Staying Hungry

For the past few weeks I’ve been reading “The Blue Sweater,” by Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of The Acumen Fund, a micro-financier organization. The book begins in Africa - with the story of the blue sweater….and I won’t add any spoilers here other than to say her story circles the globe and she’s now left Africa and returned, has witnessed planes striking the trade towers and is rapidly making changes and becoming enlightened with each month it seems. I usually blow through books in a day or two, but this one I have savored - like chocolate - for almost two weeks now. I don’t want it to end. I will reread it. It is an onion - layer upon layer, with something at each layer to make me tear up or actually weep. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read  - simply because she tells a story without becoming weepy - or using her bio to champion fundraising. I like that it’s matter-of-fact, not diving for the heart strings, or glossing over harsh realities too much. It’s a book I have to read again to review it properly, so this is not my review - only a quick blog to let you know I’m almost finished and will be reviewing it soon. It’s too much to review in one post - so this is my first - it’s an amazing book. Buy it. Read it. It’s so worth it.

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A friend of mine is mad at a family member of hers. She has been for 10 years. He embarrassed her at a family function and she’s never forgiven  him, and doesn’t plan to until he apologizes. I told her today that some people won’t ever apologize, some people aren’t capable of apologizing, and some people’s apologies aren’t even apologies and worthless and meaningless anyway.

After being blindsided by someone on a social media site I belong to I wanted an apology. I’m not going to get it, but yesterday I realized it didn’t matter - for all the reasons above. It must be God’s way of confirming what I figured out yesterday to get to explain it to someone else today.

The ONLY reason for an apology is to “clear the decks” so the relationship can get back on track. That’s it. Period. Forgiveness of someone is so WE can get past an incident, drop the baggage and move on with our lives. Forgiveness doesn’t need anybody but us. An apology involves TWO people. Why? Because apologies are for when you WANT to preserve or work on the relationship. If you don’t care - or the relationship is toast anyway - an apology doesn’t matter. One or both people are saying, “I’m not happy, it hurt, but I’m willing to work on what we have and get past it.”

If they’re not willing to apologize - they’re not interested in you or the relationship. So bail out, forgive them (that’s another post) and get on with your life.

I realized after repeated public postings and making myself vulnerable, expressing my hurt etc. that there was never going to be an apology from this person. NOT only is she incapable of an apology, she has no desire to pursue the friendship and an apology at this point would be superficial and meaningless. Why? Because now, after all that - I no longer have any desire for the connection.

I explained this to my friend and she’s thinking about it. She’s not ready to write him off. She still wants the apology. But this time she’s trying a different tack - she’s being honest about how it made her feel, how it hurt her, how he’s someone she wants to be friends with. Knowing them both - I’m pretty sure he’ll apologize - even if he doesn’t even remember what he did or said. He’ll do it because he values the relationship more than being right, or being funny at her expense.

So next time YOU’RE wanting an apology or reluctant to apologize because you don’t want to be wrong or feel shame - remember the question isn’t about if you’re right or wrong in that moment. It’s about if the RELATIONSHIP is important.

To those whom it wasn’t important to for me - have a nice life. I have a feeling it will be a rough one - filled with pain, but I wish you well…and…

I forgive you.

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Men don’t think about it. Women don’t realize it, but the women dancing and serving drinks and distraction in strip clubs in America are very often single mothers, merely working to provide a living for their children. They’re not there for the party. They’re there to make the most money they can without skills, a degree or opportunity.

Emily Fitzpatrick realizes this and does more than just “pray for them.” She adds action to her prayers with a weekend long “Mothers Day Outreach to Strip Clubs” in North and South Carolina. She has the woman power and volunteers, but needs items for gift bags.

Emily and her volunteers go into the clubs - not to preach, but to celebrate being mothers - reaching out to tell these women they are loved, they are brave, they are more than strippers, they are mothers too. Emily recently left the Billy Graham ministry where she worked, to pursue her own dream - to stop the sex trafficking trade around the world and in Asheville. She started “On Eagle’s Wings Ministries” and in the past year or so has done incredible things - raising money to buy land and a house where women and children she has helped rescue from the sex trade industry can heal, develop new skills and integrate back into society. It hasn’t been easy. She comes from a background of drug and alcohol abuse herself - and is an inspiring figure for how God really can and does change lives.

She has partnered with:

Diana Gillispie
Asheville Tileworks

Mountain Spirit Cards & Gifts
118 Cherry St
Black Mountain, NC
828-664-9754

Inspired Productions, Inc.
Inspired Productions

and other individuals to provide items for these women and others. But she still needs:

Bath and Body products
Candles
Make-up samples
Devotionals
Small Bibles
Bookmarks
Christian Music Cd’s
Small gift items

Her outreach has been a great witness to these ladies, who say they can not believe someone would do something so nice for them. It’s an act of kindness and plants a seed that God loves them and there are people who want to help them. If you can’t send money - call Mountain Spirits and buy a gift card in her name to use as she needs. $5 may buy inspiration for a single mother working to provide for her children.

If you or your church can help, please contact Emily Fitchpatrick at emilyfitchpatrick@yahoo.com as soon as possible. Thanks!

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I’ve shared close quarters and even closer business partnerships with some pretty stranger folks in my life. But, I have to admit this hen and puppy picture beats any mutually beneficial arrangement I ever had. As I’m working on my book proposal one of the qualities I’m expounding on is tolerance. It’s not on the usual list of entrepreneurial or success traits that I’ve seen, but it’s a critical element for both.

Why? Well, because by “bedfellows,” we mean people that we are - by need or design, close to, intimate with even. We share SOMETHING in common - or we wouldn’t be rubbing elbows. That “something” may be all we share, but it’s important that we recognize that that something is pretty critical or we’d be looking elsewhere for it.

