Well this living, moving brainstorm has moved its way back to Minneapolis. It's amazing how easily one can be absorbed back into "life as it was". I have been to Narnia, everything is different, and out I step from the closet door back into my home and.... no time has passed, nothing has changed.
But, thankfully for my peace of mind this brief touch-down is but a stop in the road, a time of preparation for my next trip into "fantasy land".... The funny thing is that those times seem some much more real than the "real life" I leave behind. Hopefully this time I can bring Narnia back home with me...; either that or bring everyone from back home into Narnia with me. We'll see which one works better.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The Heart of the Issue
The other day I was sharing a cup of coffee with a friend on top of an old pickup truck in a large outdoor garden/plant nursery/store/coffee shop, right in the middle of Bayview. We were talking about social enterprise and community development (the topics of somewhere around 96% of my conversations, I'm afraid) and I said, "I just don't like programs; I don't think they really get at the heart of the issue..." At which point he interjected, "What is the heart of the issue?"
I stuttered out some kind of rambling response about generational cycles of family struggles and economic disparities... all the while thinking, "gee... who do I think I am, making statements like that? What really is the heart of the issue?"
So this question has been plaguing me. After a few days of turning this over, I guess I've decided the heart of the issue for all of us is in our hearts. When hearts have been damaged, scarred, and hardened, so that they can no longer love, hope, and dream, this is the issue. When hearts cease to feel and so forfeit that unique and extraordinary quality of humanity that enables such values as compassion and dignity, this is the issue. When hearts are so aching for love that they substitute shallow versions of it for the real thing until they don't even remember the real love they're looking for, this is the issue.
Can a program get at that -- at the heart?
What can?
Maybe some programs can do it. Maybe. But I'd venture to say that people need people -- people with broken hearts need people with healed and healing hearts, people with hardened hearts need people with gentle and open hearts.
If the heart of our complex issues lies in our hearts, then we need something that will reach all the way down to our complex hearts with their complex differences. Something like that connection with other complex people. I know, programs can be perfected, quantified, and planned while people cannot... but programs don't have hearts, people do.
I stuttered out some kind of rambling response about generational cycles of family struggles and economic disparities... all the while thinking, "gee... who do I think I am, making statements like that? What really is the heart of the issue?"
So this question has been plaguing me. After a few days of turning this over, I guess I've decided the heart of the issue for all of us is in our hearts. When hearts have been damaged, scarred, and hardened, so that they can no longer love, hope, and dream, this is the issue. When hearts cease to feel and so forfeit that unique and extraordinary quality of humanity that enables such values as compassion and dignity, this is the issue. When hearts are so aching for love that they substitute shallow versions of it for the real thing until they don't even remember the real love they're looking for, this is the issue.
Can a program get at that -- at the heart?
What can?
Maybe some programs can do it. Maybe. But I'd venture to say that people need people -- people with broken hearts need people with healed and healing hearts, people with hardened hearts need people with gentle and open hearts.
If the heart of our complex issues lies in our hearts, then we need something that will reach all the way down to our complex hearts with their complex differences. Something like that connection with other complex people. I know, programs can be perfected, quantified, and planned while people cannot... but programs don't have hearts, people do.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Alternative Rock for Alternative Energy
While eating lunch in Homegirl Cafe I also met a member of the band Trapdoor Social, who is partnering with several alternative energy nonprofits to give 100% of the profits from the presale of their new album to put solar panels on the roof of Homeboy Industries' main building. Gee, why not?! Why didn't anyone else think of that? Watch the video if you're curious to know a little more, or click on this link to see their pledge music fundraising page.
A real trip: Homeboy Industries
It's "Jobs not Jails", of course! While in Los Angelos for Thanksgiving I took a tour of Homeboy Industries, founded by Father Greg Boyle (but just call him "G") and famous in LA for their chips and salsa....
