Learning to Give, Curriculum Division of The LEAGUE

The project that I’m currently engaged in, that has been my life for the last eight years, is Healing the Heart of Diversity. I remember when I was beginning to talk about writing my dissertation a friend said whatever topic you choose be sure that you choose something that really lives for you. So that every time you put it down and pick it back up it is as exciting and vibrant for you as it was the first time that you thought about it because you’re going to live with this for a long time.

That did indeed work for me and it is true in this case. This has been certainly more than a dissertation. It has become my life’s work. I feel that each day and each opportunity that I have to work with Healing the Heart of Diversity (HHD) it is vibrant, it’s alive. I am as passionate about it as I was in those first and early days when you and I began working together.

There is no question that the work was inspired by the work at the Fetzer Institute and the work that I had been doing at Fetzer. Being involved at Fetzer opened up a whole reservoir of learning and growing spiritually. I gained a deeper understand who I am and what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t know that it would be diversity. In fact, as far as diversity was concerned, I was screaming and kicking about going in that direction. There are so many different perceptions, so many different viewpoints and so many feelings triggered by that word. There is a stigma associated with those who do diversity work. The baggage of race and gender relationships has been so much a part of our culture in the United States. It has burdened relationships and kept people separated.

But relationship has always been at the essence and core of my life. So I’m not surprised diversity education would become my profession. I can remember this even from my childhood. The vision I always held in my heart has been about healing relationships, having people feel accepted and good about who they, comfortable in their own skin. This was so important to me in my work in public education with children and the teachers who served them.

When we put this in a language and vernacular of the secular society, then we talk about it in terms of social healing. I have learned this is individual, collective and societal. In the past the Fetzer work had primarily focused on mind, body, spirit relationships, health and wholeness. There was a focus on wholeness which embraced healing and the sacred relationship that connects mind, body and spirit. But social healing had not been addressed. And as I began this work, I found that diversity is all about healing social relationships. It made for a really good match and expanded our reach at Fetzer into a new community. In fact the tag line that was frequently used to describe HHD was that the work targeted the wounded healers to heal, rejuvenate, renew their passion and sustain them for strength to continue the work. We used to say this program was to heal the wounded healer. Healing relationships is a global issue.

I particularly feel that way when I look at the war in Iraq. When I woke up to 9/11, that fateful day, the thing that came to my mind was the importance and the need for healing our relationships. We see it all over the world. Sometimes it makes me cry, deep in my spirit, when I see how painful the wounds are. I believe the mothers and grandmothers want for their children and grandchildren the same things that I want for mine: first to live, be well, build positive relationships and have productive lives. For me, that also includes contributing their gifts to make the world a better place.

When I was a little girl the things that would hurt me the most were the broken relationships or the relationships that couldn’t connect—both my own relationships and those of others that I observed.

For a long time I moved away from this work because of the labels of it being soft. But if there is anything that I’d want to be able to contribute to in my lifetime it would be to make relationships better. I’ve got all kinds of words that I could use to express my vision, but the plain and simple thing is to make relationships better and live together in ways that we don’t hurt or oppress one another.

Healing the Heart of Diversity has been my work for ten years. It is a process for renewal, rejuvenation and reflection and it is more than that. It is a catalyst to bring people of different backgrounds, cultures, races, gender, and sexual orientation together to dialogue and engage each other authentically. It is my vision that HHD will contribute to a new legacy of freedom and love that will transform our personal lives and therefore, transform our communities and the institutions that shape our lives. People must transform in order to change communities and institutions.

One of the things that comes to mind right away is how the habits of the mind that we have formed, for whatever reason, are ingrained in such a way that they are so deep we don’t notice them. Even after we notice and we make some effort and commitment to maybe change those habits—there can be something that will trigger an old way of being with another person or being in the world. You can easily revert back into that old pattern. When we’re fearful or when we don’t know what to do is often the time we revert back. It is very hard to hang onto the new way. A habit returns unconsciously, you don’t know it’s there until you are in the middle of it. At least that has been my experience personally as well as what I have witnessed in Healing the Heart of Diversity.

