Together, we’re gonna seek out the magic that is often hiding behind the most mundane, simple moments. We’re gonna dance together. We’re gonna fan the oxygen onto an ember for wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity with each other, and see what happens.

Read on….

For You: Today’s Main Course

My friend Betsy recently left Minneapolis for a few days.

You know what she told me when she got back?

As she re-entered the city, she immediately felt the heaviness in the air here, like a thick blanket of fog.

The trauma. The grief. The sadness. The anger.

All of these things have been released into the air again and again lately, here in Minneapolis… and we haven’t had enough chance to metabolize, heal, and/or release hardly any of it.

Most recently, there was the violent federal occupation of Operation Metro Surge, in the past few months.

Just a few months before that, there was the massively and widely traumatizing shoot-up of the opening Mass of the school year for Annunciation Catholic School, with two of our city’s kids dead… and countless other young ones injured physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. SO many adults the same.

Just a few months before THAT, our sense of collective safety — and the sanctity of public service — were completely shattered, when two of our state lawmakers were ambushed and shot in their own homes in the early-morning hours, a state senator and his wife and daughter seriously injured… and a beloved, longtime legislative leader murdered in her home, with her husband and dog.

And even before THAT… we still hadn’t really recovered from the pandemic and the global uprising for racial justice that literally burned through — and emotionally and spiritually bowled over — our city in 2020.

We have some collective healing to do here.

And that is on top of everything else happening in our country… and worldwide. Wars. Genocides. Domestic violence. Racism. The existence of both billionaires and copious amounts of humans who can’t even eat enough. Lack of inclusion and justice for disabled folks. Transphobia and its cousin, homophobia. And more.

Look around, and it’s easy to feel like giving up.

Everything is just too hard.

There’s just too much suffering.

People can be so awful to each other.

Everywhere we look, there’s de-humanization happening…

… when we know, for sure, that every single human being deserves respect, and dignity, and solidarity, and care, and food and shelter and all their other basic needs met.

We also know they deserve something else important:

JOY.

And here’s the thing about joy.

Joy is easy. Joy is natural — one of the most natural things for us human beings. Joy is, in fact, often one of the most durable results of spending meaningful time truly connecting with other human beings. But it is also easily accessible within ourselves too, when we let go… and focus on things we love…

…and LET LIFE MOVE THROUGH US.

Joy is our birthright.

Joy is for all of us.

ALL of us.

Yesterday, I met a new friend, Beth, for coffee at a neighborhood cafe. I thought I might be there about an hour. More than three hours later, after we had shut down the place and then spent plenty time sitting on the bench outside the cafe, we were wrapping up and saying our goodbyes, after having covered so much ground together… and experienced so much compounding joy:

• There was a bit of venting about frustrating coworkers first… which then opened up our hearts for the good stuff.

• We talked about our shared work in philanthropy and fundraising.

• We talked about our personal histories, with honesty.

• I seriously enjoyed my chai latte, one of my absolute favorite drinks.

• We processed Operation Metro Surge together.

• We met a quirky woman with a long, loose, white pony-tail — who clearly hadn’t bothered with a bra under her tank top and was introduced to us by her jet-black, fluffy little pup called “Juju,” who wandered up to us and demanded our attention. Juju enticed many pets and scratches from us… and even insisted on climbing into my friend’s lap at one point… and there were lots of smiles, as the woman and Juju stayed and gabbed with us far longer than I would have expected, given that they were mid-walk when they encountered us.

• At one point, a dad walked by with his little infant strapped to his chest, in facing-out mode. I waved to the alert and curious youngster first, and then to the dad. He came over to chat for a bit too, and we attempted to interest little babe in Juju. Juju tried, but babe seemed a little… befuddled. I looked him right in the eyes and said: “Welcome to Earth, little one!” Dad laughed, and I asked him how old babe was. “Tomorrow is nine months!,” Dad said. We ooohed and aaahed at the accomplishment of both papa and little one, to get this far together.

• Perhaps the street the cafe is on is a popular route to the neighborhood lake, I’m thinking? Whatever it was, we saw dozens of people passing by us, as we sat there — jogging, biking, walking, with pets, with strollers, having conversations.

• In classic form for a Minnesota Spring, this was one of the first sunny, warm days post-Winter, and everyone had seemingly come out of the woodwork… and seemed to be feeling energized and full of life.

• My friend and I soaked it all up.

I’ve been feeling like I’m in the after-glow ever since.

Friends, joy is ours.

We can find it often — fairly easily.

And you know what?

The ones starting and escalating wars? Or shooting up churches? Or invading cities and terrorizing and/or kidnapping anyone who has too much melanin in their skin? Or hoarding billions while their fellow humans starve and struggle? Or denying their fellow humans their freedom or dignity? Or moving through the world in a posture of domination… rather than mutuality?

They aren’t feeling joy.

Nope.

They might get an occasional hint of pleasure, for something or another — likely something that they’ve paid for or demanded of others or hoarded.

But that pleasure is fleeting.

And it’s not joy.

Joy has a depth.

Joy has a reality to it.

Joy feels like a part of our being waking up.

Joy lightens our load.

Joy is one of the least complicated things that can give our lives meaning.

While writing this, I’ve been pausing off and on for a dance party to this song… and my goodness, the joy that has given me!

You can have this too.

You can seek out joy — every day. Many times a day, even.

I think you should.

Because you know what that does?

That gets LIFE moving through us. And yes, that may mean that the grief moves too. Or the sadness or anger. Or a frustration we’re dealing with. But also, we feel the joy. And we feel ALIVE.

And as hard as that can be…

… isn’t it all a miracle?

Isn’t it full of joy?

Conversation: Your Response

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Practice: Make It Yours

First, join me in this dance party.

Click here, or on the image below… turn up the volume… and just start MOVING YOUR BODY. Let go! DANCE!

Then, consider:

• When do you feel most alive?

• When you consider the word “joy,” what do you picture?

• When’s the last time you remember feeling joy?

Whatever your answers to those questions are, go do those things.

Today. Tomorrow. And all the tomorrows after that one….

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

But let’s explore this more together….

For You: Today’s Main Course

Our neighbors’ maple tree is already budding out — bright red beacons appearing along every branch, bringing the happy message:

Spring is here! Spring is here!

I remember the year the tree was planted. Our previous neighbors, who have since moved on, got the tree one springtime… and we saw them out there in the yard, sweating and throwing dirt, as they prepared its new home and gradually settled it in. They had already lived in the house for decades, by that point… but something made them finally want to bring shade into that spot in their front yard.

A year later, we planted our own maple, just a few feet away from theirs, a different variety but still obviously in the same family.

I often think of their tree is the big sister of ours.

Not only will she always be a year ahead in her growth, just that much bigger than our tree, but she is always the very first tree to bud in the springtime, almost as if she’s leading the way for our maple, telling her it’s OK and it’s time. She seems to own her “big sis” role in that way, much like I’ve often embodied it myself, over the years.

Our former neighbor Nancy always used to joke that we should string a hammock between the two trees, since they’re just about the right distance from each other for that. We have yet to do that. But I’d still like to someday.

Swinging in the breeze, between two beautiful trees? Looking up at the spots of blue sky peeking through their branches? Swaying back and forth slowly? Lulled to sleep by the gentle in-breaths and out-breaths of our Mother Earth? Sign me up.

I love hammocks, in general.

But I especially love the way they literally attach us to the natural world, almost re-weaving a connection that for many of us has been long-ago severed, and shifting our relationship with that world to a hard-to-miss, honest dependency.

Most of us eschew dependency, these days.

Our dominant culture, I’d say worldwide but especially here in the United States, teaches us, again and again, that to be independent — fully self-sufficient; ideally “owning” property; not asking or needing anything from anybody; “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” — is the way we’re supposed to be.

Even more, our dominant culture trains us to operate like machines:

• Feeling some weakness like a sore foot or knee? Or just feeling tired? Push through it. Keep going. Grin through the pain or exhaustion. Even better, ignore it.

• Open spot on the calendar? That can be filled. The fewer empty spots, the better. An ideal day is one that moves from thing to thing, without any down time (which is essentially a synonym for “unproductive time,” the ultimate no-no).

• Sick? You can still work. You should, in fact! Unless you are just so totally down-and-out that you can’t be vertical. And sometimes, even then, you should work from bed, if you really feel like bed is where you absolutely need to be.

• Things that you start should just keep going and going and going. Endings are anathema. Growth is good. Constant growth is the way you know you’re succeeding. Growth without end is the only way to avoid failure… and failure is the ultimate thing to avoid, at all costs.

• All of our human stories (reflecting our orientation to these lives of ours) start with a beginning/past… followed by a middle/present… and orienting to a future that is somewhere “out there.” We see our lives as existing on a linear timeline.

But we aren’t machines.

We are nature.

We don’t live in the natural world.

We are the natural world.

And have you noticed? The natural world has none of those characteristics or orientations listed above. Instead:

• All beings in the natural world rest. Winter is one long hibernation for multitudes of plant and animal species and, even outside of winter, creatures living in the natural world rest every night, as soon as the sun tells them to by disappearing below the horizon. There is no “pushing through,” no foregoing rest because there’s just “too much work to do,” no overriding natural rhythms.

• In the natural world, sometimes it’s time to just lay in the grass. Or sing. Or play tag with a friend (the squirrels in our yard love this one). Or take a nap. Days are definitely not go-go-go. In fact, the primary purpose of most every day is to just live into one’s most essential self, expressing exactly who one was created to be.

• Nothing in the natural world has unlimited growth — nothing, that is, except for cancer cells, and I wouldn’t exactly call those something we should want to emulate.

• Time is cyclical, in the natural world. The past… and the present… and the future have all existed, and will exist… here. Days are cycles. As are weeks. As are years. The progression of time is one cycle after another, all circling the same ground.

• According to these cycles, endings are natural. Endings are expected. Endings are as essential as beginnings — one consistently leading to the other, endings fertilizing and powering new life, again and again.

• The natural world is a beautiful symphony of interdependence, each being having its essential part to play for the whole, each individual creature embedded within a harmonious, repeating web of mutuality — rendering them both dedicated to the thriving of, and dependent on, other members of that web.

We are nature.

But we don’t live that way.

Usually.

I’ve just finished Robin Wall Kimmerer’s lovely book, The Serviceberry, which masterfully lays out the vision of how different our human world would be, if we lived in it the same way our natural-world relatives do — in a constantly giving-and-receiving network of mutuality and interdependence, a “gift economy” that thrives on generosity, where no one ever has to wonder if they’ll have enough.

At a book club discussion last night, I reflected with my fellow members of the Minneapolis community about how differently this book read to us, after what we had recently been through together.

Believing that we could live this way as humans would have seemed completely “Pollyanna-ish” before, one member said. But after the past few months? No more.

We have all seen, we have all lived — in real time, in the most tangible and practical ways — being integral members of a thriving network of mutuality. Giving and receiving like breathing in and out. Generosity with no limit. Understanding that a threat to one of us is a threat to all. And relatedly, understanding that all thriving is mutual… and that we must accordingly seek mutual thriving.

We talked about how this kind of response tends to naturally arise among us humans when there is a massive trauma or threat.

Certainly, that was the case here.

We are aware of this.

And we are all discussing, now, how we maintain this whole new world that we’ve begun shaping together.

How do we sustain our interdependence?

How do we continue to root into our networks of mutuality?

How do we find sustainable ways to continue transforming our culture with each other, from dominance to integration… from competition to cooperation… from individual success to collective thriving… from living like machines… to living like the inherent parts of the natural world that we are?

We’ve all seen the better way, the more natural way.

We’ve lived it.

The struggle is in the fact that the world around us wants to force us to keep playing off of the same script we’ve always been running.

We want better for ourselves.

Don’t you too?

How can we commit — together — to rewriting the script we’re all running, to refusing to mindlessly enact our conditioning, to rising up in full consciousness of who we are… and how we were created to be?

Conversation: Your Response

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Practice: Make It Yours

Go outside.

Just be.

Breathe deeply. Notice. Look. Listen. Smell. Taste. Touch. What is your body picking up, through its five senses, from the natural world around it?

No screens. No music. No conversation.

Just be.

Just be with.

Be with your relatives.

And notice what messages they may be giving you….

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

For You: Today’s Main Course

Fundraising freaks people out.

I see it all the time.

I’m guessing you’ve seen this too?

Maybe experienced it yourself?

Again and again, in the nearly two decades I’ve been working as a professional fundraiser, I’ve seen people lose their ever-loving minds as soon as the conversation turns to raising funds for a cause.

[Until these first few months of 2026, that is.]

What is different now?

In these first months of 2026…

• Our entire city of Minneapolis — and the rest of the Twin Cities metro area, and whole state of Minnesota — has become exceptionally rich in solidarity, as we’ve united with each other in defense against an outside, occupying force that genuinely threatened us all.

• Because we were all facing a clear and present danger together, and we were so united in community defense, we almost instinctively launched into action to protect each other, doing what each of us could for the cause, not questioning or second-guessing anything — and waiting for directions from no one.

• Fear was only one of the many emotions we all were feeling. In fact, I’d say that the entire response to the occupation was driven by emotion — whether while we were patrolling neighborhoods, giving others rides, protecting school communities at drop-off and pick-up times, doing others’ laundry, shopping for and/or delivering food for others, constitutionally observing… or raising funds. Anxiety. Compassion. Care. Anger. Empathy. Grief. Love. All of these emotions — many shades of each — and more pulsed through our veins, as we moved through each day, actively co-creating community in a way we never had before.

• Given all of the above, no one was worried about the usual things. Egos were taking a back-seat. No one was playing power games. People readily asked for help when they needed it, and people easily gave it when asked, if they could. Even if people might have felt self-conscious, they put that aside for the good of the cause. No one was worried about their image, or their reputation. No one had time to entertain awkwardness. The prevalent vibe — from neighbor to neighbor, in the interdependent community we had woven — was simply that everyone would do whatever they could, as best they could… and that was enough.

• Perhaps most importantly, as it related to fundraising, people weren’t really thinking about the money when they did it. They were grounded in their relationships with the people they were fundraising for — and in how essential it was to meet designated totals for their rent and other needs. Raising that money quite directly, and literally, meant keeping people we cared about housed. Fed. Safe. And money was simply the means to that end.

Here, in a kind of mad-scientist experiment I couldn’t have designed better myself, we had basically an army of people who were completely new to fundraising — or who, if they had fundraised at all before, were definitely not “professionals” — and yet were raising millions of dollars… as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

And I’m not really very surprised.