I hope that makes sense. For instance… as a security guard in an old paper warehouse in Denver in the 80’s, I worked the graveyard shift. It meant wandering around in the bowels of the paper plant alone, at night, with the rats. I don’t mean mice. I mean rats. I had to stoop to traverse leaky old pipes, slog through puddles and walk through piles of shredded paper and cardboard. Me and the rats. Ugh. I could hear them squealing and running and falling or leaping off of bales of paper as I trekked along on my hourly rounds. The only thing worse than the rats were the spiders. I soon learned to bang on the metal door with my flashlight before I entered each room. It gave them fair warning and I didn’t worry about them falling onto my neck or head from the overhead pipes.

After several weeks of this, one night I didn’t hear them. No snuffling, squeaking or rustling of paper. No thump, thump, thump as they hit the floor in a panic to escape. Just silence. It meant that someone else had already been through ahead of me - and had already scared them off. It took me a bit to figure that out - like about three minutes later when I rounded the corner and found a work crew no one had told me about. It scared me to walk up on them unexpectedly - and frightened them as well, but ever after that I learned to appreciate the rats. They were my signal that I was alone on the hundreds of acres of empty factory. They were my “strange bedfellows.” We shared space in a way that benefited us both I suppose.

As the world changes, economies shift and resources tighten or disappear, being able to recognize, utilize and capitalize on “strange bedfellows,” is almost a necessity. We no longer have the luxury of picking and choosing the company, the person or the opportunity we might fire on all cylinders with. Finding a common need is a way to do several things:

Extend our capabilities
Extend our network
Open ourselves to new ideas, approaches and markets
Learn tolerance
See need, purpose and design differently than we might otherwise have
Appreciate the smallest, most seemingly insignificant or important things in our world.

There are more benefits I’m sure. But those stand out for me right now. I hope you can think of opportunities in your life where “a strange bedfellow,” is or has been a blessing in disguise. Even if that disguise is a rat, you never know how valuable their contribution may be.

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On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is an adage which began as the caption of a Peter Steiner cartoon published by ”The New Yorker” on July 4, 1993. Since then the cartoon has taken on a life of its own - like the “smiley face” in a way.  The cartoon shows two dogs: One sitting on a chair in front of a computer, speaking the caption to a second dog sitting on the floor. As of 2000 it was the most published cartoon ever from The New Yorker. No, I don’t have the headline to my post wrong.

What’s funny about Peter’s cartoon - on several levels, is how people can BE anyone they want to be, and many a tech savvy teenager has passed for an adult in venues where they’d never gain entrance in person. Yet the reverse is true as well - if your tech skills, your writing, your keyboard and dissociative social skills aren’t up to par people may indeed MISTAKE YOU FOR A DOG!

So while men can pretend to be women, and women can pretend to be girls and everyone can pretend to be pretty much anyone  and no one much notices - I noticed something. People don’t notice that some of those folks they’re meeting are disabled and may be mistaken for “dogs.” (in the slang term meaning “not pretty or desirable,”)

I don’t mean disabled as in a wheelchair, although they may be. I mean many of the folks I interact with have mental disabilities, depression, cancer, age issues diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and a variety of illnesses that should become invisible on the internet - but don’t. Because while hiding your looks, or your status, or your accent or gender online is fairly simple, hiding your disability, your lack of skills, your age or other challenges is often not so easy.

From the speed of typing, to the age or other challenges, disabilities are often hard to hide. I teach basic computer skills at a local college (volunteer) a couple of times a month. Those attending are in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. They are determined to learn to get online. Most are men. Unlike their sons or grandsons who can type 100 words per minute with their thumbs, they never learned to type. So they hunt and peck. As a result, their blog posts and their infrequent emails tend to be rather short. More time is spent hunting for the keys than thinking about what and how they want to say what they have to say.

As a result their communications are terse, and not the sort of compelling prose they speak in person. On the internet, no one knows what kind, gentle, generous souls they are. On the internet, no one hears their laughter, or their jokes or sees their smiles. I have learned to encourage them to be upfront with their shortcomings - to make a joke - so they let those reading their posts understand their limitations.

“In real life I’m a real chatter-box. But I don’t type as fast as I talk,” I urge them to tell folks when they first come online. Maybe I’m helping, maybe I’m doing them a disservice. I just know when I talk to someone and they sound a little odd, hearing, “I’m sorry, I had chemo today,” or “I’m sorry, I have some medical issues and today is not a good day,” make all the difference in the world to me. I should be patient because I have my days too - with my chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia flare-ups there are times I can’t remember what I wanted to say, or I sound out of it myself!

“I’m okay!!” I want to shout

“I just didn’t get the 30-hours sleep I needed last night!”

This has been one of those weeks for me. I worry that I haven’t posted every day, or that I’ve slept more than I’ve been awake. Then this afternoon a friend recovering from another round of chemo wrote to apologize for not answering an email I sent a few days ago.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Lying in bed listening to the rain on the roof all week has just been so much more relaxing than answering email.”

I know exactly what she meant.

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The tattoo on Keenan’s arm reads, “Straight Edge.” It means, he has taken a vow not to drink, smoke or have sex - it’s not a religious decision, but a lifestyle. And although he’s standing in front of a church - some of the churches in Louisville, KY are willing to host band nights since there is no drinking, smoking or fighting, “Straight Edge” isn’t a religious movement at all.

“It’s not about God or anything, not for me anyway,” he says. It’s just because it’s the “right thing” to do. There are half a dozen young men around him, all of them play in heavy metal bands. All of them with tattoos - either a “XXX” across their chest, or other patterns - all of them vowing, to do the right thing.

When’s the last time you believed in something so strongly you were literally willing to tattoo it permanently on your body?

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