I remember on one occasion in the Facilitation Leaders’ program, we were in the middle of a very powerful contemplative experience. We were in a circle, working in silence, around a table with different objects placed in the sand. We were creating individual stories by placing the objects in relationship to each other. One participant, a very culturally competent white woman repeatedly moved around the circle and moved other people’s objects, rearranging their creations. Sometimes she added an object to someone else’s story. When we debriefed, a very culturally competent Chicano/Mexican woman and former civil rights activist asked about what she was doing and shared how it made her feel.

She said, “I felt so angry and enraged, like I was during the days of the movement, when it seemed we could not do anything that white people didn’t come along change it and add their ‘piece’ to it. It was if nothing we did was good enough. They even wanted to change our traditions. The old feelings were raised so strongly in me and I thought they were gone, no longer a part of me.” The white woman said iIt was her "white privilege", once again, she was blinded to it. It did not matter that everyone else was doing something entirely different, she could invent her own way of doing this and even change the work of other people. Both women, in the moment, forgot and were triggered to a way of being, thinking and behaving that they believed was in the past—transformed. This was a huge lesson for the entire group. It was learned in the moment of the experience. Our HHD work is true experientially learning not role playing. That experience could have never been set up and have our collective and individual experience be so deep. In a dissertation that used this program as the central theme when asked what one of their most powerful HHD was learning experiences? To a person interviewed this story was given as the example.

So it takes time and a lot of work and commitment to make change in the way that we behave and the way that we treat each other, the way that we’re in relationship with one another and even how we connect. In returning to my home town which was segregated when I grew up I walked into a store to purchase something. The sales person was on her way to another room came back in to the room as I entered the store. She said nothing just looked at me. I was very casually dressed-one step above shabby. I was truly dressed down. As I walked to the area where the items I wanted were I found myself fuming and my inner voice chattering away—loudly. It was drowning out any other thoughts and feelings except historical anger, and indignation. I felt she was watching me because of the way I was dressed and that I am Black. I fumed silently, paid for my item and left. I hovered in the area to see what she would do after I left. She walked out of the room as she was doing before I walked in. I left saying to myself, “Yes, I knew it” and now I had the evidence. She came back because I was Black and might steal something.

By the time I got outside in the light, my mind had another jolt. I looked at myself and realized I had been triggered into past feelings from old experiences and made up a story about what took place. It is also possible and very likely the woman returned to serve me. In order for me to pay, someone had to be in the room and that was her job. Now I don’t intend to imply this doesn’t still happen in the world of today, but I don’t believe this was one of those times. I knew this woman and she knew me from having been there before.

Our historical experiences are deeply embedded and it requires constant vigilance to shift our way of being to take on new behaviors. Even then we need to be conscious, awake and aware of our behavior, language, thinking in order to sustain a change we chose.

Another lesson that became very clear is that fear maintains the boundaries of separation and prevents effective long term connection. Fear, myths, the lack of understanding and pre-judging are among the demons that fuel this result.

These are probably obvious things. But over the years I have seen the difference that it has made when people opened their minds and participated in experiences that give them a chance to know them and to know people who are different from them with different experiences and perspectives and may come from a different culture. I’ve seen what a difference the experience can make for them, not just with that person, but how they’re able to carry that out into their lives and into their workplaces.

Another important lesson has been the significance contemplative practice and spirit brings to social change and diversity work. The quality and depth of the dialogue, authentic communication and interaction extend beyond the boundaries of difference. The experience is one of accessing our common humanity and communicating from that place. Responses are reflective, personal and spoken from the heart. The result is access to wisdom beyond what even the speaker imagines. Given feedback from graduates this depth and level of understanding and interaction is key to changing behaviors, practices, and attitudes toward one another.

One participant shared that after a retreat she went back to work and found all communication had broken down and there was a problem to deal with. She thought: I am going to bring what I am learning in HHD to work with this. She engaged people in transformative dialogue as we do and began to teach the skills of authentic, committed listening and speaking. She worked with her team to create a space of safety to bring forth their authentic voices. The result she reported was people felt this was the best session they had had. Everyone left satisfied and ready to work together and honor their different perspectives. Even when they were in disagreement they respected the other person’s perspective and had a deeper understanding of the different view points expressed.