I’ve said for years that I think we over-complicate fundraising.

Now that a whole “industry” — one with credentials and degrees and progressive career paths — has developed around fundraising, we “professionals” have a vested interest in gate-keeping skills and knowledge about it all.

And sure, there is specialized knowledge around fundraising.

There are special skills, too.

But ultimately?

As we’ve seen here in Minneapolis, fundraising can successfully be done by anyone, for any cause, at any time, no “professionals” needed.

Did I just talk myself out of a job?!

Ummm…

… not exactly.

There are still very important things for me to teach.

And that is why, even though I’m a professional fundraiser (and a consultant and coach helping others fundraise), I don’t write about — nor do I use the podcast for — “tips and tricks” to help you fundraise better. Or the latest funding bomb dropping upon us from the current federal government. Or “My Seven-Point Plan to Help You Raise Seven Figures This Year.” Or the latest shiny object that everyone is talking about in our field (like, ahem, cough — AI — cough).

Because ultimately?

None of that matters that much.

Tactics are fungible.

Best practices are not “best” for all.

Because every organization is unique — in everything from its budget size, to its staffing model, to its programmatic make-up, to its funding mix, to its mission and who is drawn to it, and more — there are no one-size-fits-all answers, despite what many “experts” will try to tell you.

[Especially if they’re selling you something.]

Being an effective fundraiser is not about tactics.

Sure, I can and will always teach you tactical skills…

… but that is not where the most meaningful learning lies.

The real learning…

… is in transforming your relationship to money. Honing your inter-cultural fluency. Listening ever-more closely. Connecting deeply with your own humanity. Reaching out to connect with the humanity of others. Inviting others into, and growing, a sense of community. Communicating clearly and directly. Being present, to others and yourself. Developing greater self-awareness and ability to lead yourself. Growing more courage, compassion, empathy, solidarity, love, and care within yourself.

Being an effective fundraiser is in the being.

Because remember: you are a human being.

You’re not a human doing.

Or a human going.

How you are, in this very human work… is everything.

This truth is why my neighbors in Minneapolis have been so effective in their fundraising this year. As I shared above, the context we’ve all been in has resolved a lot of what usually tends to trip people up.

That context is not available everywhere, to everyone — and thank goodness for that. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. And…

… what that means is that people still get tripped up.

They get caught up in their egos…

… or they let anxiety get the best of them…

… or they get self-conscious and bring awkwardness to the table…

… or, one of the big ones, they focus on the money.

We so often forget that money is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to an end that we humans have created as a stand-in for value… in order to more easily trade truly valuable things for other truly valuable things.

Money is a means. Money is a tool. Money is not an end in itself — the be-all, end-all our dominant culture has made it to be. And we’ve all gotten so confused about this.

Working through lessons in being human — within ourselves and with others — is the essence of becoming a good fundraiser.

As I always say, philanthropy (loving and caring for our fellow human beings) is one of the most human things a human can do.

We need not over-complicate this — especially when we’re fundraising.

So the process of turning our fundraising…

… into philanthropy…

… is usually a process of unbecoming, unlearning, unfolding…

… of peeling away the many layers of conditioning that we’ve been taking on, bit by bit, over the years…

… and ultimately, of entering the joy of being human. Together.

Fundraising is ultimately about a journey — from here… to there.

When we’re fundraising, we’re pointing at the horizon, telling others where we’re all headed, and inviting them to join us on the ride there.

We’re casting visions.

We’re dreaming of what could be.

We’re envisioning a better world…

… starting our own journey towards that world…

… and bringing others with us.

Fundraising is creation.

Fundraising is a prayer.

Fundraising can be… philanthropy.

I know there are a lot of y'all fundraising these days (for mutual aid) that haven't ever done this before. Would you like some help? Guidance? Support? From a social worker (MSW) and Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) who's been doing this for almost two decades? Sign up for an on-demand coaching session with me. Three lengths available to fit your needs (.5 hr | 1 hr | 1.5 hr).

50% of revenue will go straight to rent relief for our neighbors. The rest will provide me a bit of income. And you? You'll be WELL on your way to fundraising better... and more of our neighbors will have their needs met through your increased skill.

Win-win-win... WIN!

PS: Note, this is a regular service I offer to professional fundraisers, so the wording on the webpage linked above may not seem to speak to you, if you're a newbie fundraiser. No worries. I'll meet you where you are.

PPS: As I said above, this service is, historically, primarily focused on PROFESSIONAL fundraisers... so if that's you, I encourage you to jump on this offer too!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

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Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just community-based fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other.

All you need to do is show up, be present… while I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Practice: Make It Yours

The exercise I’m proposing for you today comes from a book, Henri J.M. Nouwen’s A Spirituality of Money:

If money touches our relationships with family members as well as the world beyond our home, it also reaches into our inner life. It is interesting that the phrase “personal worth” can mean both the extent of our financial assets and our value as a human being.

Once again, some questions may help us explore this aspect of our relationship with money.

How does having, or not having, money affect our self-esteem, our sense of value? Do we feel good about ourselves when we have a lot of money? If we do not have much money, do we feel bad about yourselves? Is a low or even modest income a source of embarrassment? Or do we think money doesn’t matter at all?

Reflect on your relationship to money.

• How does money affect your sense of what is valuable… and what is not valuable?

• How does money affect… your own value?

• Do you find it harder to earn money? Or to spend it?

• What words come to mind, when you consider money?

• How does money seep into your inner life?

• What is your personal worth?

• How do you determine that?

Reflect on these questions… and any others that come to you, as you consider your relationship to money… and its relationship to you.

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

For You: Today’s Main Course

Last night, I cried in community.

Finally.

My beautiful friend Elianna got inspired to create this event and pulled it together in just a matter of days.

She invited several local poets and writers to read their work, things they had recently written about the traumatic last few months we’ve all been through here in Minneapolis. In addition, a City Council member talked about both his experiences as the child of Mexican immigrants… and some of what the city is doing to respond. An organizer within the Somali community powerfully shared her own work — and a call to action for all of us to use our power to change things right now. A public elementary school teacher told heart-breaking stories about her students and their families, and about the heroic responses of teachers and staff who have swiftly mobilized a thorough, completely wrap-around model of mutual aid and care for these families. A local 10th grader talked about how everything has been affecting her and her friends. And a Latina small business owner shared how difficult it has all been for her, as none of her staffers have been coming into work for weeks on end.

Whether poet or organizer, elected official or student… to a person, those who stepped up to the microphone spoke from the heart… and with such power.

Some cried tears openly, while you could feel the tears simmering beneath the surface with others. But no matter what their words were, all were living, breathing embodiments of emotion and grief.

The room was packed.

Audience members clustered on an eclectic, colorful collection of couches and chairs. And despite the over-full room, you could’ve heard a pin drop as each person spoke. Time seemed suspended, as we all attuned to each person’s voice, energy, experiences, perspective.

Organizers billed this as a chance to start grieving and healing together — and they wisely scattered boxes of Kleenex throughout the space.

I cried.

Many others cried.

And I felt healing begin.

And could healing have begun without community?

I doubt it.

Not really.

Not as powerfully.

And do you know what’s sad to me?

The dominant culture I’ve been conditioned by all of my life tells me that, if I need to cry, I better go hide somewhere, away from others. Except, in my experience, as I’ve de-conditioned myself from that culture’s imprints and found new ways of being, crying in community is usually a much more powerful way to heal.

I’m grateful to Elianna for creating a container for so many of us to do that.

I think a lot of collective weight was released last night.

And this has me thinking about all the ways that being together, in community, is the balm, the medicine, the nutrition we need — especially now — to become more whole, even as the dominant culture continues to try to alienate us from each other:

• We can take turns feeding each other, instead of each atomized household struggling to feed itself every day of every week.

• We can resurrect “the village” model of raising our little ones, knowing that expecting one or two individuals to shoulder all the burden within lonely “family” pods is not the way bringing up the next generation is meant to be. Let’s widen our definition of family. Let’s all of us learn to step into our “elder” roles, as aunties or uncles or otherwise, to all the littler ones around us. Let’s step in to truly support, and show up for, the kids and families around us.

• We can open ourselves up to being inconvenienced by each other, knowing that that will be the price of being there for each other — and having others there for us when we need them to be.

• We can stop performing for each other, creating polished, perfect façades crafted to inspire others to admire us… and just find the profound togetherness in being human, imperfect, together instead.

We all need this.

We are hungry for it.

We’ve gotten so far away from living in these ways — embedded in community — that we’ve almost forgotten that we humans are actually built to live this way. And the fact that we’re not is alienating us not only from each other, but from our deepest selves.

Because our deepest selves haven’t forgotten.

We remember.

We know we need this.

We know we want it.

So: what’re we waiting for?!

Now is the time…

… to re-center community in our lives.

Step by step.

One small shift after another…

… we can gradually live into this change.

Together.

Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just community-based fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other.

All you need to do is show up, be present… while I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for SO many weeks? Be the wind beneath our wings!

Go to this website: Stand With Minnesota.

There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Practice: Make It Yours

As we’ve talked about, community is a practice…

… and practice it we must, if we want to benefit from it.

You needn’t be perfect.

You needn’t do it all at once.

All you need to do, to welcome more community into your life, is to take one small step at a time… and before you know it, after some time has passed, you’ll turn around and look back, and you’ll realize how far you’ve come.

So.

What small step can you take today?

Suggestions:

➡️ What’s something you usually do alone? Something you can imagine would feel a lot lighter, if you had someone to help you with it? Ask someone to help you with it the next time you do it. Then reflect on how different that was than usual.

➡️ Think through your typical day(s). In your mind’s eye, see the many faces you usually encounter throughout your week(s). Stay alert for someone who you feel drawn to enter into deeper kinship with. Reach out to them. Invite them to connect with you over a meal or warm drink. Learn about them. Look for ways you can weave your lives more closely together. Then do those things.

➡️ You likely eat many meals alone during the week. Choose one of those meals per week to invite someone else to eat with you. Really engage with each other and connect, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, over that meal. No devices. No distractions. Just be present with each other. Find out about each other. See what you have in common. See what you can learn from each other.

➡️ Have a conversation with one of your neighbors per week. You know, the people you see when you’re coming and going, the people who share your trash day, the people whose power will go out if yours does, the people who could lend you an ingredient in a pinch? Do more than just saying “hi” or talking about the weather. Ask them more questions. Find out more about their lives. One a week.

What other ideas do you have?

Come up with your own.

Whatever you decide to try, just try it!

Action first.

Then reflect on your experiences.

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

— Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist and writer

I’m telling you all about it in this episode, where I’ll take you along the arc of the story… from the beginning of this year… until now.

There are essentially four chapters to this story.

So.

Get a warm drink.

Get cozy.

And settle in.

There’s inspiration here, a chance for reflection, and even some practices that you yourself can do, to embody the lessons here.

Be sure to call or text into the dedicated line for the podcast, too, with questions about — or your own experiences with — these topics. That’ll make this whole conversation even richer.

[ 1 (612) 440-4819]

Thank you for being here!

I’m so grateful to have you in this community.

Episode Overview

00:00 | Intro
01:16 | Welcome Back
02:22 | Why The Break
03:01 | Minneapolis Under Siege
05:13 | Sharing a Historical Record
07:53 | January 16th: Bearing Witness of the Terror
14:12 | Viral Response Worldwide
17:15 | Anne Frank Resonance
19:32 | Beatitudes For The Moment
23:10 | Community Line # to Call/Text
24:27 | January 23rd: Finding Hope
26:29 | The Minnesota Vibe
28:32 | The Wrong State to Try
30:58 | A Stew Metaphor
33:25 | Love and Collective Power
35:20 | Community is a Practice
36:28 | Three Ways to Start Practicing
38:47 | February 27th: Crisis Update
39:53 | Ashley Mobilizes Philanthropy
43:31 | Economic Tsunami Ahead
45:40 | Rent Funds Alarm
49:00 | A Modern-Day Widow’s Mite
52:04 | What Philanthropy Means
56:30 | Institutions Fail Locally
01:02 | Mutual Aid Wins
01:05 | A Leaderful Movement
01:08 | Breathing Reflection Practice
01:09 | Closing

As Mentioned In the Episode

Stand With Minnesota Website

The Guardian Article

That amazing Mutual Aid “Transparency Post” I told you about:

This podcast’s music is licensed from MusicBakery.com.

All copyrights, licensing, duplication, and distribution rights are held exclusively by Music Bakery Publishing (BMI).

For You: Today’s Main Course

We know philanthropy.

This is who we humans are.

Gather a group of us together. Consciously cultivate a culture of care and solidarity: where everyone knows that they’re not alone — that if they need help, their people will show up for them.

Then leave us to live alongside each other…

… and watch the magic happen.

When humans gather together, and care about each other, and work together to prioritize their collective well-being, gathering resources for the good of all is a natural result of their relationships with each other.

We can’t help ourselves.

This is what we do, when we’re grounded in our own humanity… and unwilling to de-humanize any of the other humans around us.

The roots of the word philanthropy are Greek: philos, meaning love (think Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love”), and anthropos, meaning humanity (think anthropology, or the scientific study of humanity).

“Philanthropy” means “love of humanity.”

And yet…

… the way our dominant culture has grown to use this word is…

… not that.

Typically, these days, philanthropy means big money. Fancy galas. Elitism. Power-hoarding. Generational wealth. Names on buildings. Massive endowments invested in a corporate stock market that extracts value from humanity and the natural world, rather than funding them or protecting them. An “industry” full of credentials and career tracks and ever-developing proximity to power. Logic models. “Best practices.” Top-down decision-making. Donors prioritizing what gets funded… vs. givers responding to community needs and requests.

I could go on.

But I hope you can see how far what we currently understand as “philanthropy” is from… a true philanthropy.

Having worked within the field of professionalized philanthropy for nearly two decades — and repeatedly seen the many gnarly dynamics I’ve named here — I can’t tell you how good it’s been for my heart to live in Minneapolis over the past weeks… and to see how my neighbors are responding to a shock-and-awe, violent occupation… by caring for each other.

We could have turned on each other.

We could have looked out for number one.

We could have “minded our own business.”

But did we do those things?

No.

We showed up for each other. We put our bodies on the line. We bought and delivered food for each other. We did each others’ laundry. We looked out for each other. We blew whistles to keep each other safe. We helped each other pay rent. We gave each other rides. We sang with each other. We gathered for potlucks. We grew stronger relationships.

We loved each other.

