Categories Menu

Election Results, Rape, and Other Stuff

Tuesday night I sat in my family room, herbal tea in hand, in my pajamas and wrapped in a blanket awaiting election results. With my cell phone on the coffee table in front of me ready to text friends, I imagined it would be a long night and I possibly wouldn’t know election results until the morning. And then it happened fast. I watched MSNBC for results out of my respect for Rev. Al Sharpton. In 2008 I attended a friend’s Baptist church in downtown Los Angeles to hear the Reverend speak. I sat in the front row, the only white person in the holy house, and I rested upon every word he said. His sermon was the best I’d heard up at that point in my life, which was impressive as I had listened to thousands of talks. Since that moment, I seek him out to hear how he puts language together, uses metaphor, tells stories, inspires, and speaks raw truth as he knows it. However, there was...

Read More

Starbucks: Creating Jobs, Seeding Lives

Friends, My heart is so full of joy right now. There are moments when I am proud to be an American.  Where wearing the “country” label feels good upon my skin. Today, I experienced one of these moments. My morning started as it often does with a walk to my local Starbucks.  Walking allows me to get grounded to the earth, move my body some and receiving a natural source of Vitamin D.  This morning as I stood in line to purchase my venti green tea iced, no sweetener.  I was met with a smile from my barista behind the register and a patriotic-looking display to the right front of it.  The display read “This country needs jobs” with an invitation for the consumer, me, to get involved with a solution.  For a $5 donation, six other investment groups (foundations, banks, corporations, faith-based organizations, government, socially responsible investors) match my gift to parlay it into a $35 donation.  This donation is then loaned to create community businesses in America...

Read More