Clare Consultation, LLCRedemption
These songs of freedom. Redemption song.Bob Marley It’s the season. Spring. Close to the equinox – that moment when day and night balance their time. When winter lets go its weary grip happy, as most of us are, to let dormancy give way to the impulses of sprouts. I’m spending these transitional days in Montana – a place of bold crownings of grape hiacynth, fuzzy promises of catkins. And tomorrow is the day recognized by Christians… Read More
Has it really been 10 years: 100 VOICES
January 21, 2009, the day after the inauguration of the first Obama administration, I took off driving – south, then east, then north, then back west. I was interested in listening to everyday people. I wanted to know what they meant when they said that word – especially public in the preceding months – CHANGE. My goal was 100 voices in the first 100 days. Voices across as broad a range of… Read More
Lost but never alone
We’ve just passed the winter solstice. It’s dark. Still, we all know the next stop will be spring. The path is clear, but we’re tired and the way seems very long. We also know the turn to spring will not be a solid stop. From there we’ll proceed to summer, through autumn, back to winter. All we have for sure is change. No one has been able to say the singular thing… Read More
Grief & Gratitude
Grief is the price we pay for love. Queen Elizabeth II – Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie – This morning, a dear friend posted a photo of his 5-year-old granddaughter in honor of her birthday. Five!! Already. Earlier this month, the day passed that marked a year since the death of my friend and mentor, Roy… Read More
Truth Be Told – Montgomery
On her MoreThanTours, Michelle Browder tells the truth. She starts on the banks of the Alabama River where the lands of the Alabama Tribes were stolen, by hostility or trickery: Apache, Caddo, Alabama-Quassarte, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Arapaho, Cherokee, Cheyenne. Where black American slaves were marched from ships to storehouses to market. People descended from the Africans stolen into involuntary servitude. After 1808, when stealing people from outside our country was banned, domestic trade sustained… Read More
In a Time When Integrity Seems in Short Supply
This is Dan Wenk. He’s a dad, a husband, a grandfather, a friend, and a profoundly wise and effective public servant. Today marks the first day following his 43-year career with the National Park Service. Today – too early and in circumstances disrespectful and baffling – Dan is retired. His last post – Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. You can read in this June 7 Washington Post piece a bit about those circumstances…. Read More
Loneliness and Listening In
Being in positive, healthy, reciprocal relationship is the most powerful predictor of mental and emotional wellbeing. Friendships, love partnerships, neighborhoods, community groups. This fact is increasingly worth considering given the evidence that loneliness in the United States is on the increase. Perhaps the most profound symptom – suicide. Last week, we learned of the suicide of a young man we know from a rural Montana town. Montana has the highest suicide rate… Read More
John McCain – “But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement”
I did not vote for John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. But because of his candidacy, I got in my car early in 2009, and began what would be a 10,000 mile circumnavigation of the lower 48. I did this because, by the time Americans got to the polls in November 2008, no matter who we voted for, everyone was using the word change. So, because of McCain and Obama, because… Read More
The Presence of Absence
Yesterday, I learned of a word. A Portuguese word. Saudade. Saudade reveals its meaning in context. Something like the English words longing, yearning, and love when it’s about a quality of ineffable missing. Like many words in other languages, there’s really not a direct translation. This is because the word holds more than its parts. A noun that’s bigger than we English speakers think nouns can be. Bigger than person, place, thing – but holding all… Read More