Again and again.

And while the regular citizens of Minnesota actively, powerfully practiced philanthropy in these ways…

… what did the “industry” we’ve called “philanthropy” for decades do?

Next to nothing.

Official Leadership Fails to Lead

Corporate philanthropy in the form of much-needed financial support was not only non-existent… but those philanthropies’ parent corporations said absolutely nothing — for weeks — in response to their home communities being violently occupied and terrorized. They even allowed their properties to be used by the occupiers — and their own employees to be kidnapped and assaulted. And then, when they finally put out a statement, it was so late… and milquetoast… as to be absolutely meaningless.

Institutional philanthropy barely gave a squeak. The Minneapolis Foundation has responded by distributing over $1.8 million to nonprofits for food and housing assistance (which is of course needed… but is a drop in the bucket of vast need). Additionally, they mobilized $3.5 million to create an Economic Response Fund to support small businesses, particularly those with immigrant owners facing severe disruptions and revenue loss (which, again, is needed… but is nowhere near as much as is needed). The other major local community foundation — the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation — might have announced some support but, even being a professional in this world, I don’t remember what it was, and, in a cursory search while writing this, I couldn’t even find any record of it. The Women’s Foundation’s Immigrant Rapid Response Fund (IRRF) granted $5.7 million to 54 organizations. They say that another $4 million in donations from around the globe will continue to be granted until all funds are distributed. Again, that’s great… and it barely puts a dent in the need. Other foundations mobilized funds in smaller amounts or for specific purposes, but none of the mobilization has been at the enormous scale of capital needed — and that, frankly, these organizations are all sitting on in the form of endowments full of stock market and other investments.

Meanwhile, the governmental response has been anemic. No aid from the governor, despite weeks of pleas from residents. No aid from the legislature or senate, who are deep into this year’s session now, focused on having committee meetings and meeting with constituents, and thus they won’t take any real action for weeks. And our city government? Minneapolis has estimated that in one month alone — while up to 3,000 federal immigration enforcement agents invaded our neighborhoods — the city experienced at least $203.1M in impact, and that that total represents losses to the economy, livelihoods, neighbors’ mental health, and to food and shelter security. In response? Just this week, the Mayor vetoed an ordinance passed by the City Council that would have given tenants 60 days notice before eviction — an extension of the usual 30 days. This ordinance was meant to give us Minneapolitans more time to fundraise for our neighbors’ outstanding rent (something we’ve now been successfully doing for months, for many many families). Landlords would still have gotten paid. They would have just had to wait a bit longer. And yet, the mayor who recently made a “victory tour” across nationwide media decided to hasten evictions for the families we haven’t been able to help yet. And he suggested $1M in rent relief as his alternative to the eviction delay, on top of $1M the City Council had already allocated. This is the city’s response while, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), Minnesota is facing an excess rent debt of $27.4-$51.3M after the federal occupation.

Make it make sense.

These are the people who can move millions. Billions, even. These are the people who have access to the most capital — capital that could easily vanquish the needs. These are the people who could be collaborating with each other, organizing funding and relief, responding to the needs their communities share with them.

Instead, they’re sloooooowly moving… peanuts.

A Leaderful Movement of Neighbors Rises Up Instead

Meanwhile, in my world of neighbors helping neighbors, the movement is swift, responsive, and even massive.

A friend just posted this on Facebook:

If you’ve donated to our rent fund, I wanted to share a post made recently by the person who organizes it.

We’ve prevented evictions! Supported families who have been torn apart because of racism, and a dark terrible narrative!

Some families are slowly returning to work, others aren’t ready, their job is gone, or the person who shared their rent costs is gone.

We are about to kick off our fundraising for April, where we’ll be prioritizing families who have eviction orders and families who’ve lost someone to detainment and deportation. Donate here if you can.

And then she shared this amazing graphic:

And that is just one of many many such efforts by neighbors around the Twin Cities and the whole of Minnesota.

Want a sense of the scale of this mutual aid effort?

Go to the Stand With Minnesota website created by another friend. Scroll through, and you’ll see the list of rent fund after rent fund — all inspiring examples of regular neighbors stepping up to keep their neighbors housed, by digging into their own income and/or savings, and asking the same of their other neighbors, friends, and family. By now, there has likely been well over $20M raised via Stand With Minnesota, by some (hard-to-make) estimates (that are probably grossly underestimating totals).

Consider these results.

Millions upon millions raised.

Hundreds of school communities mobilizing to protect their kids.

Neighborhoods mobilizing to keep their neighbors fed and housed.

Community connections forged and strengthened.

I can’t help but think…

… that I’m pretty sure I’m watching our collective definition of philanthropy transform before our very eyes, in real-time.

I think us neighbors see it.

But I’m wondering if the aforementioned institutions have realized it yet….

Mutual Aid Is What Philanthropy’s Actually About

We here in Minnesota have been calling this a “leaderful” movement since the beginning of our response to the occupation.

Because, frankly — swiftly responding, as we needed to, to emergent necessity — there was no time to wait for orders or direction from anybody.

People mobilized. Everywhere. All at once.

They gave what they could. They brought their unique talents to the table and contributed where those most made sense. Again and again, we reminded each other that you don’t need to do everything — you just need to do what you’re able to do.

And if all of us do that?

We should all be doing pretty well.

Musicians made music.

Cooks cooked.

Writers wrote.

Organizers organized.

Artists made art.

Those who had money gave it.

Those who didn’t gave so much else.

And everywhere you looked, people were connecting with other people, organizing themselves into a force that was so formidable…

… that it was able to take down a giant.

I don’t know where we go next.

The future is unwritten.

But we’re all already talking and strategizing about how we continue to root into and grow the new ecosystemic philanthropy we’ve been seeding.

We’re going to keep giving.

We’re going to keep organizing.

We’re going to keep loving each other.

And meanwhile, those institutions?

The ones we used to think were “the leaders”… or “philanthropy”?

I dunno.

I think they’re quickly losing relevance.

Maybe they should just spend down those endowments and huge pots of reserves, pouring all of that latent capital that has been just sitting there for generations, capital that was meant to move and help…

…into the communities that are already leading…

… and that desperately need it…

… and roll up their sleeves to help too.

There are plenty leaders waiting to invite them into the fold and give them a meaningful job to do — one that will actually help.

Are they ready to leave their ivory towers…

… and high perches…

… and join in community with us?

I sure hope so.

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for SO many weeks? Be the wind beneath our wings!

Go to this website: Stand With Minnesota.

There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just community-based fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other.

All you need to do is show up, be present… while I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Practice: Make It Yours

Our practice today is simple.

Find a quiet place where you can hear your thoughts.

Take three deep breaths into your belly, and slowly blow them out through your lips, as if you have a straw between them.

Get quiet within yourself.

Reflect.

Ask yourself:

What are my resources and talents? What can I give to help others?

Get your answer(s).

And then go do it.

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
with a love like that:
it lights the whole sky.

- 14th-Century Persian Poet Hafiz

We’re just starting a conversation about this today — a conversation that will likely unfold much more over time.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

For You: Today’s Main Course

Money is our Frankenstein.

We created it because, presumably, we were tired of having to haul around whole cows or baskets of eggs to trade and barter, value for value, with each other.

To make trading a bit easier, we created paper bills and metal coins to stand in for value — with a certain amount of them equaling what we approximated that cow or that basket of eggs should be worth.

And then, we had the ability to trade those bills and those coins for totally different things that we also valued.

By now, this thing we call “money” has largely become a series of ones and zeros creating images on a screen.

But it’s still only a stand-in for value. There is no actual value in money.

We can’t eat money.

Money can’t hydrate us.

We can’t shelter ourselves with money.

Money certainly can’t love us.

In essence, all of our most foundational needs as human beings — food to nourish and power our bodies; water to hydrate those bodies (at a rate of almost 70% of their content); homes to shelter us; love — cannot be satiated by money.

Now, money can help us trade for those things (except for love, of course, as hard as we might try). But money itself cannot give us those things. Do you see the distinction? Money is a means to an end — not an end in itself.

And yet…

… you certainly couldn’t tell that, by the way we relate to money.

At this very moment in our world:

• Minnesota needs an influx of at least $20 Million right now, to help neighbors stay housed when they haven’t been able to work because of Operation Metro Surge. That number would be a drop in the bucket for any of our country’s too-many billionaires. Or the federal government. Or foundations. Or even the many multi-billion-dollar corporations headquartered here. Or even a collective pooling effort by all of the above. But capital is not moving at that scale here. The only people who seem to be responding to the serious and emergent need are those who can only give small amounts here and there that barely put a dent in the total… and those of us in the trenches can sense those sources starting to tire… while individuals and organizations just sit on billions of dollars.

• Speaking of foundations, they call themselves “philanthropy” — which, true to what we’re about here, literally means “love of humanity.” And yet… their business model is to sit on 95% of the monetary corpus they have… while giving only 5% to the communities they claim to serve. And that 5% also includes the money they use to operate the foundation itself (staff salaries; mortgage/rent; other operational costs; etc.). So in essence, nearly 100% of the money just sits there, in the corpus. And not only does it just sit there, but it actively functions as investments in the very economy that has extracted as much value as it can from every single human within it and is loathe to return any of it back to them. In other words, the money dedicated to “philanthropy”… is actually fueling the syphoning of value away from all the members of our community… and not returning any of that value back to them… while those community members struggle to remain housed, put food on the table, and stay healthy. Make it make sense.

• I know many small business owners who are struggling to stay afloat right now… while it seems like so many people in our world are sending their money to massive corporations that don’t give a lick about any of us… or to fly-by-night operations that are just trying to make a quick buck while churning out junk. We buy things we don’t need… from people who don’t care about us or our communities… and then we let those things we buy mostly sit and gather dust.

I could go on, but I won’t — lest this get too depressing.

You know that this is all real… and could probably come up with many more examples of ways that we have our values all mixed up, seeming to value money itself far more than we value the actual valuables in our human lives.

I’m pointing out the problem here.

I’m not solving it.

We do that together.

So… what do you say?

How do you see us re-setting our collective relationship to money?

How do you think your own relationship to money needs to heal?

Is money something you’re more likely to cling to… or to easily let go? What are your fears around money? How do you think those fears affect how you relate to money?

These questions are a start.

I have a feeling we’ll be talking a lot more about this massive topic.

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for SO many weeks? Be the wind beneath our wings!

Go to this website: Stand With Minnesota.

There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just community-based fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other.

All you need to do is show up, be present… while I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

I have a few questions for you to ponder here.

I suggest you journal with them… and/or meditate… and/or go for a nice long walk in the woods… and really contemplate your answers.

For you to consider:

• How do you think your own relationship to money needs to heal?

• Is money something you’re more likely to cling to… or to easily let go?

• What are your fears around money?

• How do you think those fears affect how you relate to money?

Writing down the answers that come to you will be helpful, because it’ll likely help you clarify your thinking… and it’ll also give you a baseline to return to, after you’ve made some significant progress on this journey… of healing your relationship to money.

Inspiration: Wisdom to Mull Over

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We need urgent help. Yesterday would have been best. But today works. And if too many days pass without any help, I don’t even want to imagine how bad it’ll be.

Read on to see what I’m talking about….

Learning: Today’s Main Course

Do y’all remember my amazing friend Ashley who built the Stand With Minnesota website to help direct philanthropic support to Minnesota during our most recent traumatic stretch?

Ashley has a brilliant way of putting her finger right on the pulse of the zeitgeist and knowing what is needed in a given moment in time. Having moved away from Minnesota, and watching her home community struggle from afar, she did what she does best: she designed… she created… she communicated. And a website helping direct people all around the world who saw the images and videos and stories coming out of Minnesota… and who wanted to help our communities… was born.

This is philanthropy.

Pure philanthropy.

Love in motion.

And the result of her love in motion? By some accounting, nearly $20 MILLION has already been raised through her website. In just over a month. And I’m sure that’s just a portion of the philanthropy she has mobilized.

People all over the world saw the giant BAT SIGNAL she sent out, an effort to “point the fire hose of people's generosity in the right direction,” in her own words. Mission Accomplished, I’d say!

Beyond all the money raised, she caught The Guardian’s attention, which inspired a story they published this past Tuesday, February 24th.

An excerpt:

From thousands of miles away in San Antonio, Ashley Fairbanks watched the news pour out of her home town of Minneapolis: federal immigration authorities flooding the streets and regular people stepping up to defend and care for their communities. She knew she had to do something. So the 39-year-old writer, artist and digital strategist started a Google Doc.

Soon, the list of resources for residents grew so long it became unwieldy, and Fairbanks, who builds websites for a living, launched Stand With Minnesota.

Immediately, she said, “People were really eager to help.”

Since its launch, the site has received over 2.4 million hits and helped raise almost $20m for affected Minnesotans, she said.

She didn’t start with a website.

She didn’t start with raising money.

She started with love. Love for her hometown. Love for the people in her hometown. Love for the vibrant community she had built here over many years. So she couldn’t just stand by and watch this community struggle. She had to help. So she did what she knew how to do best. And it ended up being… astoundingly impactful.

Something relatively simple for her had the power to seriously change the world — and peoples’ actual lives — for the better.

Amazingly inspiring, right?

But here’s the problem.

Even despite all of the philanthropic support that has been mobilized, both monetary and in many other forms, Minnesotans are facing down an approaching, massive economic tsunami that threatens to take out our communities even more than the siege of armed, masked, violent, chaotic government agents on our streets has.

For weeks (even months) now, we Minnesotans have been in rapid-response mode, on high-alert, rushing from one emergency to another, doing everything we can to just survive one of the most traumatic strings-of-days any of us could have imagined.

And that reality? That means that so-called “normal” life has been caput for weeks (months) now… which means that none of the “usual” things have been able to happen.

People haven’t been able to leave their homes…

… which means they haven’t been able to work…

… which means they haven’t been able to afford, or even shop for, food…

… which ALSO means there is no way they can pay their rent right now.

PLUS…

Businesses are struggling. Because they haven’t had staff. And they haven’t had customers. And revenue and sales have all-but dried up.

SO…

In addition to a looming crisis for the local economy of permanently shut-down restaurants… and body shops… and corner stores… and salons… we are facing a looming eviction crisis.

All of the above is seriously alarming.

But the looming eviction crisis is the most acute problem right now.

March 1st is Sunday.

Rent is due.

And we don’t have enough funds flowing into Minneapolis’ communities to prevent a rolling wave of evictions.

