Iterations

I hope this blog finds you in good spirits. I know mine are lifted. I am having one of those truly inspiring moments where the weather and the atmosphere converge in a preternatural way. I find myself thoroughly engrossed in the art of learning and discovery. My mind is overwhelmed observing the connections between things current, futuristic, and historic. I see the various iterations of myself and slowly they are unifying.

Once, in what seems like long ago, I wanted to be a priest. I wanted to know what devotion and commitment were. They were holy to me and therefore foreign. The idea of devotion meant sacrifice and celibacy. It meant finding places and spaces to lock things up. And you were to keep those things only between you and god and your priest. It was there, in those sins, that you found your redemption. To have no sin meant no salvation. And so you coveted those things, those pieces of yourself that you no longer know or want or even need. They become your Pandora's Box.

Now, I have opened my Pandora's Box, and I see many reflections of myself and realize that they are still me. I am still the person that wanted to be a priest. I am still the little accident prone boy. I am still the drama nerd. I am all of these iterations with all of their dreams, values, fears, and insecurities.

I am no longer in turmoil with myself over which piece of me I like more - writer; entertainer; youth worker; cook; visionary; walker; gamer; queer; world citizen; husband; friend; family member; reader. I know my insecurities and weaknesses better - self doubt; fear of vision; gossip and idle chatter; lack of focus; accident prone. I know where I am uncomfortable - boundaries; authority; identity; conflict. I have clarity of values - equity; courage; loyalty; getting things done; place and space; vision; convergence; exploration; honesty and integrity; innovation and transformation; humor and joy.

And as I look back at wanting to be a priest, devotion and commitment are no longer foreign. They are the tools I use to ignite my passion. I devote myself to becoming all iterations.

And so I ask you, my humble reader: Who are you?

Failure

We all fail. We fail to keep promises; fail to listen; fail to be a good friend; fail to uphold our values. Some of my greatest learnings have come from failure – failure to finish college; failure to prevent a young person from failing middle school; failure to be a good partner. So what role should or does failure play in leadership?

I’ve always thought that owning up to your failures and then trying not to repeat them was the point of failure. If you could be honest, reflect, and then modify your behavior then you are doing what is “right”. I’m not quite sure about that any more.

As I move down my path towards leadership, I realize that my failures have become more significant and that my failures have a rippling effect on others. As I become more connected to others around me, I can’t help feel a greater sense of responsibility.

When I was younger, I shirked responsibility. My house was a mess. I didn’t keep obligations. I was argumentative with almost all authority figures. I wanted to forge my own way without considering how “going it alone” might have an adverse effect on what I was trying to accomplish. I thought no one else could possibly understand what I was going through.

One of my greatest failures was to my family. As an angry post-adolescent, I cut of ties to my parents for almost four years. I was trying to make sense of who I really was, and I needed to cut out voices that I felt impeded me from hearing my own voice. I did this without any regard for or sense of what my parents felt, thought, or believed. I know it hurt them, but I was too consumed with becoming “me” that I pushed those thoughts from my head. “Oh…it’s someone ‘else’,” I told myself. I never really considered that that “else” had their own uniquely valuable experience.

Later, when my parents and I started speaking again, I didn’t really apologize for my actions. I remember chalking up to me being immature or needing to find myself. I remember avoiding the conversation, saying “You really wouldn’t understand.” I never appreciated how difficult that experience was for them, nor how many compromises they had to make as a result of me.

This is not to say that I didn’t need that separation. Reflecting on the experience, I definitely needed the space. I am who I am and I am where I am because of it. I have amazing friends who are more like family. (The other night, I had an impromptu dinner party and one of my friends leaned over to me as she was leaving and said “Thanks. I needed some family time.”) I have a career, not just a job. I have a strong sense of independence, and I am no longer afraid to be by myself. I know at least a little more of who I am.

I am also not saying that other good did not come from that separation. My parents and I now have a much stronger relationship. I see that both of my parents are more independent and happier than I ever remember. And my siblings are all blazing their own trails. It is a wonderful gift to see this growth.

