Heart Opening

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

Hmmm. It seems to me as I read and listen to black writers and speakers, I haven’t had nearly enough empathy. I think that’s my big takeaway this week. I felt sympathy. I recognized injustice (to some extent), but I simply did not feel the pain of fellow human beings and citizens enough.

Now I think that when people ask, “What can we do?”—and the good news is a whole lot of us white people are asking that question in this moment of history—I know it begins with empathy. Really understanding and feeling the pain of what happens to fellow human beings—which then becomes our pain too.

For the record, empathy is just where we begin. My mind continues to absorb ideas and let them tumble into concrete things we can do to make change. To take real action. But for now?

I have three must listen-to podcast episodes for you. And then, a couple of other things I think are worth checking out.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much. If you want to get educated on the topic of racism and social justice, oh my gosh, there is so much available to us.

But I think my links this week cut through the clutter. They’re a good start, and they’re pretty easily digestible. If you haven’t listened to podcasts much, you may discover that you can get a lot in in a little time—WHILE YOUR’E DOING SOMETHING ELSE. Cook, clean, drive, work on your art… And meanwhile? I think you’ll find your heart opening with these episodes.

Three Must Listen-To podcast Episodes:

(To listen to these episodes, you can click on these links and listen via your browser—or you can also find them on your podcast platform of choice such as Stichr, Spotify or my favorite, Overcast (some available for free in the App store).

Brene Brown podcast, Unlocking Us, with Austin Channing Brown, author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Oprah”s SuperSoul Conversations Part 1 and Part 2. ( believe you can view these on YouTube, too).

This is a two part panel discussion with politician Stacey Abrams, journalist Charles M. Blow, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms,  filmmaker Ava DuVernay,  author Jennifer Eberhardt, journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning founder of the 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones, historian and author Ibram X. Kendi, actor David Oyelowo, Color of Change president Rashad Robinson, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign  Bishop Dr. William J. Barber II. 

More recommendations:

I have to share this: Protesters in Boston are setting off fireworks - so lovely…and who knew about the fireworks?

I am STILL loving How to Be an Anti-Racist with Ibram X. Kendi (on the panel above)—historical perspective mixed with lived memoir. It’s also available by audiobook…

I just ordered I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. After listening to her interview above, how could I not?

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. If you know others who would enjoy this newsletter, please share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.

Unmasking the moment

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

If you know me you know that I am not a follower of any Religion. But I am spiritual. I believe that, like you, I am ”a spiritual being having a human experience” and I’m endlessly curious about this experience we call Life.

So it is with a spiritual lens that I see that humanity is having a moment right now.

We all feel it—we are steeped in it right now—on the internet and if you’re like me, in every single conversation with friends, family and strangers these days. I sit with it within myself: a huge swell of emotions, an uprising of anger, fear, outrage, guilt, grief…

I want solutions. Right now. Make the virus go away. End racism. Stop injustices. Stop destroying the planet. Fix all that is wrong with our country and our world. DO something. Right now. How can I fix this? How can we fix this? More emotions uprising.

Yet the answers aren’t simple—and solutions won’t happen in a short timeframe. Also, maybe in the grand scheme of things unknown, maybe this is the Moment to see more clearly. To understand more deeply. Maybe this is our work.

Rob Bell says on his podcast this week that we as a human society—like other ancient societies before us—seem to be experiencing what he calls The Great Unmasking. And in fact this seeing and naming what IS is a necessary first step to creating what comes next:

“You cannot have the new world until you have fully named and unmasked all that’s wrong with the present world. You cannot have a new, higher, better order until you have been brutally honest about with everything that is corrupt and destructive about this order.”

—and then out of deep understanding, a moral revolution.

May it be so.

Privilege Is

The Damage that White Onlookers Inflict

21 Racial Micro-Aggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis

We are Not the Virus. We are the Kamikazes.

The Power of 2020 and America’s Promise

“Have a look at the New York City Budget for the fiscal year 2020 and you will very quickly note the priorities (policing) for public expenditures and for cuts (social services of health, education and youth services). A quick back of the envelope public expenditure review reveals and illustrates the fiscal story for the fault-lines nourishing and giving free rein to the virility of both viruses of anti blackness and of the pandemic. And this is the story of masked interventions for maintaining inequity and cruelty…”

Finally, I’m reading How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi—I highly recommend it. First new idea: The opposite of racist is NOT not racist. It’s antiracist.

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. If you know others who would enjoy this newsletter, please share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.

A prayer for the dead and the living

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

Wow. What a week. I struggle to find words. My heart goes out to the families and to George Floyd …Ahmed Arboury …Breanna Taylor…

With these senseless, awful deaths, may we all wake up to the truth that people of color in this country are too often brutalized, marginalized, and unjustly treated because of the color of their skin. And that this malevolence is built into an entire system and worldview of white supremacy. And that this system is inherited over centuries of industrialized colonization—baked into our history, our institutions, our communities and into each of us individually because we live here.

