The 2017 Ware Lecture by Bryan Stevenson
"We will not change the world if we're not willing to do uncomfortable things."
Read MoreMindful Summer
So it was one of those summer days in early spring. We’re on the neighbor’s stoop. Her kids and mine, playing together. One of my boys had had a rough afternoon and makes another (ahem) mistake that I need to (ahem) correct. I get his attention, remind him of the mistake, and they continue playing. Then neighbor mom says, “How do you stay so calm when you do that?” Before I could reply, and completely matter-of-factly, my other son says, “He meditates.” Contemporary author, Brené Brown writes in Gifts of Imperfection, “Mindfulness requires that we not ‘over-identify’ with...
Read More100 Days of Action
On Martin Luther King Sunday, we gathered to celebrate Rev. Dr. King’s legacy and commit to live it out! We reflected on the social concerns that occupy our thoughts and touch our hearts. Then we focused on what we can and shall do during the first 100 days of the impending new presidency. We wrote down what we would do over the next 100 days to make our homes, our neighborhoods, our nation, and our world a better place. We placed these commitments in envelopes to be sent to us in the middle of those 100 days as a reminder. Or as a reason to celebrate our actions. Or an...
Read MoreDifference
Because conflict reflects two (at least) different interpretations of the common good, healthy conflict is doing one of two things: it’s either calling us to a deeper mutual understanding of the good, or it’s calling us to a deeper common life. Healthy conflict is an invitation to deeper connection–to ourselves, to one another, to the greater reality of which we are part. In the famous song by that famous song-writing duo Lennon & McCartney, “We can work it out.” With emphasis on the “We”!
Read MoreRenewal: April’s Spiritual Focus
Last year our yard had one peach blossom. And later, one peach. One out-of-reach peach. Infested and dessicated, it eventually fell of its own weight, sloughed off from a tree that kept living. This year is different. There’s too many blossoms to count. Maybe it was the pruning we did last autumn. Maybe it was the right number of freezing days and nights over winter. Whatever the reason; in this time of spring, this time of renewal, blossoms on the peach tree remind me that they are not last year’s blossom renewed. That one did its job best it could, withered, petals falling softly to the...
Read More