What I have learned is that all of us, individually and collectively, are resilient. We bounce back from failure; we are stronger because of failure; we grow because of failure. My failure with my family brought about much needed changes to out family dynamic. My failing college has given me tenacity within my career and birthed innovation because I feel the need to push myself even harder. My failure at preventing a youth from failing middle school forced me to reflect on my practice, my intention, and my beliefs. It made me even more dedicated to academics and focused me on questioning the role after school plays in closing the achievement gap. (I’m still unsure of what the true role is. But instead of brushing the question aside, I now ask: how can after school programs bridge the divide between school, youth, family, and community? In my opinion, someone has to be the bridge builder and after school can at least propose a blueprint.)

As I move down my path towards leadership, what role does failure play? How do I account for failure? How do I minimize its impact on those to whom I am connected?

I know I don’t have the answer. I’m not sure I ever will because that is part of the nature of failure – you sometimes don’t know you’ve failed until it is staring you in the face.

What I can do is freely talk about my failures, learn as much as I can from them, and try not to repeat them. I can admit to them and accept the consequences. Ultimately, I can allow myself to be human.

Side note: I started writing this post last week. In my discussion with my coach, we decided to have a lesson of failing at three things over the course of the week. One of my failures was not putting up a post last week. It was an interesting experience for me. I am normally very one top of my work. It took a lot of will to consciously fail something. I feel blessed that I did fail as it reinforced what I believe. Thanks Coach!

Questions from 2000

I originally wrote these questions in 2000. The inspiration for these questions came from the quote:

"Ultimately, the entire universe (with all its particles, including those constituting human beings, their laboratories, observing instruments, etc.) has to be understood as a single undivided whole, in which analysis into separately and independently existent parts has no fundamental status." (Synchronicity, Alan Combs and Mark Holland, (c) 1996, p. 12)

I am posting them here because I feel they share a similar sentiment to my current reflection on Leadership and the path I am on. It is amazing to see how we always loop back to ponder the same things.

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If we are all an interconnected "being", then analysis of the self shouldn't be our sole concern. In fact, it really shouldn't be our concern. And what impact does this have on the concept of free will? If we are to have choice, that means we are independent of each other. And yet with this argument we are clearly not independent but interdependent.

Conversely, free will does not negate that my choice has a direct impact on someone or something else. In fact, it may have a huge impact on the world as a whole, on the universe as a whole.

Take a look at the themes explored in His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). Lyra's decisions, no matter how small they were, had a direct influence on the larger universe she was not originally aware of. Similarly, Neo's choices in The Matrix Trilogy also have larger implications throughout the world of both machines and the matrix. In the end of both stories, the prevailing triumphant theme is "love can overcome". What does that really mean? Can love overcome everything else? If it can, what is love?

Certainly it has to be more than just an emotion. It has to be some force that is larger than anything experienced by one person. If it is that large, is it the unifying particle that runs through everything? What does that really mean? What impact does that have on philosophy, physics, biology, religion, the universe?

Can love even be defined? What role does war and corruption and politics play in the larger theme of love? Are there any answers? Or are there more questions that are unanswerable to the human mind? If they are unanswerable, is there a point in posing the questions? And why do we always look for the answers? Why do we want everything wrapped up in a bow?

Is wrapping things up in a bow a Western concept? Is this phenomena of wanting complete resolution unique to the Western experience and culture? In the aftermath of Christianity/Judaism/Islam, we have found ourselves looking at things in a very similar way we look at this page - black and white. Is this acceptable? Is there more we do not know and yet insist we do?

Lessons from My Mentors

I imagine that I will continually be on my path towards leadership. Leadership to me is a journey never reaching towards an end goal. Instead, it is the path. It twists, turns, intersects with other paths, diverges, and brings me back to the beginning. While on the path, I meet people, smell flowers, hear the sounds of the city, see the glowing stars of the night sky.

The people I meet on the path are people like Betsy. They are mentors. They have something to share. They seek something themselves. They walk alongside me for a portion of the path.

I meet and recognize these mentors because I see them walking on their path. Maybe we have been walking parallel for a long time, and I finally look to my right or left and notice that they too share a similar path. Maybe they are walking a path that is perpendicular to mine, and I have seen them in the distance slowly getting closer and closer. From whichever direction they are coming, one thing is constant – at some point both of our paths converge.