And may we each find more empathy and understanding before we can dismantle, rebuild and heal.

An article: Protests, Uprisings and Race War

A video: Tyrone Edwards Shares

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. Feel free to share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.

Reset anyone?

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

Five things to share with you this week:

1. I KNOW we’re really tired of hearing about the coronavirus—almost as tired as sheltering in place. But I’m sharing JUST ONE Covid-19 article this week. It went viral because, I believe, it’s one of the best assessments out there right now: The Risks: Know Them and Avoid Them. (That chart showing how a virus spread through a restaurant is especially interesting).
   

2. Speaking of restaurants, you’ll enjoy this Letter to the Restaurant Industry. Something for us as consumers should support, I think.
   

   “There is a silver lining here… …because it takes catastrophic failure for human nature to change, I would like to point out that this is your moment as an industry. You have been gifted the golden goose of our life-time. There’s a short, medium and long game here. As you ponder viability and sustainability, it HAS TO BE with a new model where you have coalesced to offer your employees fair compensation, 40-hour work weeks, meaningful benefits, AND solutions that offer the entrepreneurial owners better than “less than 10% net profit.”

3. Speaking of the economy… these two posts seem to go hand in hand. First, you know it’s a problem when even middle class white men are struggling—and really, this was all pre-pandemic. And then the brilliant Douglass Rushkoff who wrote Team Human tells it like it is: Restoring the Economy is the last thing we should want.
   

   “If we approach this moment of pause mindfully, the post-Covid economy we create could turn out to be a whole lot more resilient than the old one. Beyond exposing the brittle nature of global supply chains, top-down monetary policy, and a vanquished domestic manufacturing sector, the Covid crisis is also unleashing a powerful drive by local and networked communities to rebuild business from the bottom-up. The mechanisms so many of us are now inventing and retrieving under duress may just survive after this crisis is over, and augur a new era of sustainable commerce and much better distributed prosperity. Think local farms, worker-owned factories, and companies for whom the bottom line has more to do with selling products than selling shares of its stock.”
   

4. Moment of Pause—and reset. I love Cal Newport’s work, especially his latest book, Digital Minimalism, Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. In his blog lately he is focusing on how to take back our attention, avoid superficial (digital) distraction and work and live more deeply. In this post, he makes an important comparison to Odysseus:

5. “To varying degrees of severity, we’re all suffering through some version of Odysseus’s tragic journey. Many — too many — are struggling with devastating consequences to their health or livelihoods….But for many others, including a large part of my audience here, the moment has brought severe dislocation to much of what we’ve come to trust and expect, but falls short of immediate peril. The question then is what those who find themselves in this situation — marooned on a Netflix-themed island of the lotus eaters — should do about it?”
   
   (Spoiler alert: he has some ideas.)

Finally, just a random share. Here’s a lovely post from Austin Kleon celebrating Bob Dylan—on his 79th birthday.

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

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Still many unknowns—be safe

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

As California begins opening up this week, I have to put it out there: I’m worried.

Experts agree we’re far from the end of the pandemic. Here in the U.S. particularly we’re likely to see an ongoing patchwork across the country of more sharp increases (and up and down again) until we learn how to beat the virus.

2. There can be a false sense of safety when the government tells us we can safely gather again—despite the fact that they really don’t know. The virus continues to spread, and Science does not yet know how Covid-19 spreads.  Evidence points to primary airborne transmission person to person with prolonged contact—but transmission is not proven. Particularly, they don’t fully understand “superspreading events” and clusters—they don’t know why some people seem to spread the virus far and others do not. They just don’t know yet.

3. I’m also worried because we humans suffer from cognitive biases—“flaws in rational judgement” baked into our brains. One of those biases is exponential growth bias. Most of us can’t foresee how fast small numbers of cases in a community can balloon into very large numbers. And then there’s the “not me” bias.  I’m not old. I’m healthy.  I don’t have a disease so I’m not at risk. Yet, Science doesn’t fully understand all the risk factors, why the Covid-19 coronavirus is deadly for some people and not others (that link is a particularly good summary of research to date). So again, false sense of safety.

4. Finally, it seems that too many believe our feckless leader and his growing list of untruths about this very complex disease event. Or they simply don’t care.

