Growing up with as many issues that I had in my life from the early part of my life, I was so focused on myself, and my story was about how my dad left when I was four years old and it was all about. And I realized that one of the greatest ways to heal myself was to become focused on other people and to.

That's right. I realized now that's where I developed the commitment to being a servant. That's my always been my leadership style. And that's the eastern philosophy. And Eastern Way is about service, save and service to others. And I do realize how much but, you know, making that shift in my life, it healed me as well. And it kind of hit me, you know, the things that I grew up with that wounded me and harmed me weren't as important.

They're still there. I've never healed them entirely, but they're just work. Like they weren't my core, my being anymore. I was about something else.

Hello. Welcome to We're the Leaders We're looking for a podcast from United Way at the Wine Country, produced with tech support and direction from Brandt Hoekenga and TIV Branding. We are here to share the voices of our neighbors, changemakers and everyday leaders who are building a region rooted in belonging, resilience and justice.

And I'm Lisa Carreño, I'm president and CEO of United Way of the Wine Country. And my co-host is Lori Lynn Hogan, a long time friend and, the owner of the Connection Company. Thanks for joining us. And let's get started.

This is the inaugural episode of We're the Leaders. We're looking for the concept behind this podcast. The idea behind this podcast, comes from an essay by Clarissa Pinkola Estes that was first published in 2001. It's called We Were Made for These Times. It's kind of remarkable that an essay that was produced post 911 has resurfaced in 2016, and again now.

She writes in the very beginning of this essay, "Do not lose heart. We were made for these times."

And she goes on to describe how, having been equipped by our lives, the experiences to meet the moment we currently confront, we may be scared, we may be uncomfortable. We may feel like we haven't got a clue what to do, and we just want to hunker down and hide.

But her encouragement is. To calm ourselves. To rest ourselves. And to embrace the knowledge that. Every experience we've ever had has prepared us for this precise moment.

And it is in that spirit that I've invited my first guest, James Mullineaux, the recently retired executive director of the Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation here in Santa Rosa, California, to join this conversation. We're the leaders we're looking for. J is drawing from 40 years in a career in philanthropy. But a lifetime of wisdom and lived experiences from growing up in the projects in Binghamton, New York, to his journey across the country to higher education at the University of Washington, two years, spent in New York City as an activist and a co-founder of Act Up as a philanthropist here on the West Coast in San Francisco and Sonoma County.

And now in his "re-wirement", that's what he calls it, his retirement. He plans to take all of that, the rich wisdom of all those lived experiences, all those lives he touched and that touched him to redefine what retirement is and to help create in our community a beloved community, a community of belonging where everyone feels knows that they're held, that they are cherished, and that they're meant to be with us in this world and are worthy to stop just for being who they are.

So I hope you'll enjoy our conversation. It is inspired by that essay where the leaders were looking for, is inspired by that essay, but it is also informed by the work of Valarie Kaur and the Revolutionary Love Project. So you're going to hear questions and themes and questions, about what it means to love ourselves, to love others, to, and to love our opponents as well.

You're going to hear themes of what it means to be a sage and what it means to warrior. Thanks for spending your time with us. I'm incredibly excited to introduce you to my good friend J Mullineaux. Recently retired from the SRJC Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation as its executive Director. But J and I first met when Jay came to Sonoma County to work with the community Foundation in Sonoma County.

I'd love for you to introduce yourself the way you want to be introduced now that you're in your "re-wirement". Yes. Thank you. Lisa, it's great to see you today. Yeah, that's a word I've been using instead of retirement. I feel like it's more of our retirement. And I don't. The question I get so often now is what's next?

And I'm, you know, not quite sure what that looks like, but I have a long list of ideas. I don't want to fill my time with things that I know. I'm looking for new things. I mean, I've spent the last 65 years of my life doing what I've been doing, and I have been in the field of philanthropy for 40 years.

So I feel like I've had the most rich career, the most privileged, career. But it's time to do something else and also make room for the next generation to lead. I'm a big proponent of that, and I'm really delighted that my colleague, who has worked with the Foundation for 13 years and who worked with me during my five and a half years, has become the new executive director of the of the Junior College Foundation.

So. But anyway. But I'm, I'm from the you know, I grew up in I call I say southern New York, a place called Binghamton. But, you know, and I have many lived experiences and, you know, when you look at me as a, as a, a white, privileged male, you, you think one thing, but there's, there's a many layers there that I've had to peel away and look at and heal through the years.

So. Yeah. Well, it's actually a fantastic segue to our first question for you, which is what story of your life reminds you of why you do the work you do? Yeah, it's a great question. I've had many I've had a long time to really reflect on this. I've been on this journey for a long time, but I've had had many adverse childhood experiences.

