A Day of Blessing
About ten people gathered to support the Jewish community at Kol Ami last Thursday on the second night of Passover. We had a great time! We got to talk with each other. We welcomed people as they arrived to share a meal and remember stories of liberation from enslavement. This story is a not just…
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Join Us in Kirkland
On Thursday we will be at Kol Ami, a Center for Jewish Life starting about 4:45 PM. We will have signs printed or you can bring signs of support for our Jewish neighbors. We are doing this to offer our blessings for the celebration of Passover. In light of the increase in hate crimes against…
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A Holy Season of Solidarity
A Holy Season of Solidarity I was out hiking today with my spouse and our dog. I realized I needed to write an email to all of you. Dehumanization leads to violence. It is a process of associating a group of people with a threat to what people value. In the last few days major…
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A Beautiful, Complicated Story
Saturday night my spouse and I were invited to the first of its kind gathering in Anacortes. The occasion was ancient: the Persian New Year Nowruz. It originated in the Zoroastrian tradition but is practiced my many traditions today. The couple who organized the gathering are Zoroastrian, although they grew up Muslim. They are the…
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Dehumanization Du Jour
I have learned a lot about how dehumanization works in the last 8 years. One of the most heart piercing lessons for me is that dehumanization is not only suggesting people to be targets of violence to those already prone to violence. It does that. But not only that. Dehumanization is a process in which…
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It Felt like Discrimination, so I Started a Conversation
My family loves visiting the Marina in our town in south King County, WA. We live a mile away from the closest marina and go probably every other day just to get fresh air, connect with wildlife, and sip tea or coffee from one of the shore-side cafes. Last month, we went by the Marina…
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Strategies for Inclusion
Our goal with Let’s Go Together is to draw us out of our separated silos and begin to know one another, work for the common good, and respect each other in public. But there are many obstacles that keep us from seeing each other. We are not simply separated in silos, we human beings also…
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We All Hold Wisdom
This last week I did a presentation to the Mount Vernon, WA Rotary Club about Let’s Go Together. I began the presentation with a question: How many of you are concerned about the divisiveness within our community? Every hand went up. We discussed some of the many things that are dividing us: Loneliness Technology driven…
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Who Sets the Tone
Yesterday I spoke to some pastors about Let’s Go Together. We invited their community to participate and to connect us to a leader or two that could take part in the LGT Planning Team. Like almost all leaders, they were very concerned about the loss of trust in each other, and the heated divisions in…
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