We also learned the key elements for change were: community, authentic communication, dialogue and inquiry, contemplative practice, collaborative learning, acknowledgement of lessons learned, then, make choices and take action. These are the foundation principles of the HHD transformative learning process. It is so simple and yet so effective. I use this fundamental process whether it is an HHD retreat or a workshop for a foundation, non-profit or corporate organization. We have learned it works to engage people from the inside out. It is very clear to me if we expect to transform our workplaces and communities change begins with “Moi”—me.

The most important lesson is that change is choice. You cannot change another person. People don’t change unless they choose to change. Change is not sustained unless there is a commitment and appropriate action taken. And then there must be a constant vigilance with regard to the choice, the commitment and the action. So those two teachings around change and what it takes to sustain change is what makes our work both unique and challenging. When you are confronted with your own choices then you get to see “Am I about changing a behavior that will keep me separate from others or do I want to keep the status quo?” That’s a choice, too.

Personal transformation must occur in order to transform our culture. Transformation is from the inside out. Transformation moves from within the core of the individual’s belief system and is manifested through collective action to create and sustain change in the culture and in the society. Change must begin with individual choice and collective action.

Wouldn’t we all like to say I always knew these things? The truth is if I did, it had not yet surfaced to conscious understanding in ways that I could apply it automatically. I shared my personal experience because that is one of the magnificent wonders of HHD—the facilitator is a learner. I think I could say that there was some intuitive knowing, but I think I was really awakened in the experiences of the wisdom of the moment. I learned that what we know is miniscule and what we want is understanding. Sometimes it is challenging to distinguish because we so want to know. To understand means standing in not knowing.

The challenge was sometimes dealing with it [the fear] and how it prevented us from being real, who we are. This fear of “the other” restricted authentic communication sometimes just interacting period. There are some things that were obvious. But I have to say that, for instance, I didn’t think or speak about the dissonance and separation in terms fear. Fear is underneath it all, fear relationship of with respect to race or racism. I don’t think I thought about this dynamic of fear as the source or a source of racism until I began doing this work. I thought about fear around gender issues (I could see that and that was probably affirmed more frequently) and also the fear in homophobia. I guess I just thought it was hate and hateful behaviors. But one of the things that I discovered was that I didn’t realize how deep the fear was. And that the fear was much more about one’s own self than it was really about the other person. Clearly this stood in the way of authentic relationships forming.

Another challenge, opening dialogues not knowing where we’d go and committed to hold a space of safety in the face of reality—anger, hurt, pain, ignorance, prejudice, guilt, history and letting the real be expressed while insuring everyone was kept whole, their dignity intact. WE held civility and human-being-ness as equal and the same. This engendered great respect for each other. There were so many different perspectives to give voice. I witnessed miracles. Sometimes, I thought “I don’t know what to do”. In those moments my spirit-mind took over, I surrendered and what was supposed to happen did.

I believe I was always given the words that were needed or to know when silence was appropriate. Holding the balance between the highly verbal moments, the emotionality in the moment and life outside the circle was often a challenge. In some of our retreats, a continuing challenge was the chef kept interrupting to call us to lunch. The clash between the demands from the chef who was holding lunch, and the respect and dignity due the cooks who prepared the meal and respecting the dignity of the sacred moment and the vulnerability exposed with the person who was speaking and weeping was always difficult to reconcile. The chef was unyielding and often rude. This too was important learning in diversity.

I can remember, in the first five or six years or maybe more, that when we would do the work around sexual orientation anxiety was heightened including mine. It would be heightened because I would want to have the topic and have the subject opened in the same way that we opened all the other “isms,” but in my own mind there was fear that someone might be hurt by something insensitive that might be said.