Here are Ashley’s own words on Facebook a couple days ago:

Here we have a story much like that of the so-called “Widow’s Mite” in the Bible, where a poor widow sacrifices all she has — two tiny copper coins (lepta) — into the temple treasury. The wise spiritual teacher Jesus praises her, noting she gave more than the wealthy… because she gave from her need, not her surplus.

We’ve had the people of Minneapolis giving all they can for weeks now.

Giving all they can — perhaps from funds they used to use for going out to eat or other entertainment. Sacrificing some of their own needs to help their neighbors meet their needs. Emptying their savings to make sure their community can survive.

And it’s still not enough to meet the need.

Meanwhile, individuals and organizations sitting on literally billions worth of capital — people for whom meeting the actual monetary need in Minneapolis would probably seem like a drop in the bucket — are giving next-to-nothing.

Do you see the irony — that these wealthy individuals and massive organizations like to say that they practice philanthropy?

They don’t actually practice philanthropy…

… unless, like Ashley and SO many other Minnesotans…

… they see an urgent need…

…and they LET LOVE MOVE THEM…

… to give… to help… to do whatever it takes…

… to make sure their community is OK.

Ashley has given whatever it took.

Ordinary Minnesotans have been giving whatever it has taken.

Where are the people who can move money on the massive scale that’s needed right now? They’re desperately needed.

And if they don’t move right now?

I don’t even want to imagine how bad it’ll be.

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for SO many weeks? Be the wind beneath our wings! As I’ve mentioned, go to this website: Stand With Minnesota. There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just community-based fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

Are you embedded in an interdependent, inextricably interconnected community? Do you feel like you’d always have help to meet any of your needs? Do you feel like you’d be willing to do or give anything one of your fellow community members needed?

Whether you think you have this already or not…

… it’s always good to start consciously practicing this way of being and living in your day-to-day life.

This could look like…

• Asking for help the next time you feel overwhelmed

• Noticing if/when you’re holding back from being completely generous with someone in your community… and consciously choosing to stretch yourself to give more to them

• Starting a Signal or WhatsApp chat with your neighbors, telling them that you want to practice staying in closer communication and leaning on each other more

• Paying closer attention to the people around you, tuning into them as much as you can… noticing when there might be an unspoken need… and, if you sense one, asking that person if they need any help

• What else?

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

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Learning: A Lesson for You

I’m a sucker for a place set apart.

Get me anywhere in the vicinity of a monastery… or a church or cathedral… or a temple… or a mosque… or anything of the sort… and I will almost always be drawn into that space and want to just… be there for a while.

The photo above is from almost exactly a year ago, when I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. We spent hours in that place. I was in no hurry to leave.

Places like that have rarefied air. Places like that have a beauty that soaks into your being on multiple levels. Places like that are so very special.

What is it about those places?

Honestly, I believe it’s the energy we humans have poured into those walls and air molecules, often over generations. The walls and air molecules weren’t special, at first. But a group of people, at some point, decided they were going to be special… and they began to build and sanction a space…

… set apart…

… from the mean streets…

… and the struggles…

… and all the places they felt less-than…

… and a world that seemed harsh.

Together, they created — and repeatedly sanctified — a space that they collectively decided was going to be holy.

Here’s the thing.

We often outsource our definition(s) of holiness.

We often wait for someone else — someone who we think knows something we don’t — to tell us something’s “holy.” Or we may feel like there’s a disembodied spiritual entity that needs to determine that. But… what actually grants holiness, in the end?

Isn’t it mostly about collective decisions we’ve made… to treat certain spaces, buildings, artifacts, people in certain special, honoring ways… and then, the repetition and consistency of that behavior creates a reality we call… “holy”… and we just keep increasing that understanding, the more we repeatedly reinforce it?

Here’s where this gets really good.

We don’t have to be stingy.

I think about a song I’ve loved for a long time, by a beloved singer-songwriter named Peter Mayer, called “Everything Is Holy Now.”

“I used to see a world half there,” he sings, “heaven’s second-rate hand-me-down. But I walk it with a reverent air. Because everything is holy now.”

Give the song a listen (linked above on its name).

For me, it speaks to what I know from experience: holiness is everywhere.

Have you experienced this?

We’re more likely to see it if we’re quiet and observant. But also, it’ll be there whether we recognize it or not. And we might as well make the decision and effort to recognize it — because our lives will become so much richer, if/when we do.

Here’s another thing I know from experience:

Any place where one or more human beings are gathered… is a holy place. Who we are is sacred. How we are is sacred. And so, whenever one of us shows up to a place on this planet… we innately bless it, with our inherent dignity and beauty.

Part of what makes trauma so… traumatic… is that it tricks us into forgetting the truth of our inherent dignity, beauty, holiness.

And we experience this kind of trauma all the time:

➡️ like in sexual abuse/assault

➡️ like in racism — interpersonal and systemic

➡️ like in homophobia

➡️ like in transphobia

➡️ like in ableism (oh, how sneaky this one can be)

➡️ like in sweeping forces like genocide, or colonialism

➡️ like in epithets and insults

➡️ like in generalizing whole groups of people

➡️ like in creating hierarchies among us

➡️ like in agents of a government besieging and invading a supposedly sovereign locality and violently abducting and/or beating and/or holding at gunpoint — and/or killing — certain citizens that don’t have the “right” skin color or accent or, even if they do possess those things, they’re not behaving in “the right” ways

➡️ fill in your own answer here; there are legions of examples that we humans create, each and every day that we share this planet together

Why are we doing this to ourselves and each other?!

None of it is necessary.

All of it is creating suffering.

Here’s at least part of my answer to that question.

I am a heckuva lot more likely to demean, harm, abuse you — rather than honor you — if I’m detached from my own self, my own dignity, my own beauty, my own holiness.

How will I recognize your holiness…

… if I haven’t even recognized my own?

We are all holy.

All of us.

We all have inherent dignity, and beauty. We are all immeasurably valuable. We are all deserving of gentleness… and grace. We all should have freedom. We all are more likely to thrive when we can live in peace. We all should be able to meet our basic needs without struggle. We all should have plenty of opportunity to find and experience joy. And ultimately, we all do better when we all do better.

So.

The best way for us all to do better?

We start by connecting with and recognizing our own holiness…

… and then…

… we start recognizing, and connecting with, and honoring, and actively reinforcing… the holiness of all of our fellow human beings.

Because guess what?

Holiness doesn’t have to be anything special.

Holiness can be something we experience as just being human…

… and living life in community, with other humans…

… and knowing the miracle every bit of it all is.

Because the truth?

Us being here…

… makes here holy.

Now is the time to reach out and connect with others. Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now.

Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for many weeks? Be the wind beneath our wings! My brilliant friend Ashley created this website: Stand With Minnesota. There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Practice: Make It Yours

Remember how we said that the start of this whole reality is that we connect with and honor the holiness in ourselves first?

Yeah.

This is so important.

So.

How do we do that?!

In essence, this means connecting deeply with your humanity.

And how do you do that?

1️⃣ Start by finding a quiet place where you can hear your own thoughts… then take at least three deep breaths, letting each one out slowly… and begin to tune into yourself.

2️⃣ Ask yourself: what do I most need to feel human right now?

3️⃣ Then listen to yourself. And do whatever answer you got from yourself. This could be something simple like a nap. This could be going outside for a bit. This could be playing — with yourself, or a kiddo, or a dog. This could be making something creative. Really anything! Listen to yourself, to find out what you most need.

4️⃣ After you’ve done the thing, reflect: how did you feel before you did the thing? How did you feel during the thing you did? How do you feel now? How do you think whatever you did helped you to feel the way you feel now? Spend some time connecting as deeply within as you can, really feeling into and starting to understand what makes you feel most alive and human.

Is this easy or hard?

I hope it’s not too hard.

If not too hard, try to do this at least once a day. If you struggle with this, try to do it at least a few times a week. Either way, gradually increase the frequency of your practice of this exercise, over time….

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

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Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

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Let’s explore how we relate to sovereignty….

Learning: A Lesson for You

We’ve been living through a nightmare here in Minnesota.

Under siege by a violent occupation. Terrorized. Traumatized. For some of us, literally detained and imprisoned in sub-human conditions. For others, caged at home. For others, unable to travel anywhere, for any purpose, without constantly being on high alert and very likely encountering horrific scenes we could never have imagined would go down on our familiar neighborhood streets.

The occupation got started in December…

… but it really ramped up after the new year started.

Perhaps needless to say, then, for most of us here, the first days and weeks of 2026 have been a blur and have seemed to stretch months or years. We’ve lost any sense of time, or normalcy. Our “fresh” year was swallowed by a real-life monster.

Even more, we’ve lost our felt sense of a sacred place that is our home, as it’s been chaotically trampled upon and routinely violated by masked, gun-toting wannabe soldiers frivolously treating our very real lives like a video game — one that they’ll win the more they embody cartoon villains and inflict maximum damage.

I know you know this, dear reader.

I know you’ve seen the many photos and videos my courageous fellow Minnesotans have captured and shared with the world. Or you’re here and you’ve experienced this yourself. And I know you know how much experiencing things like this can permanently leave negative and harmful imprints on a people, a community.

But here’s the thing.

We Minnesotans won’t let that happen.

Because from the beginning of this hostile invasion, we’ve been asserting and practicing our sovereignty wherever we can. We’ve intuitively known, despite what the invaders wanted us to believe, that we belong to each other. And we’ve collectively agreed that lawless thugs — even if they’ve been handed power by our government — have no power over us. Most importantly, we’ve decided to harness our inherent power — collectively.

As hard as the beginning of this year has been in Minnesota…

…it’s also been inspiring.

Because we’ve all been able to really see — to experience — the potential of solidarity. Of community. Of widening the boundaries of who is “us” and narrowing the behaviors that “we” will accept. Of speaking truth to power. Of making sacrifices for others out of love and care. Of insisting on the world we want, despite the very best efforts and massive budgets of official powers-that-be working to create a very different world — and then creating our longed-for world ourselves.

This hasn’t been easy, no.

But it’s absolutely been instructive.

And we are taking notes.

Yesterday, as I hosted and facilitated the Wisdom Circle for Philanthropy, we did a powerful visualization exercise together. As I told those gathered, January 1st is not by any stretch the only fresh start we have. We can find fresh starts everywhere. We can create them where we want them. Coming up, we’ve got the Chinese New Year — a nice global opportunity for one. And personally, I’ve always felt like the beginning of Spring is much more of a fresh start than the beginning of January. So as I told them: we’ve all struggled, in various ways, for various reasons, through the beginning of 2026. So let’s give ourselves a fresh start.

First, we all got the chance to actively visualize… and then dispose of what we didn’t want anymore.

And then we got to create what we wanted.

As we came to the end of the exercise, I asked everybody to bring to mind a word or phrase that embodied the energy they wanted to bring into their next chapter.

I did the exercise myself, even as I led it, and I was very clear that I wanted to keep the same word I had repeatedly thought of at the beginning of the year, as I considered what I wanted to embody and experience in 2026: sovereignty.

This word is rich with meaning.

But let me emphasize a few of its layers with you.

1️⃣ Claiming Authority: Your life is a story that you are writing. You are writing it… and no one else is. You might have been conditioned by people and circumstances to think otherwise. But claiming your sovereignty is owning your authority. Look at the root of that word: author. As the author of your life, you must own your power to author every part of your story. That power does not belong to anybody else but you.

2️⃣ Wielding Creativity: So many different spiritual traditions claim that we humans are “made in the image of the Creator.” What does that even mean? Of course, it means many things… but we can be assured that, if we’re made in the image of One Who Creates, that means that we are made to create too… yes? Creativity is one of the most essential gifts of being human. Many humans self-identify as “creative”… while many others seem to think they’re… not that. But sorry, boo. There ain’t none of us who aren’t, in our essence, creative. You are always creating — whether you mean to or not. Remember: you are writing your story. You’re not a passive victim. So: what do you want to create? How would you like to consciously funnel your creative energy? What do you want to visualize… and then bring into being? Because if you don’t do that? You’ll still be creating… and you’ll likely be creating what you don’t want. And why do that? Use your powerful Life Force — that creative energy you’re given to power your body and being every single day — to bring into being the experiences and creations you know you want.

3️⃣ Maximizing Inside-to-Out Reality: This one is more energetic than practical, but I know you’ll get it. Sit with yourself and visualize how energy tends to flow in your daily life. Does it tend to flow outside… to in? That looks like you responding or reacting to life most of the time… absorbing others’ thoughts, feelings, actions… and needing to then process them and respond. If emotions are running high or things are feeling urgent, you will react more than respond… and have even less agency. The alternative is for energy to flow more inside… to out. This looks like you reflecting before you go into a situation or conversation and consciously deciding how you want it to go — and then actively creating that vision. Or starting your day with a clear intention and carrying that energy with you throughout the day, regardless of what happens around you. Or like you walking into a conflict-filled room with a heart and mind full of peace… and gradually helping everyone else there calm and ground themselves. Stepping into your sovereignty is prioritizing inside-to-out reality.

We’ll talk more about this in the future.

But right now, I’m asking you to reflect on these three key aspects of your personal sovereignty… and on how you can actively practice embodying them. Starting today. And continuing in the days to come, as you write the next chapter of your life’s story….

Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for many weeks… and are seeing no end in sight? Be the wind beneath our wings! My brilliant friend Ashley created this website: Stand With Minnesota. There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at risk of eviction!

Practice: Make It Yours

I want to offer you the same visualization exercise I mentioned that we completed in the Wisdom Circle for Philanthropy.

Giving this to you in writing is not quite as powerful as guiding you through the exercise with my voice while we all do it together… but this at least gives you a way to start experiencing the same power we all did.

To start, settle into a comfortable seated position.

Then:

• Breathe in deeply… and breathe out deeply. Do this several times. Start to feel yourself settling and grounding into your body. Be as present with yourself as you can be.

• Start reflecting on all the hardest things you’ve experienced so far this year. The hard feelings. The arguments and conflicts. Any traumas. Fears. Struggles. Challenges that made you want to give up. Anything that you’d prefer not to be a part of your life going forward.

• One by one, visualize each of these things. Re-experience what they were like — how they made you feel. And then place them on the ground, gradually piling them one on top of the other. Build your pile, as things come to mind.

• After you’ve built your pile, pull out a matchbook… and hear that distinctive crackle, as you swipe the match across the rough edge and see a flame appear. Throw the match onto your pile. Take out and light another match… and another. Light as many matches as you need to set the entire pile on fire.