Domestic violence, attempted suicide. My my father, you know, walked out on me and my mom when I was four years old. So I, you know, had to heal that for a long time. I was for the longest time I thought I was I was, you know, at fault for that. That was my I was the reason for that.

So I've had to do a lot of healing through the years. But I've come to appreciate those experiences because they, they've really, helped me become who I am today and, and what I care about today. And so I'm, you know, as I retire and I look back and reflect on 40 years of philanthropy, I keep landing with a tremendous gratitude for my experiences.

But I've also, I grew up in the projects when I was a kid. And I didn't realize how meaningful of an experience that was until much later in my life, because it was a multiracial community. My mom's best friend was a black woman named Lillian. So I had lots of aunts and uncles who were black people, and we were their family.

And I still call these people relatives. Unfortunately, I grew, I grew further and further away for as I grew up as a white man, I sort of, you know, as I went to college and all the things I did, I got it became wider and wider, the spaces that I was in, you realize, till many years later that the impact of that.

I was on a trip to Alabama and I was in a restaurant with, you know, we were having a conversation in a restaurant with all of these people, 90% of them were black. Right. And it dawned on me that I had gotten that far away from that early childhood experience. And I felt you know, in that room I felt like I was back in family.

So that was a transformative moment for me. And it made me realize those early experiences. And having an Aunt Lillian, who was a black woman and Uncle Sonny and Uncle Charlie and really defined who I was, and you know, who I became as a person and the things that I that I fight for, for today and that are really meaningful to me.

And then also at some point, realizing that that I was a gay individual, and for many years for me meant for many years that meant, trying to stay under the radar, assimilating, not, you know, blending in, not trying to draw attention to myself because I, you know, I was born in 1960. I graduated from high school in 1978.

So we were still doing that, that we were trying to hide until Harvey Milk came along and said, don't blend in. Many of us were trying to blend in and not drawing any attention to ourselves, so I had to heal that as well. But the most profound experience probably I had is I did find my way to college.

I was the first in my family to go to college. I made my way. I got full financial aid from the government. Yes, I got a handout from the US government to go to college for nothing. So I've had incredible gratitude for that, but I had a lot of assistance along the way. I had a lot of, counselors and programs that I was a part of.

That really helped me stay on that path and helped me not get lost. So that's why I ended up at the junior college. I kind of came full circle back to those experiences I had in college. And I was able to give back in a significant way and make sure that students today who are very different, have very different needs.

That they have the the resources they need to succeed. That's why one of my, my core values is opportunity. I believe in that opportunity so deeply for everyone. And I realize that we we all haven't had the same lived experiences. So you have to provide people opportunities based on the experiences, the opportunities that father had or had, haven't had in their lives.

It's beautiful. I'm reminded that you've shared in the past with me that one of your core values is belief. And and now you've shared that another of your core values is opportunity. Listening to you talk about the journey that you've taken that's brought you back to remembering what home feels like, remembering what family feels like, the journey of becoming who you are as as a man who is gay and who is an activist, and who is, also, a first generation student, of, of higher education and, and a champion now for, for people with the lived experiences and backgrounds and the challenges that you've had.

The word that comes to mind for me is unifying, that you've been on this journey of unifying who you are as, as a, as a human being that you've become and are continuing to become. I think that's just remarkable. I, you know, growing up with as many issues that I had in my life from the early part of my life, I was so focused on myself, and my story was about how my dad left when I was four years old and it was all about.

And I realized that one of the greatest ways to heal myself was to become focused on other people and to. That's right, I know. I realized now that's where I developed that commitment to being a servant. That's my always been my leadership style. And, that's the eastern philosophy. And Eastern Way is about service, savor and service to others.

And I do realize how much, you know, making that shift in my life, it healed me as well. And it kind of, you know, the things that I grew up with that wounded me and harmed me weren't as important. They're still there. I've never healed them entirely, but there just weren't like, they weren't at my core, my being anymore.

I was about something else. Well, and I'm struck by how the those experiences inform how you show up as a leader. You know, that empathy that you have just as vast well of, of empathy and compassion. You see the dignity in others that others may struggle to see. That's I mean that's that is servant leadership, certainly, but it's also transformational servant leadership.

It's beautiful. Exactly. When in your life had you had to pause, listen deeply and see with new eyes? It feels like you've begun to tell us a little bit about that. But yeah, but this was a very specific experience that I had. You know, at least you and I ever talked about, you know, I went on this pilgrimage, this, civil rights pilgrimage, and to 2017 to the south, I got on a bus with 40 other individuals, and we retraced the path of the civil rights movement from from Nashville, into Alabama, Mississippi.

