I want to tell you about the last three groups to hear about 100 VOICES – AMERICANS TALK ABOUT CHANGE. 

Night before last in a Decatur, GA neighborhood, about 20 women who know each other from the Presbyterian church they all attend gathered the way they do every month.  They come for dinner, community and inquiry at the home of Kent Leslie author and scholar.  Most of the women are in their 60’s and 70’s – all appear to be white women.  A few younger women attended, one in her 20’s (my niece) and one in her 40’s (one of my little sister’s friends since elementary school).

There was privilege in the room.  There was also an unusual awareness of that fact.  These are lives that enact both the opportunity and the responsibility of their access.  They gather together to support and encourage each other.  They gather together to keep learning.

I’ve just spent the past three days crossing the Southern tier states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama into Georgia.  I’ve spent precious time with relatives – kin by birth and kin by choice and community.  Along the slow roll of land falling toward and then rising up from the Mississippi River’s reliable flow I found story after story, learning after learning.

• In the three years since I last drove these Southern highways a few things have changed
  • Gas is WAY more expensive – but y’all probably noticed that yourselves.
  • Radio stations toward the low numbers on the FM dial are both more plentiful and more uniformly Christian and Mexicano/Latino.  And, in the spirit of transparency – yes, I’ve discovered this while looking for NPR (far more scarce the dial near Austin, but pretty reliably accessible in eastern MS and across AL & GA.  I have no explanation, but a few theories of the ilk that only arise when a mind has too many miles and little to do.  I’ll spare you.)
  • More highway work is underway, often with signs indicating funding with stimulus money.
    

Last night I stood in my friends’  kitchen.  Lori, the mom of the family was working on white bean soup and her eldest daughter, Eliza was sitting on the counter delivering the speech she’d give in class the next day.  Eliza is 14 and a first year high school student at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, a public school in Austin,TX.  Her speech was on the life of that great woman leader of Texas, and Eliza delivered it in the way of performance art — in the voice of Ann Richards herself.

I was raised in Texas.  Born in Jefferson County to migrate w/ the family as my father went from post to post in the Presbyterian Church.  That means I’ve also lived in Tarrant, Nolan, Kerr and Grayson counties…always in the County Seat.  Listening to Eliza last night I heard Ann Richards’ voice describing her years navigating the terrain of motherhood woven now closely, now loosely with the emerging political events of the time.  Eliza had looked particularly at Richards’ years leading to and including her important role in formal state and national positions linked with advancing the Equal Rights Amendment.  I remember that time.  I remember being a bit young but paying very close attention to the women in the community.  I heard Richards’ name  then, but it was way before the constant media presence of today, so I likely never saw her in a photo or film until she was governor of the Lone Star State.

This morning I woke up to a gray-skied chill of Portland’s marine mists — here in Austin.  Maybe wherever you go, the places you live in live in you. I thought of Ann Richards’ leadership.  I thought of my women friends in Dallas who gathered to encourage me — all leaders supporting leaders.  I thought of the two women from high school days in Kerrville — the town in south-central Texas where I’m going today at the invitation of the generous folk of that community to talk of 100 VOICES — AMERICANS TALK ABOUT CHANGE.  

The people I’ve talked with in Texas this week say two things.  My friend Cindy, a white business woman in Grayson County sums up one of those things. “The divisions in this state are so strong, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to talk to each other.  It just starts out hateful with neither side willing to back down.”

As she talks, she describes how community proceeds in spite of the opposition.  Cindy notes that having any success with serving the public means striking a balance between showing up as who you are and what you believe in and staying off the hot spots.  “I mean, people around here know if you’re faking it.  They don’t want service from somebody who puts up some kind of fake front.  It’s better if you’re direct about where you stand, then even if they don’t agree as long as you have a good service they’ll still give you their business.”

“But you don’t have to pick fights.”  Cindy says.  “Sometimes we do, anyway.”