• As the pile begins to go up in flames, watch it. Feel the heat on your skin. Watch the light as it illuminates your face. Notice as the leaping flames gradually grab and dissolve every piece of that pile… and it all starts to turn into ash.

• Seeing a pile of ash having replaced your pile of struggles and regrets, reflect on what exactly you want to bring with you into your next chapter. A word. A phrase, if a word is not enough. An energy. What words capture the energy you want to embody and bring with you? Claim that word or phrase.

• Then, hold out your hand. As you consciously intone that word or phrase, see a tiny seed appear in your outstretched hand. Marvel at the miracle. Give thanks for its creation. And then, take your hand up to your mouth, and swallow the seed.

• Feel it moving in and through your body, to be planted and fertilized within you. Encourage it to start growing. Know that it will start and continue to mature within you, as you actively embody its energy in the days, weeks, months to come.

I hope this exercise is meaningful for you.

May self-sovereignty be yours.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Learning: A Lesson for You

Today I’m starting by sharing a story with you — one I didn’t write myself.

This story is from a person who is new to me, but who I already admire. Not only is he the chaplain for our local NBA team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. I mean, how cool is that gig?! But he’s also apparently an artist? And a talented one at that!

And… he’s clearly a person we all can learn a thing or two from about how to live and move through our lives with integrity… and courage.

His name is Matt Moberg.

And here is what Matt had to say:

A few weeks after the start of the Metro Surge, I lost a major art commission from an outstate patron who said they were uncomfortable with “how our city is behaving right now,” and with my refusal to stay quiet while my people are hurting.

I was livid, to be honest, and even considered driving north to hand-deliver my anger like a casserole nobody asked for but everybody would smell.

Instead though, I saved gas, I went back to the studio, and spent a couple of days painting this cardinal.

I painted another cardinal a few weeks back, and put some words with that one as well. In those words, I spoke about the feral sermon in his feathers, the red that refuses to RSVP, the color that doesn’t knock so much as kick the door open and ask why survival keeps getting called controversial.

That first cardinal taught me that red is not as much decoration as it is an alarm. Red is what shows up when truth runs out of synonyms. This new one feels different though. Sharper. Or more present, at least.

This one feels like it has been watching armored vehicles idle outside apartment buildings, watching families rehearse contingency plans the way families in the burbs rehearse vacation packing lists.

Here is what I’m learning as this cardinal came to be in the midst of our city holding its breath:

If you cannot stand on your convictions, you are posturing and not standing at all. You are hovering somewhere between comfort and cowardice, mistaking approval for oxygen. Convictions are load-bearing. They are the beams that hold the roof up when helicopters circle low enough to make prayer feel like whispering into a siren.

And yes — absolutely, named it at the top — standing costs you things. Sometimes said things are commissions. Other times said things are invitations and being liked by people who only loved the version of you that never required them to witness suffering up close. But anything you keep by abandoning yourself was never yours to begin with.

The cardinal knows this to be true. This bird does not tone itself down when winter arrives. It doesn’t consult first with the snow to see if visibility is still appropriate right now. It only gets louder. An embodied exclamation mark existing in a paragraph written entirely in frost.

And so, in that spirit of the cardinal that cuts across the grey of winter, here’s my ask:

Stop auditioning your integrity for audiences who call terror “policy” because it doesn’t live on their block. You do not owe your glow to anyone who benefits from your dimming. You do not have to survive by becoming swallowable. You are allowed to be the color that interrupts the weather the colorless drag in.

Now is the time to take an inconvenient stand.

Be the cardinal.

Be the siren.

Be the impossible red that refuses to apologize for reminding winter that it has never once been permanent.

What a beautiful call to action — and to courage.

We are all being called to courage right now.

And do you know the root word of courage?

Heart.

So.

What does that mean?

Essentially, it means this: if you let your heart lead you — powered by everything it most loves and cares about — it will lead you straight into one courageous act after another.

This is the source of all the inspirational things you’ve been seeing Minnesotans do. There is nothing special about Minnesotans, other than the fact that we genuinely care about each other and are accustomed to sharing with each other, showing up for each other, helping each other.

We see the collective in our collective here.

We know that no one gets through our winters alone.

We love our neighbors here.

Historically, that has meant that we bake them hotdishes and drop them off at their homes when they’re sick. Or we shovel them out and throw down our cat litter when their wheels are spinning on ice. Or we give our dollars when we hear they’re struggling to meet their needs.

And what else does that mean?

Well, it means something else that we’re all just starting to really learn for ourselves, as we face one of the biggest collective threats we’ve ever seen: we’ll risk a lot for our neighbors here.

As you’ve seen, some of us will even lay down our lives for our neighbors.

And I’m amazed by that, as a person who was raised Christian. Like, wow. When I was taught that Jesus told us to “lay down our lives for our friends,” I didn’t ever think that would be literal! But for some here in Minnesota, it has been. And because of this, I am understanding Christian love on a level I never have before — just from living through this harrowing, intense experience, surrounded by thousands of neighbors who have resolved themselves to love — truly love — their neighbors.

This is the way.

This is the way…

… not to martyrdom, or to suffering, as you might fear…

… but to joy.

You may see our suffering only, if you don’t understand the joy we’ve all discovered amidst this struggle — the joy of being a part of something bigger than ourselves, the joy of love, the joy of being in community.

You can experience this too.

The beauty of this gift is that it’s available to any of us, to all of us. We only need to let our love grow so big and powerful that it overcomes any fear we may have. And suddenly, life starts looking a lot different.

Take it slow.

Or go fast, if you prefer that.

This is entirely your choice.

But I highly encourage you to at least try.

Listen to your heart.

Let it love the way it loves.

And let its love lead you.

Give yourself over to that love...

… and you’ll find the courage you need...

… to do whatever you need to do.

And then, no matter what happens?

You’ll know love.

You’ll know joy.

You’ll know the best parts of what it is to be human.

💗

Your community is waiting for you! Advice when you need it. Been-there, done-thats. Commiseration. Support. A place to vent. Guidance and mentoring. All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I guide, facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Wanna show up for residents of Minnesota who have now been feeling under siege for many weeks… and are seeing no end in sight? Be the wind beneath our wings! My brilliant friend Ashley created this website: Stand With Minnesota. There you’ll find opportunities to support mutual aid… crowdfunding campaigns… nonprofits working on the ground… and even real-life testimonies about what has been happening here.

You’ll find love. And you’ll find courage.

Because those two things are what have been powering us all through this most difficult time in our shared life together.

Also, I’m calling out a specific campaign raising emergency rental assistance for families who 1) have a kid in early childhood special education; and 2) haven’t been able to work because of the occupation of our city. These families are at risk for eviction if we cannot help them pay their rent ASAP and, according to my organizing buds, this particular group seems to have fallen through all the other cracks (i.e. they are not connected to other sources of support):

Give TODAY (through a local church collecting the funds) to Early Childhood Special Ed families at-risk of eviction!

Practice: Make It Yours

Today we’re reflecting on courage.

On heart.

On love.

And we’re realizing — thanks to Matt Moberg’s courage and love and teaching — that seeing red in our environment, such as when a beautiful red cardinal flits nearby us, is a way to root ourselves into the courage we need in that moment.

Let’s practice this connection.

Let’s use anything red we can see around us.

Keep your eyes out.

Be ready.

See a red door? See a red hat, scarf, or mittens? See a red shirt or coat? See a red car? See a red cardinal flying or landing near you?

Whenever you see red like this, it’s time to get quiet within your being, connect with your truest self, and ask that self these questions:

➡️ What do I love more than anything right now?

➡️ How will my love express itself through my body today?

Be the color that interrupts the weather the colorless drag in, as Matt says.

Be heart.

Be love.

Feel your being reaching out towards whatever it loves… and feel that reaching stretch how much love you can contain… until you start to feel like you would do anything for that love.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

— Maya Angelou
"Touched By An Angel"

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

I’ve shaken my head at this misunderstanding for a long time, but let me demonstrate to you exactly how problematic it is through an experience I had in an online group for nonprofit workers this week….

Learning: A Lesson for You

Today is the second Friday in a row that a General Strike has been called for and committed to — across Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the nation.

The results will likely be tabulated in days to come, but my guess is that today’s strike and demonstrations will be even wider-spread, and include much bigger numbers, than last week’s massive strike and demonstrations.

Of course, for a business/organization to determine whether or not to participate can be a complex decision involving many different constituencies and considerations. So of course, leaders often talk to their peers, for the insight they need to plan.

This is exactly what happened in a group of nonprofit professionals that I’m a part of online. A discussion was opened by someone merely wondering how others were approaching these decisions.

Original Poster (OP): I'd love to hear from folks who are participating (or not) in the National Shutdown on Friday, protesting ICE actions. My org is considering making it official and closing for the day. I'm curious what you considered when making that decision. Like, would it adversely affect the wrong people if you closed or skipped work? Are there legal reasons you can't? Are you worried about the consequences? We've got a lot to think about and a very short time to do the thinking!

The first response was from someone who is an Executive Director of an organization and is also an admin of the online group.

1st Response (1R): We are closed and staff are encouraged to go to a protest, strike in their own self-determined way, or spend the day calling legislators to defund ICE. Because $#@! ICE.

2nd Response (2R): As an admin, your behavior is very concerning. Has it ever crossed your mind that this should be an inclusive environment for all nonprofit [pros], and that not all nonprofit [pros] have the same political persuasion as you? Your behavior is abhorrent for an admin of a group like this. How political this group is is very alarming and frankly, inappropriate.

➡️ Let’s pause for a minute, here. ⬅️

The first response simply answered the OP’s question matter-of-factly — until the last sentence. And what I see there is a justified anger (and phraseology) that has been spreading from here in Minneapolis — where we are having real-life, on-the-ground, first-hand experiences of the U.S. federal government’s lawless, violent occupation of our city — as those stories have gotten out to points far and wide.

Anyone who witnesses these stories — with an open mind, I’ll say, not having already pre-determined that the actions are justified, necessary, with merit (as, unfortunately, many people already have) — knows that what’s happening here is wrong.

And thus, they are full of rage, as rage is our natural human response when sacred boundaries have been crossed — especially when those boundaries have been crossed by those who are abusing the power they hold.

That is exactly what is happening here.

In this case, rage is understandable.

Rage is human.

Yet, apparently, 2R was seemingly so disconnected from their own humanity, their inherent sense of what are acceptable — and completely unacceptable — ways to treat our fellow human beings, they somehow overlooked the validity of the rage and focused on its expression, deciding that a cuss word was somehow more of a problem than a tyrannical, violent government terrorizing its citizens.

That is one issue with this response.

The other one, which I’m addressing with this entire post, is the final sentence: “How political this group is is very alarming and, frankly, inappropriate.”

After several people chimed in with support for 1A, I responded.

My Response: Everything about nonprofits is political. How have you convinced yourself otherwise? The need for nonprofits. The way they are funded. The missions they need to pursue. All of it.

And as a Minneapolis resident who has been feeling completely terrorized and traumatized for almost two months now, and especially since the beginning of this year, I feel a sense of profound relief seeing people like 1A seemingly as committed to our community’s violent occupation ending as we are.

We need EVERYBODY — ALL of you here — to be as committed to our collective liberation from this tyranny as we are, if we don’t want to see it spread. If you don’t join us now, this struggle will be happening on your own streets soon... and I guarantee you, you don’t want that. Please help now.

Eventually, 2A responded to me, tersely.

2A: I'm sorry, but not every nonprofit is political.

I had noticed, from looking at the poster’s profile, what their nonprofit employer was about. So I included that consideration in my response.

My Response: Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not true. What you may think is “not political”... is definitely political.

Take something like a summer camp, for instance. Who gets to benefit from its programming? Who is excluded, for various reasons? What are folks who come there taught about their place in a community, a country, a world? How was the property acquired? And what is the long-ago history of how that land was stolen from its original indigenous stewards? What might still be owed to those original stewards of the land? Etc.

All of this is political.

2A never responded to the above comment and, after some back-and-forth with other commenters, they exited the group entirely.

That is not the outcome I’d desire.

Rather, I’d have preferred that that person could have listened to all of the feedback they were getting from other group members… and had their eyes opened, realizing that they hadn’t been seeing something as clearly and accurately as they could have.

This is not a difference of opinion.

This is not “I like blue, you like green.”

This is a member of our community completely misunderstanding the reality of the work they’re doing — and the reality of living in, as Dr. King taught us, “an inescapable network of mutuality.”

We can’t simply pretend that’s not true…

… and then it’s not true.

That’s not how this works.

We are in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Whether we live in a city, a small town, or on a farm, we live within inescapable networks of mutuality — whether those look like folks who collaborate to raise a new barn or to put out a fire or to harvest crops; a town supporting a public school that educates all the children that live and grow into adult community members there; or a city organizing a drive to support local businesses because the local economy is suffering from the terror and trauma of a violent invasion.

We need each other.

We are irrevocably interdependent on each other.

Sometimes we give.

Sometimes we receive.

But always, we are connected.

And what we call “politics” is simply how we organize our life together:

• Power, control, and influence — who pursues them, who wields them and how, how different individuals and groups compete for them

• Who gets access to resources

• How different peoples’ needs get prioritized

• How we organize our shared life together

• Who gets to make decisions that affect everyone — and whether those decisions are made by individuals or collectives, and how

• What values are prioritized

• How conflict is managed

• And more

Politics exist within families, within friend groups, within neighborhood groups, within workplaces, within organizations, within cities, within counties, within states, within and between nations.

But no matter the scale, this is true about politics: believing — or saying — that you don’t “do” politics is actively negligent, considering your irrevocable role as an interdependent cell in a body politic.

You do politics — just via existing as a human being among other human beings. And if you decide to pretend you’re not a part of the politics of your collective, you are denying a reality that cannot be escaped, and thus you are also ignoring and sloughing off the responsibilities you have, as a member of that collective, to all of the others in that collective.

If you’re human, you do politics.

And then, the question remains:

Are your politics going to acknowledge and contribute to and support the collective of which you are an inherent part? Or are you going to stubbornly put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and seeing “La La La” while pretending you are a loner island looking out solely for number one?

Because reality is reality, I don’t see the point of fighting it.

The sooner you acknowledge the truth, the sooner you can go about actively, consciously creating a collective life in which we all can thrive.

That is certainly what For the Love of Humanity is about.

Will you join us?

Before new podcast episodes start coming out this year…

… how about you catch up on some you missed last year?