My fear or discomfort was in itself perhaps in opposition to what our whole work is about—which is to create a safe space so that people can ask the questions that they need to ask, to deepen their understanding, not out of curiosity but to expand both their minds and their hearts. It took me, as I said, the first two or three years to learn to trust the process, trust myself that I would know what to do and to remember that people are strong. The contradiction for me was holding us as fragile. People are strong. Most important when my fear would rise in tense moments these were the times when spirit was most present. I learned my job was not to resist but to “give way,” surrender and be guided. I realize now that we could handle the most tender issues in a way that we would get the work done and everyone leave feeling whole and not in any way diminished rather enriched by their experience.

I’ve seen that almost every session since and including the pilot. It was a challenge when the viewpoints present were diametrically opposed with participants with beliefs that were fundamental Christianity and Islam, Judaism, atheism and other diverse identities including straight, gay, lesbian, white, Latino, African American, Native American, Hindi and others.

I found myself being able to be in the process in a way to hold the space such that all of us could probe, explore and be engaged in the inquiry around the issues of sexual orientation and trust the process. There was one session in particular, that had all these different perspectives in that room—what I found so incredibly rewarding and amazing was when people were able to hear and see and understand from others’ perspectives and others’ views on these issues. In one of the evaluations, a participant (a fundamental Christian who had very, very strong views and was a diversity professional in a corporation) said she now had a deeper understanding and would never looked at homosexuality in the same way that she had before. Her religious belief was not compromised, but her way of seeing had expanded. For me, that was pretty amazing. In a retreat, another student—a devout Muslim—said he had gay friends yet he denounced homosexuality as wrong. After listening with her heart and not just her ears, a Hindi participant practicing HHD transformative listening said, “Your perspective and mine are diametrically opposed on this issue, but thank you for being real. Now I can hear your perspective. I can hold your view point and mine at the same time and see they both can exist. I can vehemently disagree and still love who you are.”

The point is that they really, truly “moved” and I’ve seen that a lot now over the last few years. I’ve felt that I’ve moved as well. I moved from worrying about who needed to be protected, to seeing that my job was to create the space for the authentic interaction, dialogue and safety in the room. We’ve succeeded with that. What we found to be most important and valuable is the HHD dialogue and inquiry process. This gives everyone a level playing field and a safe space for their voice and perspective to be heard without judgment, hostility, guilt or feeling victimized. The essence of the process is listening and learning together, with and from each other. The theme or issue is pursued with a commitment to garner the collective wisdom through the individual stories. Most important, the HHD process invites the story, the history, the source for particular viewpoints to deepen our understanding of the different perspectives present-from the other’s point of view. Participants set [aside] their judgment and personal position for a moment to listen from the heart and hear.

I’ve learned that people are hungry for safe spaces to interact in an authentic way with each other. I think that people are hungry to tell their stories. To tell stories that allow them to know one another. The person’s spirit lives in the story and healing is possible through the telling and the listening.

For me, listening is the most critical skill developed and enhanced. Participants frequently report this as well. I would have to say that I have benefited tremendously from deep listening—listening to people beyond their voices, listening to all the ways they express themselves. Deep listening is listening beyond my particular perspective. I think that is one of the biggest lessons learned. People want to be both heard and seen. To be visible is to be present in the society and to know you belong.

I’ve learned a lot about process. I’ve learned a lot about how to create community and safety. I have learned how to create a space for connected solitude with partners or a full circle of participants. I have learned how inner reflection engages people from the depths of their passion and what matters to them—to make choices and take action.

I’ve learned you can put community building, dialogue, inquiry and reflection together in ways that enables people to come together with a new understanding about themselves and one another and also return to their lives feeling empowered. We have learned to move from this deep inner level outward to choose and take action.

We hate to talk about tools and techniques and skills, but the truth of the matter is we really do walk away with tools, techniques and skills because we learn how to talk with one another in different ways. We learn to listen powerfully to each other. People may call it a tool. Some people may call it a technique. Technique is probably the wrong word, but it certainly is a practice. The reason I would say technique is not the right word is because technique for me indicates one way and I think that even in the deep listening what we do is create an understanding then each reaches that place within that allows them to listen deeply in their own way.