And then we ended back in Alabama, and we walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and learning the the history, the real, the deep truth of that history and being in community with some of the foot soldiers from that period who were walked across the bridge and they were 11 years old and or 17 years old, and the brutality that they faced was incredible.

And the community that I traveled with also gave me experience of what that beloved community that John Lewis talks about so much or talked about so much. I've had an experience of that, and that's why I'm so committed to nurturing that for the rest of my lifetime. But the experience I had, where I really had to pause and listen deeply, it was a specific experience.

On the pilgrimage. We were in Mississippi. We went to the site where they had the, to the, the Tallahatchie River near Glendora, Mississippi, which is the site where they, they they removed Emmett Till's body from from the river. But we went there specifically to have a ceremony. And, everyone was given a white rose. And I thought that that was of all the experiences, that's the one that would make me cry the most because I am an emotional person.

Person. I live on my heart all the time. But I had a very different experience. I went there and for some reason I decided to step back, and watch all of the, mostly young black parents on the trip. There were many of them because it was a multiracial experience. And I just I watched their experience, and I watched them cry.

I watched them tremble. I watched them look back at me literally, and look into my eyes without saying anything. I knew what they were communicating to me. That experience changed me forever. And I go back to that many times when I think about, like, you know, we we often hear about these things verbally, but until you see it through someone else's eyes.

But I can imagine now what it's like for that young woman every day as her children go off to school. And will she ever see them again? And how will they come back? And will they be all of that stuff that literally black parents go through every day? So I had to really pause and and watch deeply and listen deeply.

And the communication was nonverbal, but it was the most powerful thing that I've ever experienced. Wow. I you don't know, in the moment when you're experiencing something like that, what moves you to make a particular choice? But doesn't it feel like divine intervention when you follow your heart as you did and show up in that moment, in the way that you did?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The other part of it is that for just for some reason, I just I decided to step back. Right. And my, you know, it wasn't about me I wanted to see. And I did have my own experience. Right. But but I, I did it differently. And it it's taught me so much about how I show up and when I step back, and when I just, you know, observe and watch and listen and be curious and not try to be at the center of something or leading something or, I mean, you know, as a person that's had the positions I have had through life, I've often hired and paid to be the expert on so many things. But as we make room for other people and try to really understand, that's the, you know, some of the questions I will get into later about, you know, seeing no stranger and you really have to trust is a white male, white person, period. You have to step back at times and really, you have to show up differently.

You can't be the same person in that space and show up the way that you do every day. Yeah, well, I'm everything that you're describing to me looks like practices that help you stay rooted in your values. Especially when the world or the moment feels overwhelming. Do you want to share more about how you feel like your values informed that moment and and other moments like that?

Yeah, I think probably, it's it's very important. It is going to sound silly, but it sounds really important, actually identify and define your values. Yeah. And I spent a lot of time as a, as a, as a philanthropic advisor or, you know, there's many words for what I do. Fundraising, development. You know, I choose to use the words philanthropic advisor or philanthropic facilitator, but, the best experiences come out of a really a deep understanding of your values.

So I've done a lot of work helping people. I've done I've helped young people identify values as well because we go through otherwise, you go through life, you have some sense of what they are, but you're not really grounded in them. And I found that with donors in particular, if you're not leading with your values, you wander away from them.

You're drawn to, you know, you, the alignment, you lose the alignment to those values. So I've done a lot of work helping people come back to their values, because that's where the power is. When you're living from a place where you're really focused on your values. So one of the things that I do, I journal a lot, and I come back to those values.

I write them down. I write examples of how we've been living those values. And I discover, like, I haven't been up one of my particular, you know, whether it's compassion or integrity or whatever those values are. And I have, you know, I've used my values to create a giving statement for my philanthropy, but I'm always coming back to them.

I'm using them to make decisions about where I'm going to work, what groups I'm going to get involved in. But they are the power. I said to this to a group of people recently. I said, you know, they can try to take everything away from us, right? They can try to take. But this is the one thing you can't take away from a person.

It's it's in our bones and it's in our DNA. That's why we need to live from that space. I completely agree, I, I last year had the opportunity to, do training with doctor Monica Sharman. impactlaunched.org and the very first lesson was a conversation about clarifying our values. And so now over the last year and a half often I'm introducing myself.

My name is Lisa. I stand for courage, kindness, compassion and inclusive belonging for myself and all others. So curious. J what what what are those values for you now? So mine. And I've done some work with a group in New York called 2164, which is, an organization that helps the next generation families discover, identify their voice within the a family philanthropy setting.