Two in particular seem to go with today’s message:

Ep 10 | Power Is Something You’re Either Giving Away... Or Owning. So: What’ll It Be? Listen in to explore your relationship to power. We’ll talk about the ways that intra- and inter-personal power dynamics… actually affect the big-picture power dynamics we all seem to assume are just “baked into” our wider world.

Ep 11 | Hope for Turtle Island? Right Here. Do you wish you could better understand the approach to community investment brought by the original peoples of North America? Do I have the episode for YOU. Our guest Alexander Sterling is a brilliant, and hilarious, guide showing us how beautiful our life together could be.

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

This practice is what is called a metta meditation, or loving-kindness practice: a 2,500-year-old Buddhist technique designed to cultivate compassion, warmth, and goodwill toward oneself and others by silently reciting and reflecting on a series of positive phrases.

Feel grounded in yourself. Cultivate empathy and compassion. Feel the barriers between you and others dissolve.

1️⃣ Settle into a seated position, relaxed yet alert.

2️⃣ Take several deep breaths, and let them out slowly.

3️⃣ Start quietly focusing on, actively soaking in, and reciting the following phrases to yourself, slowly:

• First, tune into yourself, and say this: May I be safe. May I find joy. May my whole being be well. May I be at peace.

• Then, picture someone in front of you who is dear to you, someone who you love very much, and say this to them: May you be safe. May you find joy. May your whole being be well. May you be at peace.

• Now, expand your awareness to your neighbors, people who live around you, people who you feel mostly neutral towards, but who you regularly see in your daily life. Picture their faces in front of you, and say this to them: May you be safe. May you find joy. May your whole being be well. May you be at peace.

• Next, picture someone who you really struggle to relate to, perhaps someone with whom you are in active conflict or struggle. Picture their face in front of you, and say this to them while genuinely wishing them well: May you be safe. May you find joy. May your whole being be well. May you be at peace.

• Finally, expand your awareness as wide as you can. Think of and see all of the critters living in the trees around you. See the trees themselves, along with all of the other plants that grow around you. See all of the humans who you know live in your area, sharing a canvas of life with you. Then say this: May all beings be safe. May all beings find joy. May all beings be well. May all beings be at peace.

The more you can slow down… and be fully present… when you are doing this practice, the more you can consciously feel and mean the words, the more this practice will transform you and your relationships to the world, and all the other beings, around you.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

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Learning: A Lesson for You

Friends, life is intense here in Minneapolis. I’ve heard so many of my neighbors and friends say that it’s so much worse than it looks on social media or on the news.

So know that…

...and…

…know that I feel Minneapolis rising up.

Today, I’ve heard so many of my fellow Minnesotans say that they’ve never felt so hopeful. Why today? Because today is A Day of Truth & Freedom: No Work. No School. No Shopping here — or the first general strike in MN in nearly 100 years.

Hundreds of local businesses shut down.

Tens of thousands marched through downtown Minneapolis this afternoon.

Hundreds of clergy flew in from all over the country in solidarity, and they began their day shutting down the international airport, known as MSP.

Dozens of these clergy were arrested as they kneeled and prayed — zip-tied and herded into waiting buses, then charged with misdemeanors.

Like I’ve said since all of this started: Minnesotans aren’t playing around.

SO MANY of us have decided: no more. We are done. We are not going to keep participating in this dystopian nightmare anymore.

We’re gonna do something different here.

And so we are.

None of this is exactly new in Minnesota. For generations, Minnesota has moved with a distinctive collective spirit. Civic engagement has always been robust. Voter turnout is usually the highest in the nation. The community of nonprofits is one of the most extensive and vibrant too. Our legendary winters have created an unspoken understanding: if you see a car stuck in the snow/ice, you help shovel and/or push them out. In other words, ice is something we’re used to collaboratively thwarting.

Communicating this vibe can be tough, for those who don’t understand it and/or haven’t experienced it.

Take this as an example.

This is the vibe.

And here’s the thing.

We’re not perfect. Obviously.

Folks say the racism here is way more nuanced and under-the-surface than it is in, say, Alabama. Y’all know we’ve had our share of police brutality here. Y’all may have heard all of the accolades and superlatives — Best Of THIS… or THAT — that Minnesota has earned over the years. And the addendum that those of us who care about these things always attach to those stories is this one: “…for WHITE folks.”

And still…

… because of the community-mindedness that just seems to be baked-in here, because people here really try to do the right thing most of the time, because our state has indeed welcomed many refugees and immigrants over the decades (and thus now has the highest Somali population and the second-highest Hmong population in the United States), and because we celebrate and deeply appreciate our wealth of diverse cultures here, and because we’ve always prioritized the arts and education here, and because of so many other reasons, I’m sure…

…we were the wrong state to try.

Over the last decade-plus, especially, networks of on-the-spot mutual aid and collective care have gradually been woven and developed. Those all got a steroidal growth-dose in 2020, during the global uprising for racial justice whose epicenter was here in south Minneapolis, at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where George Floyd was slowly, dispassionately murdered by the MPD. And since 2020, new life and urgency have been simmering and growing. We’ve been seeding and growing relationships. We’ve been getting smarter. We’ve become ever-more strategic. We’re definitely more connected.

Think of this like a pot of stew cooking. Over the past many years, we’ve been gathering and washing and chopping up all of the vegetables… gathering all the rest of the ingredients… putting everything in a giant pot…. starting a simmer… and beginning to stir it all together.

Then a collective threat came to town — a violent, impetuous, hateful, poorly trained cadre of agents here to harm and disappear our neighbors. And the flame under the pot was cranked to high heat.

Now, the stew is reaching the potential it’s held all along — complementary flavors melding into beautiful symphonies, spices bringing out the most beautiful notes, what had all been separate ingredients becoming one big pot of delicious, nutritious, hearty stew that could nourish us all in a way we’d never been before.

Ask any of us here how we’re doing, and I can almost guarantee you that you’ll get two distinct answers, probably one right after the other:

1️⃣ I’m struggling. We’re struggling. This is rough. This is hard. So hard.

… and…

2️⃣ I am getting SO MUCH JOY from seeing my community rise up and thrive together.

Friends, here’s the thing.

As you can see, our ability to do this didn’t arise on the spot.

We’ve been growing it — week after week, month after month, year after year. We’ve been preparing all of the ingredients, one by one, and gradually starting to throw them all in together. We have a lot of folks primed to jump in and participate in the cooking, even if they feel like they don’t really know what they’re doing.

The extra fire lit under us all right now has been just what we needed to get all of these ingredients to start really cooking.

And I’m astounded at the results.

As I wrote last week (When Minneapolis Is David to the U.S. Government’s Goliath), we are essentially a rag-tag bunch of volunteers, ones with other day-jobs, fully thwarting a multi-billion-dollar army outfitted with every kind of legit weapon.

How?

What do we have that they don’t?

What indeed?

We have love.

We have community.

We have collective care.

We’re not playing here. This isn’t a game for us. We truly care for our neighbors. We are actively incensed when we see one of them murdered by our government. We will not stand by while other neighbors are kidnapped and disappeared off our streets.

We are not letting this happen. No way. No how.

We are claiming our power.

We are coming together.

And we are on a roll.

So.

If you’re not here, and this is inspiring to you, don’t just sit there being inspired. Do something. Claim your power.

What ingredients can you start gathering? Who can help you cook? And how soon can you get your stew on that stovetop and start turning on the heat?

Before new podcast episodes start coming out this year…

… how about you catch up on some you missed last year?

Two in particular seem to go with today’s message:

Ep 06 | Obedience Is Overrated. Listen in for lessons on resistance and the power of creative disobedience — ones I first learned on a transformative trip to Washington, DC when I was just twenty years old.

Ep 10 | Power Is Something You’re Either Giving Away... Or Owning. So: What’ll It Be? Listen in to explore your relationship to power. We’ll talk about the ways that intra- and inter-personal power dynamics… actually affect the big-picture power dynamics we all seem to assume are just “baked into” our wider world.

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

Community is a practice.

What does that mean?

You can’t just gather a group of people in a space and call them a community. You also can’t grow the community for a while, then stop paying attention to it… and assume that the community will persist. You also can’t leave it up to others, because a community requires every single human present to be… present.

So.

What ingredient(s) can you start preparing… now?

• Who can you reach out to that you’ve been wanting to know better? Text or email or call them and set up a conversation over a warm drink.

• Have you noticed something that’s missing where you live? Something that would make life better for you and everyone else there? Gather at least one other person — ideally several people! — and tell them about your idea. Brainstorm together. Start figuring out how you could make it happen — together.

• What is a talent you have that you don’t often share with others? You bake the most amazing ___________. You sing the most spine-chilling ___________. You write. You cook. You knit. You… what? Write down a list of your talents — especially those that you don’t usually share with others. Then, figure out how you can start sharing at least one of those with your neighbors.

Get started.

One step… then the next.

And before you know it… your stew will be cooking.

☺️

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

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I mean. Pretty much.

Just about 24 hours ago now, I felt a strong internal nudge to just bear witness to what’s been happening here, to lay some of it out in a way that others — especially those who are not here — could see and understand what’s happening here better than they probably were from watching or listening to news reports. Person after person here has said that their impression, from talking to their people in other places, is that no one who isn’t here seems to really get how bad it actually is here.

So.

I sat down and wrote out a few real-life scenarios in my immediate world, just a very tiny sample of the many many similar things that have been happening here over the past month-and-a-half (but that have been aggressively proliferating since the beginning of this year).

And I decided to post it on LinkedIn.

Post: LinkedIn | January 15, 2026

Friends, I’m here to bear witness, to tell you what’s happening on-the-ground here in Minneapolis. A taste:

➡️ A fundraising colleague reported she had long guns pointed at her while she was in an area suburb.
➡️ Last night, federal agents shot another of our neighbors, and as a family with six children tried to flee the aftermath, federal agents threw flash bangs and tear gas into the car, the subsequent explosion was so intense that the airbags deployed, all of the kids were injured (three sent to the hospital), and the six-month-old reportedly stopped breathing and had to be revived.
➡️ Friends and neighbors and loved ones (U.S. Citizens) all over the Twin Cities are no longer leaving their homes (and thus rendering themselves dependent on brave others to supply their food and supplies).
➡️ A (brown-skinned) neighbor was out walking in the early morning and had a man beckon to him from a dark, unmarked car and tell him to come over. He of course turned around and ran in the opposite direction. That car and another car chased him and cornered him. Turned out they were ICE. Thank goodness he had ID on him and he was let go. But so often folks on walks don’t have ID or, even if they do, they may still be detained.
➡️ Do not buy that it’s “illegal immigrants” or “criminals” being targeted. NATIVE AMERICANS are being targeted. White retirees have been targeted (multiple stories). A young special ed teacher was detained on her way to work after ICE cars rammed into her and lied, saying she had rammed them. A Minneapolis pastor was detained for a while until the agents told him he was “White, so not fun enough.” There is story after story of law-abiding citizens being detained.
➡️ A colleague was a refugee, decades ago, from civil war in the former Yugoslavia. She wrote: “I’ve spent time in war zones before, places where fear hangs in the air and ordinary life is suddenly overtaken by violence and uncertainty. Minneapolis right now feels like that.”

We all feel like we are under siege here.

If you’re not here, we need a couple key things from you, if you’re willing to step up in solidarity with us:

1️⃣ SHARE THESE STORIES. Start following the news out of Minnesota — the real, on-the-ground reporting of citizens and journalists here. Then SHARE and AMPLIFY these stories. We need the world to know what is actually happening here and not believe ANY of the copious propaganda out there.

2️⃣ GET LOUD. Start speaking up to ALL of your elected officials. Inform your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. Send emails. Make phone calls. Make clear that you will NOT accept this unconstitutional activity in Minnesota... or ANYWHERE else. Because guess what? If it’s not stopped here, it’s headed elsewhere soon.

Remember: silence is not neutral.

Each of us has a pretty clear choice right now: keep silent (and thus this continues), or speak up.

What’ll it be, friends?

Going Viral: The World Shrinks

What came next was something I never could have anticipated:

• Over 66,000 impressions of the post on that platform

• Nearly 3,000 reactions logged

• The post has been shared nearly 1,500 times

• Over 300 comments

• Baratunde Thurston — THE Baratunde Thurston — not only shared the post… but he started following me (!)

• And it just keeps going….

The thing about going viral, which some of you probably know (I’ve never experienced this before myself) is that you will never, ever be able to fully grasp how many people have engaged with your content… and you will never, ever be able to engage with everyone who did. As someone with a pretty small, hands-on, community-first audience usually, that’s a bit hard for me. But I’m embracing the visibility because of what it means for our hopes for justice and peace.

People all over the world responded.

Re-posts were in other languages.

People in other countries were commenting on how much they knew this would affect them. Some commented on how much they had begged Americans to care about things going on in their neck of the woods… and saw most Americans just ignoring them… so they were miffed that Americans expected solidarity now (I mean, fair). Others commented on ways they knew they had to guard against this sort of thing happening soon in their own countries.

Of the literally thousands of responses, they were almost all supportive. People from all parts of the United States, and Canada… to people in Europe and Asia… to people in Australia or Africa… were responding with compassion, care, concern, and solidarity. They responded almost exactly how I would have hoped:

➡️ They saw how important it was for them to bear witness too, wherever they were.

➡️ They shared our on-the-ground realities here in Minnesota with their own communities and encouraged folks to get involved, to guard against this happening where they were, to raise awareness about what was happening here.

Given that I’m not prone to hyperbole and always aim to present things as clearly and accurately as possible, I have hesitated to make the Gestapo/Nazi comparisons, as I’ve talked about what we’re experiencing. But I have to say, seeing people from all over the world (including Germany!) looking at what’s happening here; expressing genuine alarm and concern; and regularly making those comparisons is…

…I guess kind of validating for us?

From our conversations, I think many of us here have been feeling like this is what it must have felt like in 1930s Germany. I’ve been one of many people who have reposted some of Anne Frank’s words, too. Like these ones.

After reading this book in 8th grade, I don’t think I would have ever imagined that I could read these words again and have them actually apply — quite literally — to the reality I was living in.

But here we are.

Having people all around the world recognize this resonance feels strangely comforting, like we are already building the worldwide groundswell of community care and solidarity that will be needed to defeat today’s fascism.

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Checking In: Share Your Real Real

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Reflection: Words to Sit With

On the day Renee Good was murdered, and the trauma of it all washed over every one of us here in Minneapolis, I felt like I wanted to reach out to my community on Facebook (you can follow me there for the most of-the-moment reflections and news from me), to say at least something.