When these paths converge, multiple possibilities await. One is a quick greeting and acknowledging of each other on the path. It’s the “Hello, my name is…It is a pleasure to meet you” kind of conversation. Our paths diverge again quickly, and both of us have changed because of our connecting.

Another possibility is the quiet greeting. We find ourselves on the same path, nod to each other, and continue walking together silently. At some point we might say something, but it is not necessary. This mentor exists for silent support. The fact that we are walking together is the mentorship. Once again, our paths will diverge with only a nod as our good-bye.

A mentor like Betsy is someone on a parallel path. This type of mentor almost always is someone I already know – someone who has been walking on their own path, and I just haven’t seen it. I become aware of it because their path slowly starts getting closer. Then there is some incident, like the lifeboat exercise, that makes me notice them. There is a conscious shift in the relationship.

This type of mentor is someone I intrinsically trust. It is someone who points out the divots in the road, lends a hand when I fall, walks slightly behind me to see where I go. They point out forks in the road, and we discuss which ones to take. Sometimes they are together. Sometimes they are separate.

For all types of mentors, when the moment comes to go our separate ways, there a few ways it concludes. Sometimes it is slowly abrupt. It is like that moment right before warp speed where you can see everything stretching in every direction and then suddenly you are no longer where you were without your mentor next to you. Sometimes it is gradual like the branching out of an ancient bristlecone pine where time seems to stand still. The trunk of the tree is the same, and both you and your mentor grow into new branches. You are still a part of the same organism, but you experience the world differently now and somewhat independently.

One thing in common with all these mentors is that we foster each others’ values. We don’t share every single value, but there is some overlap and that overlap strengthens both of us. We grow independently together.

My current trajectory on the path has a combination of mentors. Betsy and Mrs. Bishop now walk invisibly beside me. My memories and reflections of them have called their spirit and their intention into existence. I notice thoughts, feelings, and ideas inspired by them all around me. My values of transformation, integrity, explorations, stem from them.

Mentors that silently walk alongside me are my granny, my parents, and my husband. We don’t ever need to speak of mentoring because I know they support me, love me, and transform me. They are the ones who I love unconditionally and with whom I am most loyal.

I also have a number of the “Hello my name is…” mentors. They quickly come and go on the path, and they nurture my values of gathering, convergence, and connection. Some of these mentors I will find alongside me further down the path. Some I will never see again. Some I will circle back to.

I also have a number of the final type of mentor; the kind of mentor Betsy was in my middle and high school days. They are the Margarets and Kicas of my life. They help show me other directions my path can take. They also include people like my dear friends Aldo, Michael, and Rebecca. They nurture my values of humor and joy, innovation, honesty, and exploration.

As I continue on this path, it is important that I continue to be aware of the various mentors that surround me. Each and every person I connect to in life has the possibility of being a mentor. I just need to remain open, honest, and value all that intersects my path. As the Tao Te Ching states, “If you keep your mind from judging and aren’t led by the senses, your heart will find peace.” Or you may find a mentor.

My Mentor Betsy

A mentor of mine was Betsy. Betsy was my youth minister at church all through my middle and high school days. In order to get a full sense of what she did to support me, you need to know a little about who I was back then.

Picture an awkward teenager with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a scrawny build. Now add to that image pimples, a large retainer called a bionator, and lots of neon late 80’s/early 90’s clothes.

Upon first glance, you see smiles and hear laughter. This youth seems larger than life with a loud voice, a flair for the dramatic, and big hand gestures. He can’t seem to sit still or concentrate for very long.

You might think this youth has friends because he can talk to almost anyone. He helps take care of his brothers and sister. He babysits. He is responsible.

But when no one is looking, when he is alone, he cries. He sobs uncontrollably. He wonders why it looks like he has friends, but his peers tease him and beat him up. He is desperate, lonely, and insecure. He wants to be accepted, but can’t accept himself. He needs to belong to something, is searching for meaning in a world that seems meaningless.