But so I've used a lot of their tools and, and that's helped me facilitate a lot of the conversations that I've had. But my, my core values are opportunity, because of, because I've been provided so many opportunities in my life. Compassion is a big one as well. I combine equity and justice because I think those two things to me, and for me, those two, they're very much connected.

And then my fourth one is integrity. Again, I grew up in an age where, you know, and when I went to college, we there were classes on ethics. And you know, we talked about, you know, so integrity was always such a big thing. But it's also just it's again another big part of the way that you show up and, and the promise that you make to other people.

In my field, it's was really important for me to have a very strong personal brand for with donors so that they knew who I was and what what I what you know, what what I was promising them. So integrity was always a big part of that. So, so those are my four core values and that's fantastic. I, you know, resonate with all of them.

I've come to understand integrity as, wholeness. Yeah. And you feel when you're out of alignment, when you have made a promise that you have not fulfilled and no apologies. Correct. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What have you learned to love even when it's hard to do? Okay. That, the single biggest thing I've had to learn to love is, when I moved out here from New York in 1988, December of 1988, I got my graduate degree from Columbia.

That fall, and I moved. I was ready to get out of New York. And because that was the height of my activism, and I was kind of burned out on that, I needed needed a different place for a while. But, as I was leaving New York, I got tested for HIV, and I tested positive, which at the time was a death sentence, because this is 1988, the the protease inhibitors didn't really become available.

And so like 1992, I think, or something months later. But I just decided I was not going to die from this. And I literally remember and I'm not like a real religious or spiritual person, not a religious person. But I literally sat down, had many, many conversations at that time. I had conversations with God. I think there was actually a book at the time called Conversations with God.

And so I sat down and had my own conversations. And and it's interesting what I, what I heard back really kind of wherever that that source came from. And it was just an amazing another again, another place that I could build from that promise and that commitment that I made about how to live my life because I didn't, you know, it could be a couple of months, it could be a few years, whatever that might be.

But I made a commitment to myself and whatever that higher power in the universe is that I would live a particular way. But HIV and Aids, I've said this many times, and people just look at me like, how can you say that HIV and Aids was such a positive thing? It was positive in that, people finally had to look at how they weren't loving themselves.

So when I came out to the West Coast, because it's a very West Coast thing, I. But there are a lot of healing circles. Right? And you sit around in healing circle and talk about loving yourself and doing lots of meditation and all that sort of stuff that people assume we're doing in Northern California. Right. But it was such a healing process.

And, and helping people that were dying and passing at that time, really being with them in a particular way and but healing ourselves. There's a lot of self-loathing in the community at that time. And there was a catharsis going on. A lot of people were in therapy. I was in therapy for a year with a licensed clinical social worker.

Shout out to Lcsw. WS, had a tremendous I held my own internalized homophobia because we were taught to hate ourselves. Right. I mean, basically, that's I mean, like a lot of communities are taught to hate themselves. So I finally had a healing around that. And it's because I had to come to terms with with my life. And if I was only going to be here for another, you know, short period of time, like I just wanted to kind of deal with these things and heal them.

But I also ignited my activism because I saw that, people were dying of Aids and no one was doing anything about it. And I was in New York at the time, 19th March of 1987, when the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power was formed, I got a call from a friend that was down at the lesbian and Gay Community Center that that evening when Larry, Larry, Kramer was talking and said, you have to get down here like something is happening.

So I went down the next night, the very next night, and there were hundreds of people that came down to the center. An act up was born that night. It's called ACT UP the Aids coalition to Unleash Power. When they asked who wants to be on the founding board, I raised my hand because I'm usually the type of person that will kind of like, oh yeah, I'll do that.

And and I was responsible for outreach at the time. I went around to different college campuses to build, you know, chapters of ACT UP. And that's how we built the movement. And that work led to so many things. Obviously, you know, the, the, increased pace at which drugs were approved and, all sorts of things that really saved so many people's lives.

But, but that activism was also part of the healing, you know, the combination of the healing circles and the therapy and the and the, you know, we were we were directing our anger towards something where we're finally getting the anger out and doing something with it in a positive way. But in the process, we were healing ourselves and our community.

So, so anyway, all of that love. Yeah, that, you know, that's how it showed up. And at least that's how it showed up for me. You know, I'm struck by so this journey that you experienced to your, your own self loving and healing, is, is is is connected is is, interconnected with, with harnessing your rage.

And, and and what that led to, those, those seeds from those very deliberate choices that you made to lean into learning to love yourself. Along with others who were doing that, too, in community, led to just a revolution in, in our community, in our in our LGBT, Q plus community and the wider community around the world.