I don’t want to miss the opportunity to say that learning from the experience in the moment is the biggest teacher of all to make that first step towards change. One of the things that we do is work “in between the spaces.” The group community is divided into smaller learning groups. In our year-long program and in our facilitation training program, those learning groups stay in contact that whole time, so they create a network of support for one another. They are both teachers and learners for each other.

HHD participants create a variety of projects that they choose to work on together. Some of the biggest lessons show up in the first level of the retreat series because of all the things that come up from working together as a team. These come up even after people have been through an experience of two or three retreats where they’ve just fallen in love with and their own humanity and that of another. When you ask them to do a project—competition shows up, performance anxiety shows up, the different forms leadership where who is going to be visible, who will be in charge, and the ego rises to the surface. This is the real life place where they look into the mirror again and see what habits are triggered and how they handle it. This is an important moment of choice. When you recognize it and choose to either continue status quo or choose to make a change. This is where participants truly are called to practice the guides for engagement we use in the retreats and in our relationships outside the retreat.

What we’ve noticed is a group can go from anger and disagreement to almost not producing a product at all because of performance anxiety, competition and privilege/victim feelings were triggered. To breakthrough, means recognizing what is driving their behavior. There are so many moving parts to the process. It’s dynamic, it is complex.

The value in what we learn is an opportunity to reflect, look back and look in the mirror. We have the space for inner reflections and the capacity to notice what was coming up for us. We can see the relationship between our behavior and what we believe and what our thoughts and attitudes are around this. We examine those ideas in the past that we were willing to accept and those we discounted. Huge, huge learning comes from dialogue, inquiry and collaborative learning. Both ideas and new choices emerge to produce a shift in thinking, a shift in behavior.

First of all, let me thank you for your kind words.

The people who come to this work leave with a profound sense of their own generosity of spirit and that of others. The entire experience is one of giving. Being in the circle is the experience of contributing to others in many diverse and wholesome ways. Love and forgiveness go hand in hand with generosity. I am referring to agape love and unconditional forgiveness, to cultivate authentic giving. I certainly learned to be aware of my own generosity through the generosity of so many HHD participants. They gave me the space to live into what I knew from my grandmother and my mother.

There’s one little story that comes to mind that maybe kind of typifies what I grew up with because I think that that’s actually where it is. My mother and grandmother were just incredibly generous, giving and loving people. I think that love and giving go hand in hand. I remember when I was a little girl there were neighborhood children over playing at my house. We were probably out in the yard. There used to be ice cream trucks and the bell that would be ringing to say it was on the way. It would call to the children everywhere, probably call to your deepest soul, that the ice cream man is here! I went running back in the house. I guess ice cream was probably about a nickel and there were fifteen or so children on my front porch. There were always a lot of children around there. My grandmother would give everybody a nickel to go buy ice cream, and if she did not have enough nickels for all the children that were there, then I didn’t get an ice cream either.

I remember that there was a family that lived next door to me and they were very poor. Although I didn’t realize it, we were poor, too. We were rich in love and hope—and a promise for the future. I remember that some of the children used to shun this little girl. Her name was Eunice. I’ve often wondered where Eunice is now. I haven’t seen her in years. At any rate, I used to play with Eunice all the time, and so when lunch time came and my mom would fix sandwiches. Not only did I have lunch but instead of sending Eunice home, Eunice came in and had lunch with me, too.

I was taught never to make any difference between people. I was also taught that I was as good as anybody and everybody. And I wasn’t any better than anybody else. When I think about that, that’s an interesting place to be. I kind of think of that as the whole coin and sitting in the center of that coin taught me both self respect and respect for others, and maybe, to hold us as “one.”

Everything that I remember about my home life is having compassion for others and also living in dignity and treating others with dignity and being fair. Those were values that were strong. I was an only child and I was taught to share everything that I had. I can remember when I was a teeny tiny thing always sharing whatever it was that I had. I also can remember sometimes being taken advantage of then and, also sometimes now. So sharing and contributing was important. There was this openness around sharing. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t share or give.