But words were not coming — which you may guess is fairly unusual for me.

Then, suddenly, I realized:

I had the words.

I invite you to sit with these words.

Let them wash over you.

Let their meaning come alive in you.

Today. And tomorrow. And all the tomorrows after that one….

… because they really seem to inform this collective moment we’re in.

💗

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

Learning: A Lesson for You

We’re going through tough times together y’all, yes?

We’re especially going through it here in Minneapolis.

Just two days ago, on Wednesday morning, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot a U.S. citizen in the face, killing her in the middle of the street in the heart of South Minneapolis, ten minutes away from where I am now.

If you’re not here, it’s a little difficult to communicate exactly what it’s like here — the thick fog of grief and trauma hanging in the air; the fear being copiously and cavalierly dealt in the streets by agents of our own government; the stark realization we’re all coming to that we’re essentially living in a war zone much more like the “third-world countries” we learned about, in school growing up, than the “democratic beacon on the hill” we were always told America was.

A few snippets may help you start to get it:

• A colleague was a refugee, decades ago, from civil war in the former Yugoslavia. She wrote: “I’ve spent time in war zones before, places where fear hangs in the air and ordinary life is suddenly overtaken by violence and uncertainty. Minneapolis right now feels like that.”

• Another friend (U.S. citizen, native Minnesotan) wrote this today: “I was going to buy yarn…and found myself driving sandwiched between four ICE vehicles. So of course I thought I should just start honking three times while I drive. So I did. And then they pulled their window down and started being like “Where are you going? Why are you honking?” And I’m just like “Go away. We don’t want you here.” And then they responded to me: “You better move or we’ll throw these gas canisters at you.” And now I’m shaking.

• My (naturalized American, brown-skinned) husband just told me he feels like he shouldn't go grocery shopping with me. “They’re everywhere,” he says.

• Yesterday, friends and neighbors started circulating the video of a U.S. citizen being arrested by ICE. They went into Target where he worked, tackled him, and dragged him outside, all the while he assured them he was a U.S. citizen. Agents could be heard saying they didn’t care. They wrestled him into the back of an unmarked car. I saw a response from his family being circulated today, confirming that he’s a U.S. citizen and they haven’t heard from him. Essentially, he has been kidnapped by armed, masked thugs.

• A friend said she feels like she’s wearing “five weighted vests” as she tries to process everything that’s been happening.

There are SO MANY more examples I could give.

But I hope that starts to give you the picture.

We could be forgiven for feeling anxious, yeah?

And here’s the thing.

Even though it’s obviously justified, the anxiety isn’t really helping us.

Ultimately, it’s part of our innate survival instinct. And sure, there are times it’s useful in that way. But in drawn-out, ongoing, volatile situations like this, it actually has the potential to be far more harmful to us than helpful (e.g. potentially breaking down our body’s systems with the stress responses it creates; or escalating situations unnecessarily; or causing us to do ill-advised things that ultimate threaten us or others because we’re activated and thus aren’t thinking clearly).

SO….

We have to learn how to calm and ground ourselves.

We have to learn how to be enough in tune with ourselves that we notice when our anxiety is rising… and then be well-resourced enough to know how to help ourselves release the anxiety… so we can be as relaxed, present, and grounded as possible.

Ultimately we want to be helpful, right?

We don’t want to make anything worse.

We don’t want to hurt ourselves or others.

Maybe we’d even like to be a balm wherever we are.

Well.

Do you know how you become a balm?

You learn how to become a non-anxious, relaxed, fully aware presence.

And you show up wherever you go like that.

You can do this.

Let’s all do this.

And as we do so, and as more and more of us do so, let’s watch this world start to really change for the better….

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Response

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Catch up on episodes of the For the Love of Humanity Podcast before we start publishing new episodes this year!

Ep 05 | If I’m a Fundraiser, Why Do I Need to Do Inner Work? might help you understand why this loveletter is called Inner Work… and why we talk so much here about inner, energetic realities more than we talk about more external norms, strategies, tactics, or general ideas.

Ep 07 | Vu Le Enters His Elder Era: Wisdom Incoming! is classic Vu in some ways… and a new side of him in others. I genuinely believe I called the arrival of his so-called “elder era.” And you really need to hear him talk about his new book. Have you ordered it — or even read it — yet?!

Ep 11 | Hope for Turtle Island? Right Here is a doozy for our final episode of 2025. Like I said in the intro, this is the longest episode we’ve published so far… and it’s because I just couldn’t cut more! There is so much good content when Alex Sterling is in the room. Seriously, y’all. Check out the inspiring work Alex’s got starting up at Turtle Island Community Capital… and consider supporting it too!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

I’ve got a breathing exercise for you to try.

I think this one is a bit magic, actually.

If you learn how to do this one, you can use it anywhere. And it has this pretty amazing ability to calm and ground you.

In the end, even though it feels like magic, it’s not really magic. This exercise actually uses your body’s innate systems for good.

You know how when you’re really tired at the end of a looong day… and you finally get a chance to sit down… or even lay down… and you give a loooong siiiiiigh? We can all recognize that desire to sigh. But did you know that sighing like this actually sends express signals to your nervous and other systems… to settle down… and to prepare for resting and digesting and renewal? Because of course, your body can’t really rest… or digest food or anything else… or renew in the way it needs to, if you’re still as tightly wound as you’ve been throughout your stressful day.

We can take this tool and use it anywhere, any time.

I’ve used it before speaking engagements.

I’ve used it before big meetings.

I’ve used it before a conversation I’m dreading.

I use it all the time.

You can too.

Here it is:

• Breathe in slowly through your nose, while counting to four

• Purse your lips, as though they’re around a pencil

• Breathe out slowly through your lips, counting to eight

• Breathe in again through your nose, counting to four

• Breathe out again through your pursed lips, counting to eight

• And so on, repeat, as much as needed….

Try this.

Then come back here to the comments and let me know how it’s going.

Wishing you calm.

Grateful for your efforts to be a balm.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

Learning: A Lesson for You

This is a hard time of year for a lot of us.

There’s the rush of the holidays. Extra happy hours. Parties. Festive lunches. Family gatherings. Shopping. Eating. Cooking. To-dos. While most of this stuff is fun, it also fills our life to the gills in a way that can feel overwhelming.

For fundraisers, the year-end sprint is usually one of the most intense and seemingly relentless times of year. In the past weeks, I’ve had fundraising colleagues tell me they’re tirrrrred. Crispy. White-knuckling it. Burned out.

Those of us who are processing losses and grief often seem to feel it stronger than ever during this stretch of days.

There’s also the increasing darkness…

… and the accompanying cold.

Both of these material realities can really affect our bodies and nervous systems — not to mention our minds, hearts, and spirits.

Over the last few weeks, the days have been getting shorter and shorter in the Northern Hemisphere. Some of us get hardly any moments outside in the sun — if any at all. The Winter Solstice will arrive on Sunday, bringing our shortest day and longest night of the year with it.

This extra darkness…

… and lack of light…

… can feel…

… hard for us humans.

Yes?

But here’s the thing.

We are nature.

We don’t just appreciate nature. Or spend time in nature. We are nature. Literally. The atoms that patchwork together our bodies are built from the same substance that fills the towering trees looming over us… and animates the tiny critters around us… and powers the sparkling stars in the sky. We move and grow within cyclical rhythms, just like all of these other parts of the natural world.

And this rhythm?

The one that brings darkness?

The one that shifts the planet so that those of us in the North are tilting away from the sun as far as we will ever be?

This time brings the quiet.

Growth slows. Plants and animals sleep. Activity slows to a crawl — especially on the darkest and coldest days.

And as a part of nature, we are meant to do the same.

Hold up.

Remember all the things I referenced in the beginning?!

Yeah.

They make it pretty difficult to slow down during these days.

I get that some of this is pretty hard to change, given how we’ve collectively agreed to a year-end rhythm that is anything but slow and quiet.

Still.

We can find moments.

And I encourage you to do that.

If there’s a morning… or an afternoon… or an evening…. or even a whole day that you can clear your calendar and just be for a while… do it. If you can light more candles… do it. If you can take a nap… or sleep in a bit… do it. If you can soak in a warm epsom salt and bubble bath… do it. If you can just sit or lie down and listen to some of your favorite music… do it. If you can up your intake of warm drinks… do it. If you can take something (or several somethings!) off your calendar… do it.

You dig?

Wishing you a calm, quiet, restful, restorative transition into the new year.

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Conversation: Your Responses

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Use some down time during this year-end season to catch up on episodes of the For the Love of Humanity Podcast!

Ep 05 | If I’m a Fundraiser, Why Do I Need to Do Inner Work? might help you understand why this loveletter is called Inner Work… and why we talk so much here about inner, energetic realities more than we talk about more external norms, strategies, tactics, or general ideas.

Ep 07 | Vu Le Enters His Elder Era: Wisdom Incoming! is classic Vu in some ways… and a new side of him in others. I genuinely believe I called the arrival of his so-called “elder era.” And you really need to hear him talk about his new book. Have you ordered it — or even read it — yet?!

Ep 11 | Hope for Turtle Island? Right Here is a doozy for our final episode of 2025. Like I said in the intro, this is the longest episode we’ve published so far… and it’s because I just couldn’t cut more! There is so much good content when Alex Sterling is in the room. Seriously, y’all. Check out the inspiring work Alex’s got starting up at Turtle Island Community Capital… and consider supporting it too!

Wanna support this project? Offer a tip!

Practice: Make It Yours

Do you know where your solar plexus is?

Look down at your abdomen. Rest one of your hands on your torso right below where you can feel your sternum bone ending. Then rest your other hand on top of the first hand. Now, you are essentially feeling and tuning into your solar plexus.

Come back to this spot often.

Waiting in line? Find that position with your hands quietly resting. Take one deep breath after another, and feel your hands rising and falling. Notice how doing so might not only tune you into yourself, but also tune you into everyone else around you.

In a conversation that is bothering you? Return to this position. Notice what is happening within your solar plexus. Likely, it is spinning with your emotional upheaval. Breathe deep breaths into that spot. Feel your hands rising and falling. Notice how many breaths it takes for you to feel grounded and calm again.

Taking a quiet moment between activities? Find someplace where you can be alone for a few moments. Return to this position. Breathe deeply again. Feel your hands rising and falling. Marvel at this body you have. Give thanks for the chance to be here, now, on this planet, breathing, laughing, crying, loving, grieving, being.

💗

Inspiration: Something to Savor

Click here or on the image below to listen to a beautiful song about the longest night of the year, by a folk acoustic songwriter, singer, and guitarist that I have long loved, Peter Mayer.

As he says, “There is a diamond in the soul of the longest night of the year.”

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Not ready to become a Supporting Subscriber… but still grateful for this content and want to offer some support?

Offer a tip here!

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

A moment for rest, respite, community care amidst the busy, stressful year-end season. A taste of the Community Care Collective to come.

This event was created as a gift, with the intention to help support our fellow fundraisers during the busy, stressful year-end season.

However, if you don’t necessarily think of yourself as a fundraiser... but you do work with, and for, the communities of which you’re a part... this will also be a good place for you.

We will welcome as many as we can to experience this gift of rest and respite, connection and calm.

Register for Tomorrow's Online Gathering

Words that are inspiring this gathering?

• A soul spa

• Groundedness

• Basking in joy and amplifying it

• Creating connections between people

• Giving people wellness tools that they can take into the busy year-end season

• An oasis

• A bubble of connection and calm

If you think you’re “too busy,” this is perfect for you. We say you shouldn’t have to wait until the storm has passed to take a breath within a safe harbor. We think that seeking rest and respite in the middle of it all is powerful… and revolutionary.

Explore how to create an active, effective culture of community care in your world — which we have found is far more powerful than self-care.

Prepare for an interactive time in community, as you deeply engage with facilitators and each other to co-create a meaningful learning experience.

The intention of this gathering is for you to leave feeling grounded and ready, equipped to re-enter your life and transform it — by prioritizing both your own wellness ...and that of all of the others in your day-to-day community life.

Register for Tomorrow's Online Gathering

Join two nonprofit fundraisers who have been overcome by serious burnout and lived to tell the tale. With Betsy Altheimer of Table Forte and Cecelia Caspram of For the Love of Humanity as your guides, you will receive — and practice with! — tools designed to create wellness while you move through your everday stressors.

As Betsy and Cecelia remind us, nothing else we do is possible without our wellness. So, let’s prioritize it together in community!

FAQs

What does this cost?

This gathering is offered as a gift to you, for free! Note: we will also be telling you about a related, more robust offering in 2026 that will have an associated cost.

Do I have to be a fundraiser to come?

This opportunity is created by fundraisers, for fundraisers... but that doesn’t mean you need to be a fundraiser to come and gain benefit from it. We welcome anybody who works with, and for, the communities of which you’re a part.

How many can you accept?

We can accept up to 100 participants. There will be break-outs, so you’ll have a chance to connect more directly and closely with others who are there.

Can I come late or leave early?

We recommend that you make every effort not to. You will get way more out of this experience if you can commit to being present for the full two hours.

Can I do something else during this gathering?

That would be counter-productive! Prepare for an interactive time in community, as you deeply engage with facilitators and each other to co-create a meaningful learning experience.

What will I gain from this?

Our goal is to have you leave feeling grounded and ready, equipped to re-enter your life and transform it — by prioritizing both your own wellness ...and that of others too. You will leave with a new set of wellness tools that you can take into the busy year-end season... and beyond.

Register for Tomorrow's Online Gathering

PS: Please share this with anyone else who you think would benefit from it!

Learning: A Lesson for You to Ponder

What’s your relationship to reality like?

Do you try to avoid it?

Do you numb yourself to it… to make it a bit less sharply focused?

Do you try to create your own reality in your mind? Or go on daydreams?

Do you try to override it — or force things that are clearly not happening?

Thanks to the always-relevant Mean Girls, I’ve got a response for that last one: “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s not gonna happen!”

Here’s the problem.

If any of the above sounds familiar to you… that means you are, to varying degrees, not being very present to your life. Your actual life. Your reality.

And when that is true, things like this happen:

• Someone you’re in relationship with tells you how they negatively experienced something you said or did, and you immediately tell them it didn’t happen that way… or you try to quickly apologize before you’ve even understood what they’re saying, so that you don’t have to fully face or understand it… or you hear their words, and you maybe even respond to their words with some empathy… but you don’t let yourself fully feel and experience what they are communicating.

