courting connections

A friend, who received my 2011 "State of the Human" letter asked, My question for you is what will life be like next year when Cyber Access for Technically Timid is all in place, you are established and money is coming in?

well, dear friend, as important as cyber access for the technically timid (catt) is, it's but a "leah" step compared to what i feel is my "rachel" purpose - it will provide my personal underwriting of a far larger calling: helping the general church & academy schools craft ways to deepen existing connections between vital yet inherently impersonal institutions and actual flesh & blood people.

being the bold & brash lass that i am, in november will be sending a request for help underwriting my current shift from an admittedly financially tenuous here & now to a firmer foundation, allowing me the time to work with the church & schools on key issues that popped up over the past months.

who will get that perhaps soon-to-be-infamous request for funding? a slate of people i barely know BUT who've demonstrated dedication & loyalty to the church & academy schools. with funding to get past the current limited funds moment, will be free to fulfill my truest of true callings – infusing a stronger sense of connection between alums & supporters with the church & schools i love, especially through the college.

seems to me this vital work is best done by someone outside of the official structure, although it's hard to define why. can’t express it, yet know it to be true. catt will pay the bills (and underscore my truest of true life purpose) while i devote my spare time to volunteer work focused around crafting community.

what events popped up to arouse my interest? first the assembly, then charter day and, most recently, something experienced this past monday. the three brought home to me how the powers-that-be have put remarkable things into place with both the schools & the church, yet it feels like they're sometimes a tad... unaware about how to forge deep connections with flesh & blood people.

at the assembly, traditional open houses once held each night around the community were probably too $$. but what was offered in their place? on the first night, a band party at cairnwood. great for folks my age & younger, but zip for older people jazzed after the wonderful presentation on the church in asia. a pity. the impression made on the first day can be all important to how people remember the entire event. i was left hanging, with no where to go, but the person who felt it even more was the older friend i chummed around with throughout the assembly, who instead of feeling a sense of place at the event, felt terribly sad, all stirred up but without any place or persons to share that enthusiastic energy.

at charter day, same thing – no optional networking opportunities. pardon the bluntness, but the "open house" at the brickman center was fairly short & somewhat flat. and there was nothing for my senior friend to do other than the dance, which she found shockingly unappealing. john & i had a blast at sat’s wine & nibblings party, but it cost $ (worth every penny for us - can write it off as a networking expense - but beyond a lot of limited income budgets).

at the most recent "minister monday" tea at cairnwood village, three speakers - dr. king, jim adams & judy from the development office - encouraged people to give to the schools. three times, one of the said, “i’m not going to ask for your money…”, then proceeded to do precisely that. that's fine - that's why she was there. but why not just be up front about it? celebrate what she was doing there, turn the asking into a positive action?

two things strike me about these less-than-optimal experiences 1) a BIG challenge faced by powers-that-be & those they delegate is that most, if not all, of them seem, by nature & nurture, unaware of feeling outside of what's happening. and 2) back in my college days, dick gladish drummed into us "show, don't tell." if the church & the academy want to turn things around financially, want to turn rare to never contributors into regulars who leave a legacy in their wills, the best way to start is by seeing the people they're courting. woo them, but lightly.

like any great match, such light-handed yet ardent courting creates a win-win environment where all flourish! for an example of what i visualize as a natural outcome to such an approach, check out my 10/28 posting - 12 months out. speaks what's in my heart.

12 months out

a friend asked me about how i envision my life, my life contributions, 12 months from now. this was my reply, re: what i feel is my life purpose - my "rachel" - deepening a natural connection between the academy schools and flesh & blood people...

10/28/12
a college alumna - anc class of 1972, ancc class of '74 (associate's degree), a dormie from glenview who's now retired & living in michigan - is talking with a classmate he & his "dragon" spouse had stayed with over charter day. he's calling to say yet another thank you for helping make the visit so special.

he can't seem to stop talking about what fun they'd had, how hard it was to leave.

he loved the football, the banquet, the catching up with high school & college classmates. but what surprised him was how welcomed he felt by the college - that both he & his wife felt they'd had an opportunity to get a glimpse into how truly special bacnc is, that they came away with a sense that the beautiful buildings & campus simply reflect the teachers, the courses, the students who make up the college.

he marvels at what a good time his wife had when the two of them dropped into the brickman center, especially the opportunity to meet some of the college students, some from as close as bryn athyn and philadelphia, some as far away as china and ghana, but all radiating an appreciation of what they were getting from their education. he admits feeling downright ancient talking to the college teachers & awed by how many were phds. and what a blast to participate in an alumni version of "gnashed teeth" - he'd never forget it!

he had a grand time looking at the enlarged photos of teachers from past decades, including some from his own years at ancc. he'd enjoyed writing down some stories about what it was like to attend college in the same building as the high school, share the same lab rooms & dining facility; loved the opportunity to write down appreciations of a favorite teacher, one who helped put him on an unexpected life path, and a never-to-be-forgotten school mate.