When I was around 15; I had a job at a summer camp. It was a YWCA day camp. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember if it was really a job, or if I volunteered. But I got to be a camp counselor and, probably no surprise to you, I was teaching drama. I had been in the plays around Roanoke (VA) and in high school so I guess I was reinforcing my own learning by teaching others in this particular camp.

There were these two little girls, and every time I think about this story I can see these little girls but cannot remember their names. I just thought they were the sweetest things and I enjoyed them so much. When they would come to camp sometimes, they would be tired and sometimes they would cry. What I learned is that they were foster children and that they were living with a woman that was not treating them well. She was treating them as less than. It was as if she had gotten these foster children for the money the state paid you to take care of those children. Whatever it was that was going on, in my mind these children were being mistreated. I would go home crying every day and I begged my grandmother and my mother for us to take those children and bring them home.

I remember my grandmother saying: “Well Pat, who is going to take care of them? We’re all working.” And I said “I’ll take care of them.” I wanted to take these children and I wanted to take care of them. It never left my mind that I was not able to do that for them. But I was told that we couldn’t do that, but what I could do would be to make the time that I was with them the best that I could and so that’s what I did. I tried to let them know they were special and they were loved. Drama was a great outlet, too. I think that that probably speaks to how my life was shaped.

I guess one thing you said was something about welcoming. That was one of the things that I remember a couple of expressions that my grandmother had. I know that my mother had the same viewpoint and she was very, very friendly and very warm and people loved her. I thought she was a gentle spirit and I could never be like that. I remember my grandmother’s rule was you speak to everybody. You speak to everybody. The least that a person can do is to speak and to acknowledge another person. Nannie would even say, you know, you can even speak to a dog. No matter who it is, somebody lying in the curb, you could speak to them. I guess I was taught to speak to people from the heart, welcoming them.

The other thing was when someone comes to your house you welcome them no matter what they may have done to you. You treat them with kindness and you treat them with love and respect. They are in your home. You do not mistreat anybody in your home. So those circles are like welcoming people into my home. I guess wherever it is that I am I welcome them with my heart.

Once, some time ago, I remember sitting in a circle of distinguished intellectuals. They were mostly men. One member of the group, a well respected national leader, a motivational speaker and inspirational Guru who led similar circles designed for people to access the deeper inner essence of themselves dismissed a story I shared, giving my work to others. In a rather condescending manner that often is demonstrated when one acts out of one’s privilege, he spoke out and said, "God bless you for what you do but I don't think everyone can do this work." He continued to say, "I won't work with these people. I don’t believe I can do it. I refuse to teach (give) them. I think they are dangerous.”

As I listened to him, certain that he was intending to put me “in my place,” I gathered he excluded anyone he felt did not "fit" his acceptable profile. They then were not worthy or acceptable for him to teach them how to live and be the "good" work. I was amazed because I held him to a higher standard. He is someone that many follow. I’m sure he was unconscious to the gravity of his words not reflecting a generosity of spirit. But he seemed to feel challenged by a different view and experience. There was an under current of tension in the circle as heads turned from me to him and back. I made a choice to let it go and yet, once again I felt my voice silenced. He got away with it again.

I don’t see things his way. In fact, my perspective is very strongly the opposite. I believe when we are supporting people to touch their souls or doing the work that we call "healing the heart"—it truly is a gift from God. And our job is to share our gifts. Give it away and make it available to all who come. That is how we will heal ourselves and find a deeper connection to our passion, to our truer self and ultimately to God. To prevent, prohibit, limit would be putting me in the way of spirit and spirit's work. Sometimes it is our ego that gets in the way and clogs the channel of giving. That is what is in my heart. I work to be conscious of—being conscious then I can choose to give or withhold or be driven by ego as my colleague was at that moment.

That is the spirit that was my grandmother—you bring others in so they can be fed and nurtured so they may find a way to give, too. So I welcome people where they are. How can this be dangerous?

