By: Jer Swigart on November 12, 2020
When I was nine years old, I was in Florida with my family on the first non-National Park vacation we’d ever taken. While the theme parks that promised magical memories held up to their end of the bargain, it was something that I observed in the night sky (for free) that changed my life. NASA…
By: Darcy Hansen on November 10, 2020
We are a nation built on war. Through war we earned our independence. Through war we maintain power and position around the world. The warrior spirit is woven into the very fibers of our American being. But with war, comes inevitable death. Historically, psychological principles are utilized to mitigate the fear of death in war.…
By: Greg Reich on November 9, 2020
When was the last time you just let your mind wander? When was the last time you took the time to wander around while driving, just to see a part of the city you never saw before? Sometimes it pays to wander. My wife and I normally take an annual road trip to Texas to…
By: Shawn Cramer on November 9, 2020
Nostrils filled with stench demand creative resolve. This summer, I battled a skunk at my in-law’s cabin. Each weekend greeted me with the miasma of failure of the previous week’s attempts. The putrid problem gripped me, consumed me, and I found my creativity invigorated around the disposal of this creature. Each breath reminded me of…
By: Chris Pollock on November 9, 2020
Fire is life. Fire moves and breathes. Fire is alive. Fire is warmth. Fire purifies. Fire burns. Making fire is magical; a sacred experience that requires much practise and patience. In the process of teaching my daughter to build a fire, I continue to learn from the fire as to how it is to be…
By: Jer Swigart on November 4, 2020
There is a fine line between “strategic” and “controlling.” Years ago, in my days of leading a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, we found ourselves in the process of strategic planning. We sensed that a new season was dawning for our faith community so we invited groups of community members to join our…
By: Greg Reich on November 3, 2020
As I sat in front of my desk, pen in hand, I began to write out a check for my son. It wasn’t the first time I wrote a check to assist one of my children. For some reason this one was different. Why was I struggling so much with writing this check and not…
By: Shawn Cramer on November 3, 2020
When asked how to prepare children for the exponential progress of technology, iconoclastic economist Nassim Taleb answered, “Read the classics” (Antifragile, 320). He goes on to posit, “The future is in the past.” The best innovations, then, have an intimate understanding of the past, are doggedly present to the immediate moment, and have an imaginative…
By: Darcy Hansen on November 3, 2020
How long, O Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away? How long will your silence be deafening; Your presence imperceivable? We are wasting away consumed by corruption, manipulation, greed, and partisan politics. Democrats sit crouched, ready to pounce on Republicans. Republicans stand armed ready to shoot whoever…
By: Chris Pollock on October 27, 2020
This morning, the first thing that happened to me was that I woke up. I wake up every morning. One day, this won’t happen. One day there will not be anything to wake up to, perhaps. Until then, I’m happy to dream of a less destructive way of coming to life every morning than an…
By: Greg Reich on October 27, 2020
Life is full of idioms! Phrases that aren’t intended to be taken literally but do have a specific meaning for the hearer. I highly doubt that any of us stop in mid-sentence or mid-thought to realize that we just used or heard an idiom that expresses ourselves. Comments like: “It’s time to go back to…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 27, 2020
“I like this innovative summary,” my co-worker told me, “but I’ve never since this word, ‘generative,’ before.” Furthermore, my word processor won’t recognize the noun form, “generativity.” Unapologetically, this piece is a call to engender “generative” to the normal vernacular of a leader. As an artist and thought leader who resists the utilitarian pragmatism of…
By: Jer Swigart on October 26, 2020
One of the outcomes of my Design Session was a new moniker for my target audience: The Precipice Dweller. She is a pilgrim who has dared to journey into a liminal space between “What I’m running from.” to “What I’m running toward.” She’s a sojourner whose rebellious spirit has taken her to the precipice and…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 26, 2020
Every July or August, for the past nine years, I have spent weeks packing and preparing to make my way to the small, East African country of Rwanda. I distinctly remember returning from my first mission trip in 2011 and my husband asking me what my big takeaway was. I told him, “In Rwanda I…
By: Chris Pollock on October 24, 2020
I wonder what the first thing I knew was? What also tweaks my curiosity is what the first thing was, that I had learned and realised as true. Could it have been ‘love’? I’d like to think so but, I don’t know. Love is the best thing that I have known in my life, it…
By: Jer Swigart on October 22, 2020
My team just finished up a three-day, in-person on-site retreat. It was the first time we’ve been in the same room since March and it was life-giving. So much has changed since we last were together. During our convening in March, we were set to move into a future that would have scaled up our…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 21, 2020
If we were to journey into the fray with family therapist and organizational thought-leader, Edwin Friedman, we would likely move with the cadence of the word “self.” Self-differentiation from the surrounding emotional processes. Self-determination of one’s values. Exposing one’s self to vulnerability. Self-regulation of emotions. Leadership in liminality demands a proper sense of self. Frederick…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 19, 2020
Words flew through the air like bullets on a battlefield, leaving deep, gaping wounds. Not the best way to begin a Saturday morning. Still, there we were, once again, in an emotionally explosive situation with no real hope in sight. For months, the darkness had been settling in as circumstances with our daughter went from…
By: Greg Reich on October 19, 2020
We often look at life like flipping a coin. “Heads I win, tails I lose”; a depiction, that for many things in life there are only two choices, winning or loosing. In a situation where we think we or someone else has the advantage the saying becomes “Heads I win, tails you lose”; depicting that…
By: Chris Pollock on October 16, 2020
‘I am a street person. I am twelve…I am twenty…I am sixty years old. I live on concrete fields and bask in the sunshine of neon. My pillow is of stone and my fortune lies in broken promises. My daily bread comes from a needle and alcohol soothes the pain within me.’1 A…