So this is all to say that I am afraid that will let down their guard. As businesses, restaurants, bars and venues, reopen we will gather more. We’ll eat and drink near strangers, inside buildings. We won’t be as vigilant about social distancing, washing hands, keeping our hands from our faces in public…

Please don’t be one of those people.  I get that our mental, social and economic health requires we open up a bit—but be cautious.  Pressure your employer to maintain safe practices. Keep your distances and gather outside. Maintain hygiene vigilance.  We will learn how to beat the virus, which I believe will include how to gather safely—but until science and leaders know how, we have to take our own health—and those of all those we want to keep close and alive—in our own hands.

5. Okay. Now reward yourself for reading all the above excellent and challenging links with a four minute reminder to enjoy life. Also - this sweet comic: The Only One in Here

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. Feel free to share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.

Moral Revolution, anyone?

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

I have so much to share with you today.

1. First and most importantly: Like so many of us us, I feel ever more concern and urgency about the grave crises of our world—environmental, social, political, economic. It is no surprise, then, that I resonated so deeply with this (short, short) post, The Moral Imagination. In fact, I ended up signing up for the online course, The Path of Moral Leadership (FREE with a purchase of a book - see below) through the esteemed Acumen Academy.

   So here’s the thing: I need team members. Want to join me? The course is structured around teams of 2-6 people who take the class together. I can try to connect with others in the course to form a team, but before I do—I’d LOVE for you to join me. We would of course work entirely online—so distance does not matter—and it will be a small time commitment each week. Nothing too strenuous but who knows what might come out of the experience?

   If you’re interested - please watch the 2 minute video and look over the site. If you feel like I do, then, simply buy the book (Manifesto for a Moral Revolution), then sign up for the course for FREE and contact me—let’s be a team!
   

2. As a parent with one child still in college, I’m intrigued by this idea of ‘Corona Corps’ . It might help college kids get through the pandemic AND serve our country (which needs all the help it can get—see #3 below). Here’s a follow-up to the idea published nationally: We Need National Service. Now.
   

3. I was shocked to learn in this short and scathing piece that the death rate in the United states from Covid-10 is six times higher than the the average global death rate.

   Lack of preparation, lack of resources, lack of national leadership…“The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.” (The Irish Times).

   I’ll say.

4. Here’s a few articles on office buildings in the time of the coronavirus: This one, Death of the Office, is excellent. Then theres Will the Office be Killed by the Coronavirus? And finally - this one is more of a PSA. Most of us might not know that that water systems in large buildings must be well taken care of or they can make us sick. Be sure to inquire about your building if and when you go back to work!
   

5. Okay - here’s some random links. First, I loved this article on dogs in puberty (goes for cats, too!) Good reminder to new pet parents: animals go through stages too. This too shall pass.

   I enjoyed Glennon Doyle’s latest book, Untamed, a series of short essays on reclaiming her true, wild self (and her story is pretty intriguing!)

   Now I’m listening to Kate Racculia’s book on tape, Bellweather Rhapsody. It’s a super fun account of one weekend in a haunted hotel—told by all kinds of characters staying there for a high school musician’s conference.

   Oh, and if you loved Parks and Recreation, their zoom reunion special now on Youtube was so fun. I guess other old shows like The Office are doing their own “zoom specials too…” As my husband would say, ‘My Corona! DUh duh-duh DUh DUh! ‘

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. Feel free to share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.

What is possible?

Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

Last week I sent just one article written by George Packer of The Atlantic that I think articulates the crisis of our time. This pandemic is like low tide, right? The treacherous terrain below the surface of our (polluted) national waters stretches out before us in full view. “The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.”

Like most of us, I struggle with it all. Political corruption, greed, injustice, social division, hate, climate crisis…the list goes on. And as a friend who read this article told me, “It’s a great article—but it’s singing to the choir…the only people who read that article are you and me and people who think like us…nothing is going to change.” It’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless.

But.

The world is a mysterious place and possibilities are actually unlimited. For all the malignant forces in our social, cultural and political fabric, we also have people—so many people—who offer solutions and possibilities for all of us to do better. We ourselves can each do so much better if we choose. So that’s what I want to focus on this week. What is possible?

1. Consumers could prioritize sustainable business practices and encourage leaders like these 50 socially responsible CEOs. And wow, we could we use more enterprises like this one that creates denim to end poverty. (I was SO inspired by this podcast interview with the founder, James Bartle.)
   

2. We could join this growing organization that is planting 8 billion trees and actually—truly—save the planet.
   

3. What restaurants have to deal with right now is heartbreaking—but what might rise from the ashes?
   

4. This podcast interview with Mark Cuban…Wow. Just wow. Talk about what is possible! And this article with Stacy Abrams. More wow. Double and triple wow. Democracy is possible.
   

5. And how about possibilities right where we are? The transformation of despair into hope is alchemical work, creative work… And this On Being podcast: A Life Worthy of Every Breath So beautiful—Enjoy!

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

P.S. Feel free to share this email. All are welcome to subscribe.