As I struggled to find my voice, my own grown son offered wise advice: "Sometimes we white people need to just shut up and listen," he cautioned. Not to say that we understand the pain of Black America, because we never can; not to assume one group is right and all others wrong or that, in fact, there exists one truth and one truth only; not to assume that solutions, if they are to be found and we have the courage, will be any simpler than the problems' deep, embedded roots; not to forget that to make it right, some of us must acknowledge and then relinquish our privilege and our power, if a more just nation is really what we want.
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Photo © Cathy de Moll
The Art of Good Enough
Holding ourselves and each other accountable to be the best that we can be is not a pursuit of perfection, it is an acceptance (and cherishing) of human limitations. I am lucky to have finally learned this for myself and to have a partner who knows it, too. "Perfect," he often quotes Voltaire, "is the enemy of good" and he reminds me that "good enough" is sufficient grace to make us lovable and loved.
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A statistic I often see quoted is that only 10% of social media participants create all the content that the rest of us consume and pass on to our friends. What would happen if the other 90% of us more consciously spread our own personal talents and perspectives across these platforms? After all, in a world where children can watch beheadings online as easily as they can see inspiring live video from the Space Station, what is our obligation and our opportunity to overwhelm them with reason and beauty?
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