I mean, tens of millions of people's lives have been altered because you and others made those choices in 1987 and 88. I just want to thank you. Yeah, well, I'm so grateful for the experience because it allowed me to be a part of a movement because that's what it was. I mean, I didn't know there were people there that knew a lot more about movement building than I did when I got involved.

So they knew how to build that movement. And they, they, they knew all the components, you know, they had studied John Lewis and and Martin Luther King. They knew a lot about, civil disobedience, nonviolent civil disobedience, which we had a lot of training. And I was I was arrested. I would actually train other people in civil disobedience.

But that experience then really piqued my interest and my curiosity and then learning, wanting to learn about other movements and where our movement had come from. Right. So when I heard about these civil rights pilgrimages, I knew instantly like, oh, I want to do that, I need to do that. And that's why I went on that pilgrimage, because I had had that experience with ACT UP.

I was just curious about, you know, the genesis of all of this and, and, and, and on that trip, I met people who knew about AACT UP and what we had done, and I, like I met Bob Zellner, who was the the only white guy on the the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. SNICC and his specific role, the reason they brought in a white guy because he was white, he was from Alabama.

He was a Christian. And he could go around to all the college campuses and talk to other white students like himself and build, help build the movement. And that's the ropes. The specific role I had when Act Up first formed, I went around to college campuses, and I got other students and other people interested in the movement.

And then I met the individual, Bob Zellner, who had started that whole process. Wow. Once again, a unifying, exactly, you know, experience. It's brilliant. I love it. What is it? What does it mean to you to see no stranger in your work or your community work? Now? Well, for me, this this, is mostly to do with my work as a philanthropic advisor, because I've, you know, I've had to I've worked with, thousands of donors and people through my career.

And I've always had to approach it from this point of, curiosity. I mean, I could just go out and ask for money and have it just, you know, which a lot of fundraising is very transactional and you don't really know the people you're dealing with. But the best philanthropy and the the the more transformative parts of giving happen when you really spend the time to understand the people you're working with and where they're coming from and their life experiences.

And so I've always approached my work with donors and sitting down and saying, you know, before I can work with you or find a connection for you, with you, I need I need to know who you are. So I fortunately had the training and, and, to learn how to go in and just start like we're doing right now.

Just start asking some really powerful open ended questions and see how people response, listen. And then so that that you're building the trust with people because you're, you're interested in that. And, you know, that's not curiosity and really wanting to know what their values are. One of my favorite questions to ask people you use is the first meeting was what was your first experience of philanthropy, and who told you who taught you about giving?

Right. And I've whenever I ask a question like that, I always answered it myself. Because you can't answer a question. You haven't answered yourself right. And my, my, my response to that question was, and sometimes I share in my responses so that people could get to know a little bit about me as well. When I lived in the projects, when I was a young kid, at the end of the month was really rough because people were running out of money and running out of food and all the thing, you know, the food truck would come around once in a while and we'd get the surplus food and whatnot, but we neighbors would go

around and knock on each other's door and with bread or soup and say, I've got this kind of or, you know, we bartered and we as a community took care of each other. So that that, to me was my first experience of philanthropy. And you taking care of each other and taking care of a community, and also just like, like people say, well, how did you learn how to ask for money?

Yeah, well, I had to go around and knock on the neighborhood doors and ask for soup or whatever. We didn't have to get us through those last few days before that next check came. So I've just had to sit down and really want to understand a donor and some of whom turn out to be very different than me, which is always a struggle, right?

I'm always I've right away the people that are like living in their heart, like me. They were like, oh, great, this is going to be a lot of fun. And but they weren't always that way, so I had to really work with them. But I did discover that somewhere in there, I always had a box of tissues on my desk, because there were often tears because I would ask them questions, and I would have people say to me like, no one's ever asked me that question before, and I would love it when someone said that to me because I'd realize, okay, okay, I'm going in a direction they haven't gone before because my I always

felt like my role was to help them learn and understand what they didn't know. Right. So about who they are. Yeah, because I wanted them to give when they wrote a check or they supported a nonprofit, I wanted to to give from that place. Yeah. Rather than just, you know, why I'm doing this? Because my friends want me to do this.

Or, again, values, driven. But they're because there's more power in in whatever you're doing from that place. Absolutely. The storytelling I would get people to tell stories, and especially if they had lost a parent or lost a child, or there are some, often some deep wounds that people are experiencing that you can help them heal through philanthropy, at least in my I was in the philanthropic were also, I had a donor tell me one point, I had helped her with her estate planning and her charitable giving.