he mentions how much his aunt - anc class of 1962 - felt welcomed & a part of the college, even though she never attended. the student ambassadors seemed genuinely interested in hearing about her time in the fledgling peace corps, where she served & what she did, as well as what it was like attending barnard in the '60s. he recalls how at home all of them felt in the brickman center, settled into comfy chairs in that vaulted yet somehow intimate space, talking with new & old friends, aware of but not distracted by the 2012 bacnc graduation playing on the flat-screen monitor at the one corner, the taped stylings of student musicians playing softly at the other end of the room.

and the food! those bryn athyn bounty bakers really outdid themselves!! he could still taste the whoopie pie sliders he'd eaten way too many of - and friends who were there in the morning and afternoon said the muffins & breads, then cookies & brownies, were equally awesome. what a treat to be able to pick out his own coffee selection & have it brewed up on the spot. he wishes he'd put more than $10 as a free-will offering - will send off an extra check to the alumni association for $25, along with a note of appreciation.

he asks his friend if she'd signed up to get copies of "the beacon" and on the special list for copies of student papers on philosophy & history. he'd signed up to keep in contact with a bacnc college student - did she sign up to connect with gc student studying somewhere else?

and he'd meant to ask - who WAS her favorite teacher? most memorable fellow student (other than him, of course)? did she sign up for the alumni association?

he congratulates his friend - her daughter placed the winning bid on a week's stay for up to 12 at a lakeside cabin. (hint! hint!) although he'd missed most - but not all - of the auction cum party, it was clear it was a smash. several friends had contributed homemade appetizers to the nibbling buffet (and it seemed everyone was putting something into the free-will offering jar, a clay vessel thrown by an anc student artist, which was also up for bid).

who came up with the brilliant idea of offering classes an opportunity to bid on "naming rights" for the liquid refreshments? terrific photos lifted from the class of 1987's yearbook seemed to be all over the party space - kept seeing older versions of young folks in the enlarged photos being snapped with the pictures. what a great return on a relatively low investment in wine, beer, sparkling cider & water!

oh, my gosh - time has flown! he just called for a quick hello & an hour has zipped by. next year isn't a reunion year for him, but his wife is already talking about a return visit next year. maybe even earlier, for bacnc graduation - the video of the ceremony seemed unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

it was a good visit, a great 40th reunion & a priceless reminder that he's blessed to be part of a school that gets better with every passing year, of a church with a vision worth inspiring for!

he signs off with - "see you next october!"

outlier no longer

since the early days of our courtship, john's described himself as an "outlander" - a phrase used in Children of the Corn - within the community wherein i was born & raised. it's always good for a chuckle.

it's only today, in thinking about my gnarly relationship with a greatly admired s-i-l who (alas) doesn't seem to return the esteem, that it hits me that throughout my life i've been an outlier, both in my family & my community.

outlier - /ˈoutˌlīər/; noun 1. a person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system. 2. a person or thing excluded from a group; an outsider.

the first definition applies to my relationship within my hometown in my earlier years; even when it appeared there was connection that's all it was - an appearance. from kindergarten thru college, i never made a good, close friend. so glad those days of outsideness are long over!!

the second definition captured my relationship to & within my birth family. "a person or thing excluded from a group" - and i never knew the why. and praise be that those achingly alone days are past. i enjoyed a delightful visit with mike over charter day & a good gab with scott. mim & i have been writing back & forth. and john & i are writing to peter, letting him know we'd enjoy bringing take-out from his beloved golden dragon over to his digs in norristown.

gee, it sure does feel good to be in from the cold, an outlier no more!!

Fatigues

not military clothing - how i feel, especially in the morning. tapped out. need to aggressively counter balance with mindful, determined, even-when-i-don't-wanna energy boosters!

welcome mat

i sought to be a traditional educator - after i achieved my initial, improbable goals, was shown the door. what broke my heart was swiftly revealed as a blessing, expanding my world beyond, but still including, the small town where i was born & educated & employed.

i was a traditional professional, bringing my someone off-kilter ways to the incredibly straight-arrow insurance and financial services industries, using my non-trad vision to create unimaginable (to me) success - until i was shown the door, once again. once again, what initially broke my heart was even more swiftly revealed to be a blessing, booting me out of the buttoned-down corporate world into an alternate funky career universe that was never in my plans but is clearly where some great force of whatever intends me to plant myself & thrive & blossom.

very little of what has happened over the past ten years makes much sense UNLESS it's looked at through the lens of a greater power having greater plans for me than i could ever have imagined, combining all aspects of my being into a great purpose that only i can fulfill.

ignore the apparent shouting truth that the wild road i'm traveling is my true path?? accept that this life traveler has finally arrived at my home earthly purpose??

am putting out the welcome mat - let whatever comes across my threshold come. i have no doubt it will ultimately be a blessing.

working with what is

realized anew that of the many social skills i picked up from my birth family, the one that was drummed into me was the importance of spending my time, energy & resources doing things with no expectation of any sort of benefit or return from others i took that a step further - that getting anything of emotional or financial value for what i did somehow diminished the very value of what i'd done.