When I went to Africa for the first time, my experience was very much of memories of my grandmother. This was particularly so when I visited someone’s home and the way that they welcomed me. My friends used to tease me because when they came to my house my grandmother welcomed them with a hug and called them baby. She treated them like they were her grandson or granddaughter too. She fed them of course. When they left, she’d say, “You come on back, hear!

In Africa, there was always food offered and served too. It would be considered certainly impolite if you didn’t eat something. I guess it was like that here because I can remember even coming back home as a married woman with a family. I won’t forget this as long as I live. Wendell and the kids and I came home and everybody was glad to see us come home and they all wanted to have us for dinner. (For many, many years, and perhaps still, the minute I stepped into Roanoke I stepped into being a child again.) So we had to have dinner. There was no way I could refuse. It would be impolite. It is the same in Senegal and Benin, West Africa. You would insult your host if you did not accept food and drink.

We had dinner at my mother’s and grandmother’s house. Then we went to my in-law, the people Wendell had spent his last year in high school living with because his mother was dead and his father died at the end of our junior year. They were like another set of parents but more like an aunt and uncle. They knew that Wendell loved steak, so she had the biggest steaks on earth there for us expecting us to eat them. So already we’d had two dinners. Then we came to visit my father’s and had to eat again. I’m sure in one day we had gained ten pounds. We didn’t have snacks. We had full course meals at three different locations!

Welcoming people is both part of my ancestry/tradition and the context of the culture where I grew up.

Exactly. Seriously the gift and the burden are two sides of the same coin. At any one of those houses if we had said “Oh no, we can’t eat.” It would have been thought of as terrible. So Africa certainly reminded me of the culture in my home town. I don’t know enough about my Native American ancestry, the Cherokee, to be able to answer the question. Except when I look at my great-grandmother who was a full-blooded Cherokee and when I look at the history of how we were all within Virginia and North Carolina where the first settlers were. The generosity that the Native Americans showed to the new settlers when they came to the New World would certainly say that that perhaps this is deep in my cultural genetics.

And then, of course, in my community up and down the street, there was constant sharing and giving as I saw in Africa. The African traditions of West Africa where I was is more about community benefit than individuals. Families shared with other families. I saw it generally in the church and I saw my grandmother’s giving again and again in the church. It was her expressed duty to support and take care of the minister and his family and to contribute to church. I saw her giving always whatever it was that she had. If she went by to visit the minister and his wife or they came by our house, they didn’t leave without some of her canned peaches or green beans or whatever it was she had canned. And my grandmother was the one who organized the gifts for the pastor. She was a leader in the church, a leader in the Pastor’s Aid organization, and an officer in the Willing Workers, both church clubs. At some point in the year, they collected food, money and all kinds of stuff that people would contribute. It was given to the pastor and his wife.

The ministers were on salary but this was above and beyond that. From the time that I can remember, every minister that we ever had at that church was always at our table and it seemed to be that we were always close to them. I felt close to them and they were close to our family. I guess that maybe there were only two ministers I remember well. Reverend Davis was the pastor when I was little; and then when I was 10 or 11, Reverend Coker came to the church.

I noticed that Nannie was a leader in the church and she established a context for others to give as well. I never really thought about it. Giving of oneself, time, energy, resources, money and talents is important. Nannie and my mother always told me if you can’t contribute do not harm. Live your life in a way that you make things better—leave things better than how you found them. Recently I heard someone say, prophetically, you are a leader and the people are waiting for you to lead. Leadership is a form of giving too. We must contribute our gifts in the world. Sometimes I don’t think I do enough for others and the community. Being grateful and giving back to the community were real important actions in my house.

Unconditional giving is one way I think of it. It’s interesting because I certainly recognize people who have a generosity of spirit. They just give for the love of giving. That’s generosity of spirit. And you know what? They don’t even think about it. It’s just kind of the natural thing to do. I think that giving is a natural way of being. In that everybody has that capacity. We either keep the channel open or we close it. Sometimes it gets closed because of experiences, disappointments, and anger or it may be closed because of lack and scarcity. When I say scarcity I mean it could be economic scarcity as well as scarcity in terms of the way of thinking. Racism is scarcity in thinking and behaving.

