“I want to heal my grief and I want to support us all in healing our collective grief, so that we can continue to be here for the children who are growing up in this new reality..."

“If you’re finding your creativity and productivity are suffering as a result of your routine being flipped on its head, that’s ok! Let me repeat: that’s ok…”

"We have what the military call a VUCA environment: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. There are many unknowns and many feelings, and this is when people need their leaders to step up, connect, support, and soothe..."

“How do we connect and grow as a community when we need to increase our social distance?”

“...There are queen bees (politicians), drones (profiteers, the media), and worker bees (canvassers, poll counters, Congressional staff). And as the ideological extremes drift further apart, we are, increasingly, like different species trying (or not trying) to co-exist…”

"I am choosing to end the silence by sharing three dramatic examples from my own life that show what racial privilege looks like from the perspective of someone who is neither white nor privileged by the circumstance of ‘race.’"

Reflections from the year on liberation, equity, co-creation, confronting bias & discrimination, authenticity, listening, inclusion & giving voice, connection & community, faith & prayer, building, compassion & empathy, altruism, assisting the hungry, truly *seeing* each other, belonging, healing, care of self & others, and love.

"...People who are blind do not judge those around them in the ways the rest of us do. People who are blind do not see skin color, for example. All they know is what they learn from what others say and do. It’s such a non-judgmental way to live, I wish we could all be like that."

“Things don’t have the be the way they are. In much of the world, we manage to take care of people pretty reasonably well. This is the wealthiest nation in human history, we can do it here too.” -Colleen Shaddox (Cohort 1)

"These stories highlight that 'freedom' to enter into this country is rarely free - in particular for people of color. Whether refugee or undocumented, there is a price that many have paid by the deeply distressing and disturbing experiences they have endured..."