This youth, me, went to church regularly. It was our family’s culture, our tradition. At this church was Betsy.

I can’t recall specific conversations or interactions with Betsy, but I remember feelings, insights, and revelations made possible because of her. Betsy was a very warm and welcoming person. She treated youth as adults, people able to think critically and make decisions for themselves. She never provided answers, only questions. Betsy was a role model, a teacher, a mentor.

Wednesdays were youth group night, and I attended every week. One Wednesday after school, I came home and felt a despair I had never felt. Partly it was due to hormones, and partly it was because I had finally had enough of the teasing and humiliation. I couldn’t take being called a faggot one more time.

No one was home, so I went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and headed to my bedroom. I sat there for over an hour trying to muster the courage to slit my wrists. I stared at my reflection in the window and all I say was a monster that needed slaying.

Before I could muster the courage, my mother came home. She yelled for me from the top of the stairs, and I quickly hid the knife and ran to greet her. She told me to get ready for youth group, so I reluctantly went back downstairs, changed my clothes, and washed my face.

That night at youth group, we were playing a game called Lifeboat. Everyone was given a different character to play, such as a single mother, a gay survivalist, a nurse with a life-threatening illness, etc. All of the characters were on a sinking ship with only one lifeboat that held two people. It was the groups task to determine who would be able to get on the lifeboat and why. I randomly picked the gay survivalist.

I don’t remember who the group picked for the lifeboat, but I do know it wasn’t the gay survivalist. When I read my character description to the group, the group unanimously responded that I was the first to be thrown overboard, end of discussion. Betsy immediately intervened and asked hard questions of the group as to why I was the first to be thrown overboard without hearing all of the other characters. I sat stunned and silent as the group, the same peers from school, justified their hate. In the end, I was still left to drown.

That Wednesday night, my relationship to Betsy changed – I now viewed her as my mentor not just my youth minister. I found someone who stood up for me without any fear of what others thought and without having to say a word. I found someone I could trust.

As the months and years went by, I sought out more time with Betsy. She always listened, inquired about why I felt what I felt and thought what I thought, and provided opportunities for my personal growth. Betsy saw something in me and wouldn’t let me lose it. She let me be me with all of my flaws, missteps, and humanity.

Four years later, Betsy was the first adult I came out to and it was mostly due to that exercise and what happened afterwards. Betsy was honored I actually came out to her. She advocated to the priest who wouldn’t let me volunteer. Betsy loved me.

Betsy and I have gone in very different directions, and we no longer talk. The impact Betsy had in my middle and high school days can still be felt. She is why I love youth work. She is why I listen with an open mind and an open heart. She is why I am who I am.

Thank you Betsy.

Untitled Poem - Written July 28, 2007

taken back to long ago
when the stars glowed brightly
sitting under a great oak tree
feeling the bark upon my back
i looked towards the heavens
seeing the milky way
the big dipper, cassiopeia, the seven sisters
feeling the immenseness of the sky
the wonder of history
and the overwhelmingness of the infinite
i looked down and suddenly i was
sitting on a crystal ground that
rippled like water
i saw the roots of this great oak spread wide and deep
they clustered like a network of blood vessels
continually nourishing and cleansing and sustaining life
i closed my eyes and when i opened them i was back
with the feeling of the infinite
deeply rooted in history
creating a network throughout my life

Prayer and Mediation

I have always had a deep sense of exploration and wonder. I have always felt that there is something greater than me. In the past, I called that something God. God was the Catholic God, the God of the Trinity. God was equal parts loving and fearful. God was infallible and infinite. He was the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. In order to go to heaven, you needed to accept Jesus into your heart and confess your sins.

As I grew up, the nature of God changed. I began to question the essence and nature of God. It seemed to me that the Catholic God was confusing and contradictory. I wondered how God could tell his followers to love and be compassionate of all and also condemn nonbelievers to hell and eternal suffering.

This confusion made me feel lost. I wanted to know who and what to believe in. Catholicism gave me guideposts in my faith. I knew I was holy because I went to church on Sunday, I prayed before I ate, I read the Bible, I tithed, I taught Sunday school. If I didn’t believe in the Catholic God, what were my actions but hollow? Who was I but a shell?