My tour guide (let's call him Jim, since I didn't ask permission to publish his info) had been sentenced for life at age 17, but got out on parole partly because of what Homeboy Industries had to offer him. One of the first places Jim took me was the janitor's closet, "We all pretty much start here and work our way up," he told me. He's been at Homeboy a year, and because of the sociology classes he took while in jail and his passion for sharing his story he is now working with the youth outreach portion of the program. The tour started in the garden, where Jim shared Homeboy's roots and rough beginnings. It began as a charter high school, then a bakery, where the complexities to having a bunch of ex-gang members from competing gangs thrown together in one building revealed themselves in arguments and violence. The old bakery building burned down, but this led to a new and better facility, along with classes, counseling, group therapy, and countless other services to be built up around the training program.
Jim said, "When the rich have problems, they get counselors. When the poor have problems, they get probation officers and jail. Here, we are all rich; everyone gets counselors if they have issues they want to work through." And everyone gets everything, if they choose to take advantage of the plethora of resources that Homeboy offers. Everything I learned about was prefaced by the words, "Now you're really gonna trip on this," or "the real trip about this is"....and the tour really was a trip. Homeboy is doing almost everything you could think of in the job training/re-entry/reconciliation/non-profit/social enterprise/etc realm.
Check out their website or watch the video below if you're interested to know more about their programs, but one unique offering: tattoo removal. Free for anyone and everyone, prioritizing the neck up and elbow down. Why? You can have job training and re-entry services up the wazoo, but if the goal is to help someone get a job in the "real world".... Jim told me this story: One of Homeboy's trainees had tried and tried to get a job, and could not understand why he wasn't getting hired. Meanwhile, across his forehead the words "FUCK THE WORLD" screamed out the answer.... thus began their tattoo removal services. A first degree burn that's enough to make grown men cry (Jim gave me first-hand account of this), and two little star-shaped stress balls are the only tools provided to get them through it. That there, folks, is determination.
I'm hoping next time around I can meet G in person... but for now let's sit and listen to him together on camera:
My tour guide (let's call him Jim, since I didn't ask permission to publish his info) had been sentenced for life at age 17, but got out on parole partly because of what Homeboy Industries had to offer him. One of the first places Jim took me was the janitor's closet, "We all pretty much start here and work our way up," he told me. He's been at Homeboy a year, and because of the sociology classes he took while in jail and his passion for sharing his story he is now working with the youth outreach portion of the program. The tour started in the garden, where Jim shared Homeboy's roots and rough beginnings. It began as a charter high school, then a bakery, where the complexities to having a bunch of ex-gang members from competing gangs thrown together in one building revealed themselves in arguments and violence. The old bakery building burned down, but this led to a new and better facility, along with classes, counseling, group therapy, and countless other services to be built up around the training program.
Jim said, "When the rich have problems, they get counselors. When the poor have problems, they get probation officers and jail. Here, we are all rich; everyone gets counselors if they have issues they want to work through." And everyone gets everything, if they choose to take advantage of the plethora of resources that Homeboy offers. Everything I learned about was prefaced by the words, "Now you're really gonna trip on this," or "the real trip about this is"....and the tour really was a trip. Homeboy is doing almost everything you could think of in the job training/re-entry/reconciliation/non-profit/social enterprise/etc realm.
Check out their website or watch the video below if you're interested to know more about their programs, but one unique offering: tattoo removal. Free for anyone and everyone, prioritizing the neck up and elbow down. Why? You can have job training and re-entry services up the wazoo, but if the goal is to help someone get a job in the "real world".... Jim told me this story: One of Homeboy's trainees had tried and tried to get a job, and could not understand why he wasn't getting hired. Meanwhile, across his forehead the words "FUCK THE WORLD" screamed out the answer.... thus began their tattoo removal services. A first degree burn that's enough to make grown men cry (Jim gave me first-hand account of this), and two little star-shaped stress balls are the only tools provided to get them through it. That there, folks, is determination.
I'm hoping next time around I can meet G in person... but for now let's sit and listen to him together on camera:
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