And she said to me, I feel at peace. Well, and that was the moment I thought, when I heard that, I said, that's what I want to provide to all the people I work with who does want to help other people be at peace or, you know, so that was my goal from that point forward. And I realized then that our work, our work and philanthropy, I think a lot of us work in the field of transpersonal psychology, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, the basic needs.

But we're often helping people, whether it's with self-esteem or the self-actualization, the meaning in their life. Right? Because people have typically go through the world and they've had these high powered jobs, they've done all this stuff, but they're still left with, has my life had meaning? And I loved it when I could sit down with them and say, let's, let's find the meaning and all the things that you've done and, or the things that you can still do while you're still alive.

Indeed. And I'm, I'm aware that part of the journey that they take with you is helping them to make meaning not only of the things that they've done, but the things that they've experienced, whether or not they're aware of how those things are invisible forces that that are still moving through them, that have life within them, and that can be harnessed, to express whatever those values are that, that they land on, that are the values they stand for, for themselves and all others.

I want it exactly. I want to pause for just a moment and, just, acknowledge that a couple of the concepts that, that we've already talked about come from the work of, of social justice advocate and documentarian Valerie Kaur, who wrote See No Stranger and, Sage Warrior. And, I've recently been introduced to these concepts in her work, with the Revolutionary Love Project.

And I've found that the, the integration of, the training that I did last year with Radical Transformational Leadership, braiding that with, with, with, with No Strangers, practices of Revolutionary Love to love ourselves, to love the other and to love our opponents. That is helping to transform me inside, and helping to transform my work and my my leadership here in my community work as well.

So I just I just wanted to, to pause, to pause there and reflect that, and, and to share that the questions I'm asking you are really inspired by, by this, you know, journey of, you know, stranger and and the sage warrior. Yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons I love hanging out with you, Lisa, because you're always introducing these these I wasn't aware of Valerie's work, but now I am.

And I'm paying attention now, and I just it's exciting for me because as a retiree, I'm trying to think, like, where am I going? Right? And what am I going to be doing? And I just feel like she's going to be such a great teacher for me along this path. And just someone who's going to, you know, open me up to some other things or help me, realize some things that I haven't realized yet.

So thank you for that gift. You're welcome. You know, one of my favorite things that she says is, revolutionary love is the call of our times. And, I sincerely hope that the conversation we're having in the conversations to come, you know, inspire, each person who's participating with this and, and listening to these conversations to, find the revolutionary love within themselves and and to activate that.

So we've just answered a few questions about the sage, the inner work, and the wisdom that comes from your inner work. The next set of questions I'm going to ask you are about the warrior, and the courage, action and transformation that comes from being a sage who activates what they've learned in their inner work to build community and heal and work towards justice.

What's a moment when you had to speak truth to power or protect what you love? Well, again, that first, I mean, that experience I had with, with ACT UP in New York because I never, I never thought there was a warrior in me right. So, and, and I guess the point I'm making is that anyone can do this, right.

You don't. Is. So there is an inner warrior in all of us. I'm just glad that I discovered mine when I was. I think it was around 27 years old at that time, so I had to cultivate that through time and come back to it. And, I don't lead from that place all the time. I'm more of the sage, probably.

But I know that there's a warrior in me, and I know the feeling I have when I'm when I'm in that position, you know, that's so I love this book because I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert. But I read that wonderful book. Quiet. Fortunately, I wish I had read it earlier in my lifetime, but.

And I love the story in there about, about Rosa Parks, who was an introvert. And so and the whole book is the story of these incredible introverts who, like, changed the world because they're quiet. But they got to a point where they just something was happening. They couldn't stand for it anymore. And then they stood up. And when an introvert stands up and really it's said, you know, like people listen and they take note.

And that's why the change usually happens because like, wow, that's a person who has never done that before doesn't usually do that. So we better pay attention. So act up for me was the first, occasion I, you know, I wasn't I wasn't one of the leaders. I'm not usually in the front. And I often had the, the megaphone, though I was often because I have a loud, a loud voice when I want to.

00;43;52;13 - 00;44;15;19

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I'm, I'm the the football game. You can hear me screaming and yelling. But during that time in particular, but the way that I, I speaking up, I spoke about there during that experience, I was talking to friends, everyone around me about what was happening and act up and I feel and I did lose a lot of friends at that time.

I realized that, in fact, I as I left New York, I got a friend of mine, handed me a letter and said, told me not to read it, to like on the airplane. Well, and it was her. And I so appreciate that you wrote it because it was really basically her letter saying, I'm sorry. You know, that I didn't live up to your expectations and that sort of thing.