there are a lot of messages received through my early years that might have been intended or not, could even have never been sent (so many of my memories were picked up elsewhere & attributed by me to the important others in my life or were the result of an utter misunderstanding of something said), but this one i know for sure was sent & resent.

such a dumb message!

i believe that parents & families should send & live the message that we should all value what we do, expect a sense of value from others - emotional & financial, when appropriate - and allow ourselves to feel a sense of disappointment when we get nothing in return, without allowing us to be deterred in taking future similar action.

i believe that parents & families should do everything possible to instill a sense of positive value within each other by modeling those behaviors, in their actions to others & in their expectations of themselves.

and i am forever grateful that i knew, deeply on some almost visceral plane, that what i experienced with family social skills was off kilter. knew from an incredibly young age. didn't know what was messed up, but pretty sure something was.

we all get the earlier lives that we get. it's tempting to think that others got a better break with family situations or life opportunities, but the fact is that we get what we get as our personal building materials & wasting any time envying something that might not even be is foolish. work with what is. those are your building materials. if they are somehow sub par or warped or unusable, ditch them & start out with new stuff. but use all the building lessons learned over the years - they're in there. use the ones that work, not the ones that produced unstable structures. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that what each of us is here to do is not do stuff that's detrimental to ourselves or others and to invest ALL our time, ALL our resources, ALL our energies into creating something sound that benefits us & ideally all others.

start out by working with what is.

everything in its place, indeed

the sudden, unexpected death of a remarkable young minister/teacher/mentor brings home the importance of living as he did, filling every moment with joy & doing the work he loved in a way that only he could do & being an incredible life force to all he touched.

it was pretty bold & brash, sending out my 2nd "state of the human" letter, opening a path for people to help us financially & making it easy for everyone to contribute substantially without spending a cent. but - post the jacob story, post charter day, post mauro - am taking that outreach BIGGER, contacting people who belong to the boards of our church & schools with a funky grant proposal.

my health seems to be questionable. i breathe heavily & tire easily. so, am more committed than ever to doing whatever needs to be done to make the contributions that i'm well suited to make to my church, my school & my community. where there appears to be an obstacle, i'll acknowledge it before giving it the boot. i'm not going to worry if people think i'm a kook or outrageous - if that's what it takes to make cyber access for the technically timid & a more welcoming experience at charter day & partnering programs between my local senior community and college a reality, then so be it.

the bottom line is that i've been over the top (hopefully in a good way) from my first breath. i seem to have been born with an out-sized sense of love & loyalty to my family, my church, my school. the affections that many people pour into friends, i poured into those three institutions - family, church, school. family, in its traditional sense of siblings, has receded into the background (but certainly not disappeared) as loving support of community has moved over the past 15 years into the foreground.

my dream is to help craft church & academy events such as the assembly & charter day where EVERYONE feels welcomed, visible & valued. how to craft such moments? first, by deciding HOW you want each participant to feel when s/he leaves the event. do you want your alumni - all of them - to feel a sense of excitement over where, say, the college is, as embodied by its students, its teacher/mentors, its leaders; to have a sense of their own place in its past & a thrill of anticipation over where its headed; to WANT to be part of that future, whatever their age?

it amazes me to look back over my life & see how my path has provided me with an unusual amalgram of experiences & skills, from my four years of doing faculty teas in college and the same number of ed council spreads (two per morning) as part of summer work to serving as NATIONAL coordinator of events honoring prudential healthcare's 50th anniversary, from adopting the anc classes of 2010~2011~2013 when they were in elementary school & tracking them through hs graduation to being bisys financial services 2000 employee of the year based on my above & beyond success at making the most demanding clients feel heard.

it feels as if this initiative is already a tangible entity, awaiting its big reveal. all i have to get out of the way are minor albeit pesky money energy issues - and that will happen. all i have to do is let everything be in its place, then see what arises.

take no thought for the morrow

what's in my heart to do? if i know it, then i'm already graced with an incredible gift, because so very few people seem to have a clue. if i know it, then i'm honor-bound to pursue it, without flinching at what tomorrow might bring, instead focusing on what i can do in THIS moment to make it so.

i'm doubly, triply, calculate to infinity blessed because of having already experienced what it feels like to reach a goal that so many thought beyond hope. it took 35 years of quiet belief that it was possible. seems long, but i look back at it as simply taking as long as it took.

for decades & decades, i thought that my goal was better relationship with my birth family. not a good one, just better. and i got to experience that. remarkable!

what amazes me over & over are all the unimaginable blessings that open up from pursuing a goodly goal. it never ever dawned on me that my psyche would hit a reset button, as it has over these past two weeks. it feels - really & truly - like my innermost being has returned to where it was in my earliest days. and i do mean earliest! so cool, so unexpected. so waiting to be expanded into new goals. goals that will take as long as they take, taking no thought for the morrow.

hiatus

took a hiatus from mid-sept to mid-october. wasn't planned, just happened. maybe something incredibly wise within me realized those weeks were best spent just experiencing whatever arose rather than stepping back to write blog entries.

happy to have gleaned all i got, happy to be back.