On the day that the US launched two astronauts on SpaceX Dragon, protests, riots and violence erupted in more than 70 cities following the killing of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in Minneapolis. Perhaps nothing illustrates more starkly the gap between our extraordinary technical prowess and our moral failure as a nation to value the humanity […]

My colleague Rev Sylvester “Tee” Turner from Richmond, Va, offers a thought-provoking presentation of his approach to reconciliation (link to video) which he describes as a process of acknowledgment and apology; forgiveness; and accountability and working together.  He was speaking to a diverse group in Montreal as part of a Trustbuilding workshop.

I was honored to help facilitate a Trustbuilding training weekend in Quebec in early March just before the Covid-19 lockdown. The trustbuilding project comes at a key moment in Quebec and Canadian history, with the rise of Islamophobia and discrimination against indigenous, black and ethnic communities. The diverse group included anglophones and francophones, a First Nations elder, and immigrants from […]

Spring is beautiful in Texas. As new residents, we were unprepared for the abundance and the variety of wildflowers that seemed to spring up overnight. Although we live in an urban center, our apartment looks out over an undeveloped field which became a sea of bluebonnets. Our daily walks take us on a nearly two-mile pathway surrounded by tall grasses […]

It is now Day 10 since Susan and I confined ourselves in our apartment except for essential grocery runs. Like many of you, we keep touch with our family (in Seattle, New York and here in Austin) by FaceTime and texts. As part of our morning quiet times, we have been reading some Lenten reflections by Scott Stoner. He writes […]

Disheartened by the dearth of political courage and statesmanship displayed by our representatives in Washington (with a few notable exceptions), I came across a blog I wrote 10 years ago inspired by the memoirs of a remarkable Australian politician, Kim E. Beazley.* Among his many accomplishments as Minister for Education were the abolition of university fees and the introduction of […]

In the summer of 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches in US history. Just two years earlier, Congress had passed the Fugitive Slave Act which required that escaped slaves be returned to their owners even if they were in a free state. Douglass himself had escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland just fourteen years earlier to become one […]

In workshops with diverse and polarized community groups, we often use an “environmental scan” to map what is going on in the room. Using four quadrants we ask participants to write and post their individual responses to four questions: What are we proud of, or what are the successes in our community? What are our complaints or frustrations? What are […]

A highlight of a recent visit to Minneapolis-St Paul was a tour of the Rondo neighborhood by Steve and Catherine Dickinson who came to live there in 1979 and used their home as an Initiatives of Change center. For decades in the 20th century Rondo was the thriving heart of the black community. Many who arrived from the southern states […]

I sat down to write this column the day after Justin Trudeau won a second term as Canada’s prime minister. He lost the popular vote and his Liberal Party lost its majority in the House of Commons. To the surprise of many observers, the Bloc Québécois, a party that promotes Québec independence and which had appeared very weak early in […]