The evening after the clocks go back an hour isn’t the longest day of the year. For me, it only feels like it is. The light is super bright in the morning, lunchtime hits fast, and in the early afternoon, the shadows race in as if they’ve been held at bay all year and we’ve […]
Making peace with sinking sand
It’s been a good summer for spending half hours standing on a beach with no shoes. Back in July, while I was in San Diego for an annual conference, I managed to stop by the Pacific the day before I left. I hadn’t planned out the beach trip at all and was wildly overdressed. But […]
The courage to be selectively transparent
Despite a 20-year healthy career in television and film, Taraji P. Henson is still a radically underestimated actor and producer. From the ABC/WB series, Sister Sister, to this year’s Hidden Figures, Henson has shown remarkable persistence with her acting career, something that’s only benefited the characters whose stories she chooses to tell. Not much in that career would have […]
Leadership as the assumption of risk
I completed my last Sunday service shift as a staff member at Unity of Gaithersburg today. The senior minister, Rev. Sheryl Myers, allowed me to talk to the community about my time with them and what’s next for me. I thought back to the first book study group I facilitated there: Brené Brown’s 2013 book on wholeheartedness in workplaces, relationships, and families, Daring […]
Wise selfishness
I learned a phrase today: “wise selfishness.” It comes from the Dalai Lama, who wrote this short thought a few years ago: It is important that when pursing our own self-interest we should be “wise selfish” and not “foolish selfish”. Being foolish selfish means pursuing our own interests in a narrow, shortsighted way. Being wise […]
At the heart of community
Angel Kyodo Williams is a Zen Buddhist teacher who writes lucidly about the resources we have for staying grounded and gracious regardless of external circumstances. One of the resources she emphasizes in the book Being Black is community. We have the power to choose not to let our beautiful diversity be a source of division […]
