life was more than he ever could have imagined. And it happened on a whim and an audit. Because of what seemed at the time, an inconsequential decision. It wasn’t a strategic choice, or the next step in a plan hammered out with his academic advisor. It wouldn’t add to his GPA or satisfy a course requirement. He simply thought, “Heck. Why not? It might be fun.”

And it was.

Dr. Thomas C. Pierson a.k.a. the geologist I sleep with

A Second Language

The longer we wait to learn a new language, the harder it is to learn. It’s possible. Just harder.

As a girl who tends to make her mind up quickly, have an opinion on how things should be done, and who is pretty sure she is right most of the time, especially when she’s wrong, I have mastered the language I’m calling Certainty. It flows off my tongue like water. To say that I’m fluent in it is an understatement, as anyone who knows and loves me anyway can attest.

However, when it comes to the language I’m calling Curiosity, I am anything but fluent. But I want to be. To that end, I am practicing a few simple phrases as often as I can, knowing that repetition and practice are the keys to mastery.

I could be wrong about that.

You could be right about that.

Those two statements still catch in my throat, and most likely catch those who hear them off guard, but the more I say them, the more easily they come. Every day provides me with ample opportunity to practice, and for that I am grateful (mostly). I’ve spent years mastering the language of Certainty, and it is my hope that with practice, I will be able to claim Curiosity as a second language in which I am fluent.

What language would you like to learn?

Dirty Baby

As soon as he was out of the car he made a beeline first for the driveway to play with the gravel, and then for the front yard to scoop up handfuls of dirt from the latest gopher mounds. In short order, our grandson Cai’s hands were dirty, and his onesie covered in dust.

He was…. a happy camper.

A free range kid.

He wasn’t concerned about keeping things neat and tidy, or how he would look with a little dirt on his face. Nope. Not one bit. Cai was captivated by his surroundings and curious to explore the world within reach of his grubby little hands.

When did we forget how good it is to get a little, or a lot, dirty now and then? To forget what people might think, and allow ourselves to be captivated by the world around us and curious to explore the world within reach of our probably too clean hands?

As wee Can knows, life is too short to worry about clean fingernails.

Word Play

Because I am never in more danger of being wrong then when I’m certain that I’m right, and because nobody likes a know-it-all, I’m playing around with some new words.

I could be wrong about that.

You could be right about that.

Believe it or not, it’s actually kind of fun. Most of the time.

Betwixt And Between

Father Richard Rohr defines a liminal space as the place that is betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown.

That definition rings true, and sounds familiar, as this is the space where I find myself more often than not. That place between what I’ve known in the past, and that has perhaps served me well, but with a few more steps along my journey encountering new experiences, new information, new people, and new perspectives, I can no longer count on what I’ve known to guide my steps. This is, I think, how we are meant to travel in the world—letting go of certainty and grabbing ahold of curiosity instead. 

It is usually when I am sure that I know for sure, that I find out that I usually don’t. So much for certainty. 

Liminal places aren’t found periodically along our journey. They are the journey. 

Three Questions

As a new week begins, I want to share three questions I heard this morning in church.

The message was given by Mateo, a high school student, on the topic of climate change. An issue so complex, so overwhelming, and so fraught with powerful emotions from those on all sides, that it can be tempting to find ourselves stuck in an endless cycle of hand wringing. Which, as far as I know, has yet to solve a problem. This young man, however, suggested that there might be a more effective approach to this global issue, that as stewards of the planet, impacts us all. In a quiet voice, confident in his message, he encouraged us to cut climate change down to size by thinking locally. As he shared his own story of coming to grips with the challenges facing our shared planet, he suggested that it might help each of us to ask ourselves the same three simple questions that he asked himself when attempting to wrap his young arms around this global bone of contention.

1. How is climate change affecting me?

2. How is it affecting others?

3. What are we going to do about it?

Simple questions with no easy answers, but in contemplating a worldwide situation in his own neck of the woods, he found it easier to see opportunities to make a difference. And suggested that we might too.

Imagine if each one of us decided to be curious. To honestly assess the impact our changing climate is having right in our own back yard, to consider how it is impacting those in our community, to search for ways to address our common concerns, and then get to work.

Mateo’s words rang true not only in relation to our rising temperatures, but as a template to approach any problem that feels too complex to tackle. From global issues to those within the walls of our own workplaces, schools, and homes, a good place to start is with the same three questions.

1. How is this fill-in-the-blank issue affecting me?

2. How is it affecting others?

3. What are we going to do about it?

Rancho La Puerta - Photo by Tom Pierson