Yesterday, well south of the GOP caucus hubbub, I had one of those two-hour conversations you want to remember for the rest of your days.  Not so much the words, although the stories were as precious as sunshine…really, but the feeling of it.  Sara Bernice Moseley has been an inspiration to countless women and men across the 94 and ½ years of her life.  She is and always has been grace in human form.

No kidding.  This is a woman raised in west Texas who developed as a musician, as a deep thinker and, by extension a practical theologian.  She married a young lawyer who became the president of a small liberal arts school in Sherman, TX – Austin College.  While he was quite creatively ushering the college from the brink of financial ruin to the pinnacle of liberal arts reputation, Sara Bernice was raising children and nurturing her heart and mind such that she ultimately led the Presbyterian Church as the first woman to be its elected Moderator in 1978.

I knew this about her, even back then, but what I remember more from that time is what I have with me now, the feeling of Sara B.  Her shining eyes and the total validation of her being – as if even her breath were saying – “Isn’t it something that we both exist to have this time being simply magnificent with one another.”

Well today there’s the Susan G. Komen flip flop on their relationship with Planned Parenthood, there’s the unreliability in signs of economic recovery and there’s the hideous violence occurring in Syria and on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.  No doubt, the pundits who fancy themselves either political or entertainment, could be and are spinning these stories to fit their agendas.

Last night I finally got off the road with the promise of 36 hours in the same place.  I was on a star-studded hillside in Santa Fe, NM for a visit with my dear friend, Janice Gould (Voice 084).  Janice is gaining note for her lifetime of artistry as a poet.  She is also a musician, photographer and scholar – a professor in the Women & Ethnic Studies programs of University of Colorado – Colorado Springs.  Her writing arises directly from her life as a human being who is also lesbian and Native American (Concow).  She’s in Santa Fe on a residency as part of a prestigious fellowship from the School for Advanced Research on Human Experience (SAR).

All of this is only perfect from my perspective.  Janice Gould is a gift.  She has given from her talent, kindness and quiet determination at least for the seventeen years I’ve known her and there’s only evidence that this has and will always be so.

Janice, too, is a point of note here in life unfolding with the punctuation of the U.S. presidential primary season.  She comes to mind as I write here because of something she said last night.  She was recounting an interview in which a questioner asked her to speak of her theory.  At the time, she came up with a short response, one with which she was not all that pleased, but it passed in the context of academic discussion.  Last night she said, “I wish I’d said, ‘Theory?  I don’t do theory.  I live and I create.  You can do the theory.”

I keep hearing these words.  They become amplified by my experiences over recent days.

Better than you believe; stronger than you seem.
Carol Ackerman

“What we know is that the more people affiliate with other people, the more their sources of positive experiences and possibilities for energizing and purposeful activity in the world.”

This is my best shot at something my mentor, Jane Conoley said to me yesterday morning.  We were sitting in her living room, the Sunday morning light breathing itself across the bamboo floors, onto the white walls with their quiet and happy art forms, and into our conversation.  Jane and her husband Collie (Voices 020 & 021) are active scholars in positive psychology – taking the ideas first articulated by humanist philosophers centuries ago and moving them into practice.  When they spoke with me three years ago, Collie said, “The wonderful thing about being a psychologist is that you know you’re onto a good theory when your own life is good. “

Jane and Collie have known me more than half my life.  Over that time, I have looked to them consistently as models for what it looks like to live an honest life.  Their integrity, like the integrity they show in living the tenants of a theory they support and teach, is what led me to this great appreciation for these two.  I hadn’t seen them since the first drive around the country.  This visit I learned again from these scholars I know as friends.

It looked like a done deal to lots of folks who are paid to make authoritative calls on such things.  Chances were slim, they said a week ago, that Gingrich, Perry or Santorum could stage a comeback in the

South Carolina primary that took place last Saturday.  It’s heard of, but none of those campaigns appeared anywhere near as strong as Romney’s given the current playing field with its corporations=people, money=free speech rulebook.

Enter Gingrich’s Super Pac (remember the rulebook?).  Mega money and mega mean.  But that’s entertainment these days.  And enough people in South Carolina took as evidence of leadership whatever meanness could come forth from the podium and over the airwaves.  Newt Gingrich took the numbers on Saturday and the pundits and commentators in their ultimately astonishing capacity to wing it are at no loss for sound bites and spin in the name of political analysis.