And I realized, like, how hard I probably had been on people because they weren't getting on board. They weren't doing what I thought they should be doing. And that sort of thing. So, it was just, you know, an early lesson that I learned about, you know, you need to be, offer people grace and, you know, accept them for where they are at and realize that not everybody is going to do what you're doing or, it's going to take some time and that sort of thing.

But, but that was one of the early. So I'm not one like I don't usually speak up at public meetings, that sort of thing. Because because I am an introvert. But I will talk to people, you know, I will talk to all my friends about things. I remember I found a file the other day of all the letters that when I was in college, I used to write to TV stations or whatever it was.

Something was going on, and I wrote all these letters that I always kept through the years about something was wasn't right, and I wanted them to. Usually in the early days, it was how gay people were depicted on TV or or things like that. So, so it's important to, you know, find the way. There are ways for all of us to speak up.

You know, you don't always have to do it at a public meeting, but there are ways that we can influence and, and show up that, that are going to be part of the collective whole. Yeah. But that that is 100%, the story behind naming this podcast We're the Leaders We're Looking For there are billions of us on this planet, and there are billions of ways to show up and be leaders who are, rooted, grounded in our values.

When we take a moment to pause and reflect and see in our own stories, our own paths, that we've already begun to show up that way, we just need to give ourselves permission to come out. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. How do you move through fear or exhaustion when the fight for justice feels really heavy? I usually turn to, individuals who empower me and uplift me.

I'm Doctor Terry Scott, who's the director of the Institute for Common Power is one right now. I traveled with her to the South a couple of times. She's an incredible African American history scholar. And, and she what have appreciated about her and common power, which, like, who I am, I'm very involved with them right now, but, they're there, but they're, you know, at their core, they're historians.

Right? So in moments like this, they they'll take us back and, you know, remind us of of history. So I what's helping me get through these the period that we're in right now is really under reflecting back on the history and understanding that. And I learned some of that when I went on that pilgrimage. And I, when you really think about what people had to live through and what they got through and how they persevered and how resilient they were, it's really amazing.

You just realize, like, you know, we haven't been in this particular moment before, but we've been in just, you know, incredible moments through our history. And we got through them. And so history, I read a lot of history books. I just finished reading Our History is the Future by Nick Estrada for, Estes, which is a book about indigenous resistance.

00;48;05;27 - 00;48;23;18

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I've been reading a lot of books about indigenous resistance. My next book is John Lewis In Search of a Beloved Community by by Raymond Arsenals. I bought that book a while ago, and I'm a, you know, ready to read it now. I have lots of books like that, and I just, I read them when I feel like I'm ready to read them.

But history is a big part of what I read. And that's why they say, you know, study history and, but but particular individuals, and Terry Scott's a big one, but even some of the, you know, people like Steve Schmidt, you know, I'm, I'm on Substack right now, which I think is a lot of great stuff there that's talking about, just, you know, how we're going to get through the moment that we're in right now.

What systems or narratives are you actively working to transform? So, again, for me, probably the biggest, narrative that I've worked on. Sure. My career is just changing the whole narrative, the whole system around philanthropy. Right. So just how money's given away, who receives funding, how it's given away, just expanding the whole decision making process, involving others, especially the beneficiaries of the work.

Right. So, centering different people in that process and, and setting a table for other people to be involved. Well, I did this thing when I said I was leaving the college. I always wanted to do this, and I was able to do this recently. It's a program called Students Learning to Give. And because I was the executive director of the foundation.

So we set some money aside that we wanted that money to go to programs at the college. But instead of us making the decision or deciding, we put it aside and brought a group of students together and let them decide where that money would go. And, it was just great to see, like 12 students showed up, they self-identified, and we spent some time with them, helping them discover their values and their interests.

And but also just learning about philanthropy, the, the history of it, some of the racist roots of philanthropy in nonprofits and kind of where the field is going today and how grantmaking has been done historically, and how grantmaking shifting to a more trust based approach. And and then they have the very difficult, task of deciding where that money would go.

But they, they really impressed me. And, and then the community Foundation heard about this and came in and matched the dollars that we awarded. So they were able to double the amount that they gave away. So that's just a very small example. But but it can be so meaningful. I mean, we've introduced 12 students to this concept of what philanthropy.

Right. And remember the student who presented this at our board meeting before I left, she stood up and she was, you know, a student from Mexico. And she was nervous as heck to be up there in front of the board. Right. And the first thing out of her mouth, the most meaningful thing she said is, if you had told me months ago that I would be standing up here right now speaking to you, that I admit that I would have been given an opportunity like this at all, I would have thought I would have said, you're crazy.