There’s an incredible drive. What I see is my giving is more singularly focused. By that I mean probably in my work and those who are closest to me. So in my work and because of the nature of my work, I get to be in that place that we’ve described earlier of giving in delivering the work. But like being with those little girls at the Y it feels like the time is so short that there’s not nearly as much time for me to do that. Or even the time to visit with people that I both love and have known. I seem to be so consumed by the work, and when I say the work I really mean what it takes to do the work, all that background stuff. So yes, I think that the time we live in is not supportive of keeping us together. I mean e-mail and voice mail and cell phones in my experience are keeping me separate from the human connection.

On the other I hand I seem to be in such a rush, caught up in the pace all around me. I notice there are times when so many others say they feel that way too. My colleague in my office and I were sharing an experience on the week-end—our state of mind and physical state was similar. I spoke with another friend she was feeling the same way. We try to explain it and we can’t. I also think the bombardment of CNN whether you want it or not is draining and takes an emotional and mental toll of which we are unaware.

Yes, exactly. I’m in touch with almost anybody in the world with e-mail but . . . One of my best friends and I have left phone messages on every phone number that each of us has and we still haven’t talked to each other. So there’s really a kind of a grasping, an “Oh, my God, I haven’t talked to her in several weeks.” And yet I noticed one of my other friends, no matter what she calls me all of the time. I think it has gotten harder than it was before.

So yes, I think in the simple ways that we give, like I kept talking about going to see my neighbor next door. It was easier for me to send her some flowers but it took me a while to get my body over there. So yes, I think we continue to lose some special something of ourselves the more that technology advances. And so actually I’m saddened by that, and by the same token I wasn’t even conscious of how much of myself I gave to support Wendell during his last days. While in the hospital, I tried to keep my work up and be there for the girls. I found that there was something needed that was certainly larger and more powerful than me and that gave me a source of energy beyond what I imagined possible.

As a matter of fact, I can remember one day. (I guess it was a day that I thought about what was happening. because during the six weeks of his illness I don’t think I slept much.) I was at the hospital and had been there all night. I really had not slept much. I was planning to leave the hospital that next morning early so I could sleep just a little bit before a one o’clock appointment. Just as I was preparing to go, there was some new crisis with his condition. I went with him to x-ray. So many days were days like that. This particular day they were removing a port from his chest and it turned out to be complicated. It had to be removed surgically and the doctor was without any nurses and so he asked me to assist. He asked me to hand him the surgical stuff, put his gloves on and so forth. So when it was all done and Wendell was lying there, I leaned over the stretcher and I said, “You know what? You and I have taken till death do us part to a whole new level.” We laughed. I’m rambling about giving of one’s self and a time I gave unconditionally—doing, whatever was needed in the moment. It was spirit, God, that gave me strength.

That’s right. You’ve got to know what you’re signing up for. You’d better watch out. It was hysterical. I looked up and I said, “Well, by the time I leave this hospital, I will know how to do all the things.” Seriously, if we knew all that we were signing up for without deep spiritual connection, we probably wouldn’t. I never imagined I would do that—be with him through all of this period at the end of his life. We had been divorced for 20-plus years. Yet we were still the best of friends and loved each other in the way God loves us to love. This was clearly where I was supposed to be—for many reasons I guess—so I accepted it, and I am glad I could do it. He would have been there for me. In fact, he said he thought that was how it would be. When I was sick or went to the hospital, he was always there. He came to be with me when my family members died. This final chapter was unconditional giving strengthened by love and forgiveness.

Well, as I said earlier, “Thank you.” I’ve never really thought about most of what you asked me and so I feel very grateful for the opportunity to share. I feel very grateful to you for having me stop and reflect on some memories that I certainly have held dear and hadn’t really thought about—how they have influenced my life and are reflected in my work. I learned some important things about choice and responsibility. They are conditions that follow—making it real, authentic giving, and generosity of spirit. So, thank you.