So I searched. I searched in the Tarot, in science, in Nietzsche, in myself, in leaders I admired, in friends, in nature, in the spaces and places between things. I tried to find the spirituality and faith I once had.

I found many things – beauty, love, respect, humility, vastness, absence, presence, joy, explanations – but I did not find my spirituality. What I once had was eluding me. It was if with every corner I turned my spirit turned the one right ahead of me. I kept getting glimpses of it and yet I never saw it. I was chasing my shadow.

I had to change course. Instead of searching for something outside of myself, something greater than me, I needed to find me. I needed to go deeper inside and see what made, and makes, me tick – how I move about in this world.

I remember my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Bishop. She was an amazing woman with a great sense of wonder. One spring day she told our class about astronomy, but in order to fully grasp it it needed to be dark outside. She told us to meet her in the schoolyard at 8pm that night.

I showed up eager to learn. Mrs. Bishop brought telescopes and a night sky map. It was my first memory of seeing the stars through a telescope, and somehow they didn’t seem so far away. I learned how to find Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and the Seven Sisters. Mrs. Bishop made astronomy seem so simple. In order to understand it, you simply needed to pause, observe, and reflect.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized the depth of Mrs. Bishop’s teachings. She wasn’t really teaching about astronomy. Astronomy was just a tool she used to teach us how to learn, explore, and deepen understanding. If we could pause, observe, and reflect on something as vast as the heavens, as space, then we should be able to do it with anything.

My good friend Margaret recently asked me to attend prayer/mediation workshops at her church. Margaret has always welcomed me into her faith. She is a model of letting her spirit speak through her actions. She is a mentor of mine for spiritual growth.

Over the last seven years, Margaret has invited me to various church functions and services, and I have politely turned down most of them. This time, however, something resonated within me. Partly, it was because I wanted/want to walk more intentionally in this world and this opportunity seemed like an excellent way to increase my intentionality. Partly, it was because I was/am no longer angry at the church (Catholic or otherwise). Partly, it was because my fondness for Margaret has grown tremendously and this seemed an excellent way to connect with her on a deeper level. All of these reasons converged and I committed to attending the workshops.

Previously, I would have attended the workshops in search of something outside of myself. This time, I attended the workshops with the focus solely on me – understanding what role prayer and mediation played in my life, in my journey towards leadership. I found myself pausing, observing, and reflecting. I took the lessons I learned – that prayer and meditation are simply a method to focus quietly on intention – and applied it to me. And I found a glimmer of myself. My shadow paused momentarily before running around the next corner.

The prayer/meditation workshops lasted only four sessions, so I needed to find something else that would enable me to pause, observe, and reflect. Another mentor of mine, Kica, co-teaches mediation classes for the San Francisco Buddhist Center. Coincidentally, their next six-week Introduction to Meditation class started the Tuesday after my last prayer/meditation workshop. I signed up.

I had my first class last Tuesday. I went with no expectations. I had written my first blog entry the same day, so I was really focused on nothingness. And nothingness is what happened. There is no way to describe the realization of being outside of your self by going deeply inside of your self through concentrating only on breathing. It is like realizing that the shadow I thought to be my spirit is really just my shadow and that my shadow is really who I am – space with little form that eludes everything and everyone and disappears in great light and great darkness.

My spiritual journey is my path towards leadership. Prayer and mediation are vehicles/tools I draw upon to pause, observe, and reflect. They help me step into nothingness.

Which Shoes to Step into

I was asked to ponder what shoes I need to step into in order to become who I want to be in five years. This is a very interesting and hard to ponder question – one that evokes a fear inside me; one that begs commitment to a way of life.

I grew up Catholic, and it is through this upbringing that I feel a very deep commitment to fostering and enabling an equitable, compassionate world. It is not so much of the churches dogma that birthed this deep commitment. Rather, it was the people that shaped my ethics and the situations I found myself in within the church that formed my deep sense of equity.

I remember starting to volunteer at a very young age. I volunteer at nursing homes, hospitals for the mentally ill, runaway teen programs, homeless shelters, and a dearth of other socially conscious organizations. These volunteer jobs exposed me to the suffering, joy, and beauty of the world.

