Belonging Is A Call To Action
“What happens when we choose Belonging, Connecting, Participating?” we asked at the beginning of June. “What difference could it make to living a full life?” So we promised posts that would show the upside and value of consciously deciding to find ways to connect and contribute to each other and our communities. After all, we reasoned, Belonging creates a strong whole, a woven fabric of mutual support that lifts a society. Our interviews and podcasts give great examples. However, we could not have foreseen that the very idea of Belonging would be challenged and shaken to the core by the federal separation of immigrant parents from their children at the southern border. So we plunged deep into meditation and prayer, and offered a video reflection on The Power of Children.
Belonging doesn’t mean we all agree on everything…but deciding to belong should mean that we sincerely work to discover points of connection. Belonging, then, is more than an idea – it is a call to action.
Highlights from June:
Video – The Power of Children
In this intense period of distress and sadness, with deep differences on how to solve a problem for humanity — and solve this we must — let us all agree to meet in a safe place first: Our universal love for children and sincere hopes for a better future for them.
Interview – Angels not Enemies
Mike McGillicuddy is a skills facilitator for Better Angels, a bipartisan citizen’s movement which seeks to depolarize America by fostering reconciliation and solidarity. We caught up with Mike to find out how to facilitate better ways to disagree, understand other viewpoints, discover constructive policy arguments.
Podcast – Belonging to the ocean, kids are changed by the waves!
Surfing is the access to an ocean of opportunity, according to Maui Goodbeer, founder of StreetWaves in Miami Beach. Travis Thomas from Live Yes, And chats with Maui and learns what inspired him to help urban youth discover the waves!
Video – TED Talk “I Am Because of You.”
This brief [15 min] TED talk from wildlife activist Boyd Varty looks to Nelson Mandela for powerful inspiration, because to him Mandela is the international embodiment of “ubuntu.” In essence, ubuntu means that people are not people without other people.
Podcast – Stop Competing – Belonging is the way!
Big news! There are NO SIDES in anything! No Us vs.Them, no competing with others, in athletics, work, school, even relationships. Our contributor, Travis Thomas from “Live Yes, And” describes a better, more productive and fulfilling way : collaborate and cooperate with each other.
Doubling Down on Belonging
The subject of death by suicide came forward in the public square with the tragic news of the death of two well-known and respected individuals – Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Because of the intrinsic interconnectedness of life, we think it important that all of us reflect on what we and others can do better in being present for each other and demonstrate a more practical sense of Belonging here on Earth.