So, of the hundreds of thousands of people pumping observations on the electoral caucuses into the media ocean, why read these 100 VOICES blogs?  Really?  What possibly could shed light on or even elevate these times and their conversations.

Maybe this.  It is terribly easy to follow the seduction of cynical opposition. “I’m the good one here, because you’re a jerk.”  

Gong Hey Fat Choy!  A most auspicious New Year to each and all.

I just saw the link to an International Business Times article on my friend Valerie’s facebook page.  She put this quote from the article in her post, “The Dragon is larger than life and its appearance means that big things are to come.”  Then she wrote, “I can get into that! ”  Me, too!

So here I am 500 miles down the road in the Bay Area.  Given the grassroots nature of the journey, I’m waiting to hear about classes and community groups to speak with about 100 Voices – Americans Talk about Change.  Meanwhile, I did manage my first Tweet last night (I need all y’all to follow me!!) and I’m hearing today from folks in Texas, GA and WI for 100 Voices events there, so as the DIY publicity process goes…well…it’s going somewhere – “big things are to come.”

Here are the big things I pick – Americans listening to each other.  Yeah.  And I pick getting our democracy and our country back.

From the standpoint of traditions behind the Chinese calendar, the Dragon is a symbol of good fortune and intense power.  The Year of the Dragon comes around every 12 years and represents the culmination of first 11 years of the cycle.

Three years ago today, I began the EX:Change project.  Our new president had been inaugurated the day before and January 21 was the first of my 100 days for learning from everyday U.S. citizens what they meant when they said the word,  change.  My goal was to interview 100 people in 100 days and one result was the publication of the book 100 VOICES – AMERICANS TALK ABOUT CHANGE.  Now it’s three years later.  The people of the country are still looking for change.  And I’m driving again — this time to get these voices back out to the public they came from — but also to do what I can to support one of the primary themes from the EX:Change project — listening and speaking across our differences so that we can make the changes we all want in our country.

So, here we go.  It is ours to do — and it’s ours to do together.

Somehow I am packed again.   The house is in the great hands of the best housemate ever, the car is happily tuned and fueled, and this time I’ll even have a GPS.  All of that and I also have the priceless companionship of every one of you.

Sam is a barista at the Starbucks where I did a good number of the initial interviews. I’m actually sitting here right now.  I came to know of Sam from voice 006, Leila Bowen, who was the manager here during that time.  She hired Sam just before she left for another position.  I remember her saying really complimentary things about him – how she thought he was management material.

Today I told Sam that he too is in the 100 Voices – Americans Talk about Change book.  Not his name, but his appearance and his … well … vibe.  He came to mind as part of the explanation of an idea that is really central to the book, so I finally introduced myself a few minutes ago and told him about it.  Here’s the part where Sam showed up (it’s the lead into section 7).

I was back to Portland.  Eighty-six voices, seventy days and 10,000 miles.  Through all kinds of land, all kinds of weather.   Still vibrating at the edges of my driving mind were I-80 through Iowa, I-70 out of  Denver and the trundling company of all manner of giganto-truck traffic.  The Mini made it and was now in the shop…for four weeks.  But, I was back safe and sound and on for finding the final fourteen.

Here we are.  In crisis.  Together.

The truth of the oft cited Chinese logograph for crisis is that it holds two characters, one connoting danger and the other signifying a point of uncertainty, a critical moment, a point of profound and unsettling change.  This is vastly more realistic than the more New Age rendition that misattributes the notion of opportunity to the second character.

We are in crisis.  These years are more and more clearly composing an uncertain time of change in national and in global circumstances.  Alongside is the danger that kind of historic moment guarantees.

Nonetheless, there is opportunity here, and in keeping with the shared spirit of our relatively brief history as a country, citizens of the United States continue … so far … willing to remain optimistic.  At least hopeful enough to risk showing up to the situation before us.