The runaway teen shelter was one of my most amazing experiences as a youth. I met people who were abandoned or felt abandoned by their families. Some ran away to escape abuse, some ran away because their drug addiction forced them to leave, some ran away because their families could no longer deal with their mental illness. My volunteer commitment was very minimal—mostly doing arts and crafts, playing games, and talking to my peers. Through these activities and conversations, I learned some of my peers had more hope than I. I realized that life holds joy and suffering in equal measure regardless of where you are.

My work at the hospital for the mentally ill taught me that art and creativity exist everywhere and that art is beautiful. I had been exposed to museums, classic artists, and other youth-produced work at that time. I had not been exposed to the true impact art and creativity had within people. I saw people that had very little ability to communicate verbally express themselves in a language I could understand. And what they spoke was beauty, love, and tenacity.

These experiences showed me that the world is like and unlike my upbringing. I also realized that in order to understand my place within the world I needed and continue to need to intentionally place myself within contexts, settings, and situations that are outside of my experience and the bubble of my upbringing. Paradoxically, it is through this search for understanding that I know that the more I seek, the less I understand.

I also remember specific examples when the teachings of the church conflicted with actions. I volunteered for a mission trip to Pine Ridge Reservation. While on the mission trip, I got into conflict with the trip leaders because I couldn’t understand why the Native Americans we were there to serve had to attend Christian service if they wanted our help. Through conversations with leaders and elders of Pine Ridge, I saw a deep spirituality on the reservation rooted in traditions that reached back indefinitely into history. I observed that even amid the poverty imposed on the reservation by centuries of government policies, practices, and conflict the people valued what they had. Who were we to insist on a specific “way” in order to get something as basic as a meal or a freshly painted home? Where was the equity?

Another example of conflict between preachings and actions happened to me while I was in the seminary. Seminary prompted me to come out. All the seminarians had to attend a retreat on the exploration of sexuality and abstinence. One night, a group of us were talking about our experiences with sex and sexuality when the topic of homosexuality came up. I was not out yet, but I knew, had known for a very long time, that I was most likely gay. Some of the seminarians started saying disparaging and hateful things about the queer community. I leapt to the defense of the queer community asking how could seminarians, people longing to be spiritual leaders, be so intolerant, hateful, and contradictory. How could a potential religious leader that preached loving others the way he wanted to be treated say that queers were less than? Where was the equity?

A final example of the contradictory nature of the church happened after I came out. Upon my coming out, I was told by the priest at the church in which I was raised—the church in which I volunteered much of my time; the church in which I belonged—that I could no longer work with children and youth at the church. For many years, I had taught Sunday school, led vacation bible school, and attended Wednesday night youth groups, and been a leader within the larger church. All of that was taken away because I came out, not because I was gay. This reinforced my lack of belief in the church. Why was I all of a sudden an outcast? Where was the equity? (Side note: The priest later sent me an apology for his misjudgment. Dear Father: If you are reading this now, thank you.)

But what do these experiences have to do with stepping into shoes now almost fifteen to twenty years later? Everything. If I want to know where I will be in five years, I need to know who I am now, who I was back then, and have a vision of who I will become. All of these experiences happened by accident and without intention. I am privileged to have them all happen to me for they shaped me, and I want to make sure that the experiences in the years to come continue to foster my understanding, or in reality my lack of understanding, of love, beauty, suffering, joy, and equity. I want to be intentional.

In the Tao Te Ching it states “The Master, by residing in the Tao, sets an example for all things. Because [she] doesn’t display [herself], people can see [her] light. Because he has nothing to prove, people can trust his words. Because [she] doesn’t know who [she] is, people recognize themselves in [her]. Because he has no goal in mind, everything he does succeeds.”[1] This is the leader I wish to become. And committing to this path is scary for it means letting go, surrendering, accepting. It means being. And there is nothing scarier and more liberating than going nowhere intentionally.

So..what shoes do I need to step into? Nothing.

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[1] Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching (New York: Harper Collins, 1988), 22