• You are working on a team of people, and there is clearly not enough time, nor enough resources, to get a project that you’re all working on done… but yet you keep pushing it forward, insisting it get done.

• You are driving your car, on your way home… and suddenly you’re home… and you really have no memory of how you got there.

• You are in a meeting. People around you are talking. But you are daydreaming… and you completely miss the whole discussion.

• You are stressed. Crispy. White-knuckling it through life. And your response to that is to drink ever-increasing amounts of wine every night.

• I could go on.

Are you seeing this?

The thing about presence is that most of us aren’t good at it.

Like, at all.

We really don’t want to face reality. So why would we — gasp! — be present to it?

Here’s the problem with that, though. The present moment is our life. As in, we have no other life… except for in the present moment. Sure, the past and future often loom large in our minds, hearts, and beings. But yet, they aren’t real. They aren’t here. They aren’t now. They are only puffs of energy that we are holding in our beings.

And not only do we hold them. We let those puffs of energy completely color — and negatively weigh down — our present moments. So then, our present moments don’t get to be pure. We don’t get to see them clearly. We see them through lenses… that are smudged, darkened, distorted. We feel our present, so often, as knee-jerk responses to something not-here, not-now.

Meanwhile, our real life is happening…

… and we aren’t here for it.

Wouldn’t you like to be present for your life?

Wouldn’t you like to see problems clearly… so that you can address and hopefully fix those problems, as quickly and simply as possible?

Wouldn’t you like to be able to love and care for those around you — your loved ones, your colleagues, your neighbors — more powerfully, without letting your desire to do so get twisted up in your own selfishness and hang-ups?

I know I would.

Are you with me?

Because, I mean, can you even imagine how different this world would be… if it was being created be humans who were fully present to themselves and others — which is to say fully attuned to love?

What a revelation.

What a revolution.

Were you sad to miss the Community Care Collective: A Taste event in November? I heard from many of you who were. Good news! Another one is happening NEXT THURSDAY: December 18th, 3-5PM Central. Register today… and then fiercely hold the spot on your calendar!

Wanna learn more about it? Listen to this podcast episode, where my colleague Betsy and I talk all about our vision and plans for the collective. ⬇️

Wanna support this? Offer a tip here!

Conversation: Your Responses

Got more to say? Visit the comments section!

Leave a comment

Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

Wanna support this? Offer a tip here!

Practice: Make It Yours

When a therapist said this to me once, I blinked:

“Your body is the only part of you that has to live in the present moment.”

Like, DUH. Of course this is true, I thought! But I had never really thought of it in just that way before, and it really drove something home for me.

We are complex beings… and there are so many parts of our beings that can spend all the livelong day anywhere but here.

Your body, though? No way.

Your body is here.

Your body will need food… and water… and sleep… and movement… on pretty regular and predictable schedules — schedules that aren’t really negotiable.

Your body will shiver in the Winter cold… and sweat in the heat, sun, and humidity of a Summer day. Your stomach will growl when it’s been too long since your last meal. Your throat will dry out and propel you towards your water glass, if you haven’t had any drinks for a while. You can’t really… think your way out of those things.

So.

CONNECTING WITH your body, and your body’s experiences in this world, is one of the simplest ways to be in the present moment.

Try this:

• Wherever you are, look around you. Note and name the things you see.

• Then, tune into what you hear. Note those things.

• Then, tune into any smells. Note those.

• Then, discern if you can taste anything. Note that.

• Finally, tune into your skin… and notice the sensations it is feeling, whether hot/cold, soft/hard, rough/smooth. Note those sensations.

• Notice what it feels like to be present. Notice what your body, and/or your own being, may be trying to tell you in this moment.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

For the Love of Humanity is an online community made up of, and generously supported by, its readers and listeners (like you).

Your support — whether through a Supporting Subscription, or through leaving a “heart” or a comment on posts, or by sharing published pieces, or simply by bringing your presence here and helping to grow this community — is so appreciated.

Become a Supporting Subscriber

Not ready to become a Supporting Subscriber… but still grateful for this content and want to offer some support?

Offer a tip here!

Find For the Love of Humanity elsewhere and join us there too!

➡️ LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky ⬅️

I… can’t say I do.

And I do know I’m not alone, because I’ve been in SO many conversations with friends and comrades who feel the same.

And so many of you have been getting more scared… even more cynical… or, I even might say, more like Eeyore than Tigger.

Would you like to gather up some Tigger energy as we wind down 2025… and chart our course for 2026… and beyond?

I got you.

That energy is here. I’m talking hope. I’m talking a way forward that helps us all thrive. I’m talking the way we turn it around… for good.

I can’t wait for you to meet my infinitely wise — and wildly witty! — friend and guest, Alexander “Brave Journey” Sterling, co-founder and CEO of Turtle Island Community Capital (TICC), who shares about fostering economic sovereignty and community resilience for Indigenous peoples (and thus, all of us here).

We discuss the challenges and opportunities within Native communities, the significance of cultural stories and traditions, and the importance of investing in regenerative finance. We touch on historical injustices, the critical need for equity in investment and philanthropy, and the hope and action needed to build a thriving future for the next generations.

Get a warm drink.

Settle in.

Be ready for some inspiration… some introspection… and some dreaming.

Also, I need to mention: this is the longest episode we’ve published so far. And that’s because there is just SO MUCH GOOD CONTENT, with Alex “in the room.” I couldn’t cut any more. I just couldn’t! You really need to hear it all.

Buckle up! Listen in.

And be sure to call or text into the dedicated line for the podcast, too, with questions about — or your own experiences with — these topics. That’ll make this whole conversation even richer. ( 1 6 1 2 4 4 0 4 8 1 9)

Thank you for being here!

I’m so grateful to have you in this community.

Episode Overview

• 00:00 | Introduction: A Precarious World

• 00:43 | Gathering Tigger Energy for 2026

• 02:36 | Welcome to the For the Love of Humanity Podcast

• 03:38 | Alex’s Background and Mission

• 05:33 | Alex’s Stories of De-Humanization and Humanization

• 12:16 | The Importance of Caring for — and Respecting! — Youth

• 16:45 | The Origin of “Brave Journey”

• 19:09 | About Turtle Island Community Capital

• 23:15 | Challenges in Native American Financial Access

• 30:33 | The Erasure of Native History

• 36:55 | Engage with the Podcast Community

• 38:58 | Discussing “American Progress” by John Gast

• 39:59 | Manifest Destiny… and Its Modern Implications

• 43:33 | Economic Sovereignty Explained

• 48:15 | A Different Kind of Investment

• 51:19 | Seven-Generational Thinking: What/How?

• 01:03:44 | The North American Colonial Project

• 01:06:21 | Land Acknowledgements and Practical Actions

• 01:18:49 | Supporting Indigenous-Led Solutions

• 01:23:23 | Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Info + Links from Alex

Turtle Island Community Capital (TICC) is a mission-driven financial institution dedicated to advancing economic sovereignty in Native and underinvested communities. If this work resonates with you, consider joining us — not as donors, but as co-creators. You can offer direct support here. Or you can reach out to our team for more information on how to use your DAF or impact investing funds in our work: invest@turtleislandcommunitycapital.org.

Remember, there are $180 Million in capital needs waiting — just waiting for the funds to make them possible. TICC is raising $400K before the end of 2025.

This is the start-up, launching phase for TICC. And you can be a part of launching them towards their very ambitious goals. Give today!

Turtle Island Community Capital’s Website

Connect with Alexander via his LinkedIn Profile

Turtle Island Community Capital’s LinkedIn Page

Turtle Island Community Capital’s Instagram Page

As Mentioned In the Episode

On Amerigo Vespucci

What “Termination” Means for Native Americans

On The Dawes Act

On “American Progress” by John Gast

On the “Doctrine of Discovery”

This podcast’s music is licensed from MusicBakery.com.

All copyrights, licensing, duplication, and distribution rights are held exclusively by Music Bakery Publishing (BMI).

Learning: A Lesson

You’d think we were a bunch of theater kids.

Well, maybe that’s not far off. I know that I was a theater kid. And anecdotally, I’ve heard that there are a lot of us in this field. But that’s not an excuse for the amount of interpersonal drama we all seem to create, as we go about our work together.

We’re supposed to be here for the love of humanity, aren’t we? Aren’t we supposedly committed to our communities? To a sense of mission? How are we letting ourselves get so distracted? By ego trips? And pettiness? And… interpersonal politics?

I’ve seen/heard of all of this happening:

• An Executive Director stomping their foot and throwing a bit of a tantrum because someone wouldn’t talk to them right when they wanted them to.

• A colleague who would walk from cube to cube, talking in no more than a sly whisper, with the express purpose of stopping to gossip about everyone else.

• A standing meeting before another standing meeting, in order to feel “prepared” for the original meeting and be able to collectively answer any/all questions that might come up from the (very critical and mal-humored) superior.

• Managers being told to chasten their direct reports because higher-ups didn’t like how they behaved/what they said in a meeting with other departments.

• Somebody mistakenly filling out an entry in an entry/exit log and ultimately getting fired over it, because superiors would not believe it was an oversight and were determined to call it a deliberate lie.

• A very ego-centric dude getting up and conspicuously walking out of an auditorium when a woman who had very rightly called him to task got up on a stage to speak.

• Colleagues refusing to work with each other after a nonprofit merger, leaving the original teams from each org operating independently of each other.

• Bosses literally screaming at direct reports.

• I could go on….

One thing I feel compelled to say, first off:

You know your ego has no place in this work. Right?

This is not your organization. As soon as your org was filed as a 501c3 or another nonprofit designation, that mission belonged to the collective. You answer to the public, to your community, for that mission. And no one answers to you.

This is not your job. Everything you are working on right now belongs to your organization and its mission. You will not be there forever. You are sitting in a certain seat on the ship… and many other people will sit in that seat, throughout the ship’s journey. Your task is to prepare the seat as best as possible to hand off to the next ones, so that their preparation and resources will be better off than yours.

You didn’t raise that money. Every single dollar raised is due to the dozens of people — both past and present — who have tended to that mission, done the collaborative work, cultivated relationships, achieved outcomes, made previous asks, had previous conversations, etc. Every single dollar raised is collaboratively raised.

None of this is about you.

None of it.

So why do we make it about ourselves so often?

Here are some things I suggest we all take to heart:

1. Abuse is never OK. This means that it is never OK to yell or scream at a colleague. And it is never OK to punish a colleague. And it is never OK to manipulate or force a colleague into something you want them to do. I could go on. Abusive behavior is not OK. And you should never allow anyone to be abusive to you at work, either.

2. When you communicate, say what you mean. My goodness, how much energy and time is wasted by miscommunication, misunderstanding, petty games, passive-aggression, game-playing, etc. Be direct. Be open. Be transparent. And just tell others what’s what. We do far too much of everything else but that.

3. Stop creating enemies. If you think someone is avoiding you, ask them directly what’s up, or if maybe you’re imagining it. If you fear someone is going for the same promotion as you are, just bring it up, talk about it directly, ask how they think you should both handle it. If you hear someone taking credit for something you did, approach them and let them know your perspective, then listen to see how they respond. In short, no one should be your enemy. And when you encounter conflict with someone else, just address it as directly as possible. With them.

4. Stop burying things. I refer to this phenomenon as the “subterranean” reality — which is always lurking under the surface of the reality we can directly see or touch. This is where our feelings hang out. Our biases, too. This is where our knee-jerk responses come from. This is where our traumas go to sleep, until they’re awoken by something happening above-ground. We let so much of how we relate to others on-the-ground be completely influenced by the subterranean. And we don’t need to. We are fully conscious beings. If we actually tune in, we can discover and know what’s happening underneath the surface in a situation. But the only way we can bring it to the surface, then, is to openly talk about it. This can be as simple as asking something like this: “I just felt the energy in the room change when I said that. What’s going on?”

5. Aim for honest, trusting, caring, collaborative relationships. We’re talking talking about things, rather than avoiding them. We’re talking telling people our actual thoughts and feelings. We’re talking doing what we promise. We’re talking honoring others’ thoughts and feelings. We’re talking showing up for others when they need support. We’re talking asking for help when we need it. You dig? Do you think you might actually start to enjoy your work more, if your relationships there were more like this?

Were you sad to miss the Community Care Collective: A Taste event last week? I heard from many of you who were. Good news! Another one is happening next month: December 18th, 3-5PM Central. Register today… and then fiercely hold the spot on your calendar!

Wanna learn more about it? Listen to this podcast episode, where my colleague Betsy and I talk all about our vision and plans for the collective. ⬇️

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Conversation: Your Responses

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Are you looking for some comrades to commiserate with? How about some peers to level-set something for you? Or someone to help you find what you need… because they did it themself last year? All of this, and more, is what I anticipate happening at Community-Weaving for Fundraisers.

Just fundraisers. Gathering for (virtual) lunch together. Twice a month. Year-round. Chatting and supporting each other via WhatsApp in between lunches. Being there for each other. All you need to do is show up, be present. I facilitate, organize, and create the container.

The Waiting List is open now. Get on it!

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Practice: Make It Yours

Here’s where you’ll take some of what we’re talking about today and make it your own. Here’s where you’ll embody it and bring it to life.

I suggest you try one or all of these, in the next week or two:

• If you notice something as you’re relating to someone else, just bring it up. This can be as simple as saying something like this: “I just felt the energy in the room change when I said that. What’s going on?” Take what your body and intuition are picking up… and verbalize it. And see what happens. Bonus points for reporting back here, as I’d love to hear some real-life stories.

• If you’ve felt like you’re not on the best terms with someone at work, ask them out to lunch. Spend a lot of time just getting to know each other — the real human behind the work roles. That’s priority one. Then, whenever you feel like the energy between you has begun to shift a bit (and it could take a while), maybe just ask them about anything you’ve been wondering about with them.

• The next time you’re tempted to do or say something passive-aggressive (which is to say, trying to get what you want without directly doing or saying anything), catch yourself. Ask yourself why you’re doing this. If the answer is just “habit” or something relatively benign, change your action to something much more direct… and watch what happens in response. If the answer to your question is not as benign, you’ll clearly have a problem to address. So address it.

Inspiration: Something to Reflect On

I love Prentis Hemphill and their profound wisdom. 💗 If you’re not familiar with Prentis, they are a teacher, an embodiment coach, a writer, and an experienced group and conflict facilitator… who holds the importance of intimate, body-centered transformation as key to healing and justice.

This video is must-watch and totally related to today’s topic.

Click below to watch it! ⬇️

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