Clare Consultation, LLCGenerations of the Social Network
I’m on Facebook. So is EX:Change. This is all because I have a daughter in her early 20s. She lives across the pond – far away from Oregon. I, of course, want to keep up in all the ways that work for her. Mostly we Skype, but FB, her I-phone, a smattering of e-mail and (very occasionally) the international postal network all come into play. Given my generation, being on Facebook may… Read More
Columbus Day: Do You Know Where You Are?
Yesterday I sat again across a small table from Dr. Dapo, one of the 100 voices of EX:Change (EX:C blog, “What’s in a Name?” 4-13-2010). We had seen one another on Multnomah Ave. several weeks earlier. I was walking fast toward the Max Station and Dapo was driving in the opposite direction. He honked and we stopped traffic for long enough to promise to find yesterday’s tea and coffee. Dapo (as he… Read More
What the Land Holds Up
Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River. This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old. That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More
Like Water, Like Air — the Voices of Change Don’t Go Away
There’s this – the EX:Change blog. And there are my still-steady attempts at catching the attention of the trade publishing industry. And then, proving that like water or air the EX:Change voices are here to stay, there’s the stealth-EX:Change…. From the beginning, dozens of volunteers have donated time, energy and BRILLIANCE to the EX:Change project. Most recently, two of these near unimaginably talented people (really – no overstatement is possible here) have… Read More
Because I Knew You Then, I Can Listen to You Now
I spent the last week with a friend I had not seen since we were both 15 – a friend I met when we were 6 and in elementary school in Sweetwater, TX. By the time we were 12, serendipity of some wild Texas variety had turned circumstances so that we both showed up in Mrs. Southerland’s English class in Peterson Junior High School, Kerrville, TX. His family had moved to start Gibson’s, an early version of discount stores now dwarfed… Read More
When our Greatest Hope is Boring
There is a quickening in human consciousness. Yep, right here in and among the species of which readers, bloggers, warriors and prophets are a part. I saw this quickening on the road and still see it daily. I heard it in American voices across the 100 days of the EX:Change interviews and daily I continue hearing it. A quickening is an acceleration, a vitalizing, a coming or returning to life. Ours is… Read More
“It says ‘Islam'”
I met Cheri Carter on February 11, 2009 in a coffee shop in Tucson, AZ. We were seated in the two cushiest chairs in the place, both hooked up to the shop’s wifi. She looked to me to be a white woman in her 60’s, carefully dressed, of slight build and great earrings. At one point, still a stranger, she leaned over to ask me something about my laptop. It was the… Read More
Hearing : Listening as Ground-Zero-Mosque : Islamic Community Center
The EX:Change is about listening across differences. Differences in political views. Differences in values. Differences in social circumstances due to income, education, ethnicity, personal relationships, physical ability, age. Beyond hearing what people have to say, it is about listening to get a sense of how life looks from another person’s perspective. We call this communication and it tends to be used to support understanding, cooperation, strong and generative community…stuff like that. The… Read More
8-9-10 — Right on Time
My friend, Jessica, is training for a half marathon. She’s never really been a runner before. Lately her body has gone through a vast transformation. A tall woman weighing in around 200, she’s nearing half her former size. That’s living change. Jessica is training for a half marathon because she can. Her body is ready for something like that. Her primary goal is not to lose more weight. In fact, Jessica is… Read More
Smarter Than We Think We Are
Way smarter than most media and elected officials give us credit. Way! I’ve been spending the past weeks looking hard for ways to get the attention of professionals engaged in the publishing industry in our country. It is, for sure, a culture all its own. As with any culture, there are conventions. There is jargon and there are protocols for what represents communication worth attending to. All of these, at least in… Read More