So that's what it's all about, right? Giving people and we're in a we're to college setting. We should be giving students those types of opportunities. So, the new president that we've had for the last couple of years, doctor Angelica Garcia, just encourage everyone on campus to be more student oriented and more student centered. So she's really encouraged all of us to think of our role about how we're giving the students the experiences that they should be having before they leave the college.

But so changing that, the narrative of philanthropy, also, the philanthropy is not just for rich people. I mean, that's something I talk about a lot. It's I think, well, I feel like it's a word that was been co-opted by the wealthy. And I do a lot of work. I've done a lot of work through the years helping everyone, even third graders.

I went to a third grade class for a while and talk to them about philanthropy and what's amazing. I'm having a conversation with nine year olds about philanthropy. And just I mean, we talked about generosity and but I taught them and helped them be in touch with the inner philanthropist. And, and then they blew me away. They, they put, put together, they had an incredible teacher at the time who you and I know, Lisa, who?

And I came back one day and they were like, they called me Mr. J, which I loved, and they had created a dance performance that they wanted to because they knew that I had been a dancer in my life earlier life as well. And they wanted to dance for me. And they put on a dance piece about the homeless to Phil Collins song Another Day in Paradise and oh my God, it was, you know, and and then they made artwork and they sold the artwork to their, their family members, obviously.

And they raised some money and then they gave them money away. They became philanthropists. The last day I was with them, I have gone out and bought these pins that said proud Philanthropists. And I gave each one of them a pin. So the point is, there is a philanthropist in all of us. We all need to discover what that is and how.

It's somewhat for some of us, we're philanthropists with our family. I feel like philanthropy is just, as I said to the nine year olds, like there's somewhere on this playground, there's somebody who needs a friend and you're being their friend. You're being a philanthropist, right? So that we all need to embrace that concept. It's not a term just for the wealthy.

Right. So yeah, I so appreciate, how you center community in everything that you do it. And I know that that's a very, very conscious and intentional choice that you make. And, it's a transformational choice. You know, I it's a revolutionary act to go against the conditioning and the cultural inculcation that we get in the ways that, you know, we're raised and the ways that we're trained in our jobs, our roles and the expectations that we sense or actually are expressed to us.

And for you to so thoughtfully and intentionally center, the students at the JCC in everything that you did while you were there, including some of your, your final work. And then and then with the young people, with the kids, at the school, centering them and their lived experience, showing them this is who you already are.

Yeah, right. Just just here's your invitation. Here's permission to see the world around you with, with new eyes to, for you to center the community and live from there. Exactly. It's just I thought the last two years at the college were the most amazing years of my career. Because, again, Doctor Garcia's leadership encouraged us to be in relationship to it, because the foundation we've always raised money to for scholarships and all the other things we were doing were supporting students, but we weren't connected to them in any way, really.

So we brought a student on our board. We had student interns, but then I actively went out. I just went to as many. I was all over campus. I would wake up to all sorts of things and just show up. And for students, that's such an important thing because, you know, a lot of students feel like, because I see this in the letters they write about their scholar.

What is their gratitude? They feel about the scholarship they're receiving? They often say, thank you for believing in me. Yeah, because on many of them feel like there isn't anyone. Maybe they have a parent or a couple of parents that believe in them, but beyond that, there aren't that many people because them felt that. So I think just by showing up, especially if you're a white guy.

Right. But you're going to all the different cultural events. And one of my there were.

It's hard not to get emotional about this. I threw a number of retirement events as I was leaving, but there was one at the foundation that was the most meaningful to me because there are all kinds of students showed up to it, and they all wanted to speak about their gratitude to the foundation. I wasn't even really directed at me.

It was about the what the foundation does. But I just happened to be the recipient because I was retiring. But but you do have to show up and, and you have to show concern and care and, and there wasn't, you know, writing big checks to these, you know, I supported their clubs and all the things as much as I could, but most of it I was just showed up and showed that I was interested.

And and they because many of them told me how meaningful that was to just have somebody there that really cared about what they were doing. Yeah. Radical act of revolutionary philanthropy. Exactly. Yeah. Wow. How do you balance the part of you that wants to heal with the part of you that wants to resist? I think, it's important to acknowledge that both the healing and the resistance are necessary.

You can't just do one or the other. And I try to be involved and both at the same time. Right? Not just like, do one for a while and then shift to the other, kind of simultaneously be working in those things. But and I talked about this earlier, but, just going and pretending as many community, activities as I can.

And, you know, but being very mindful of the way that I'm showing up, and, you know, I have I'm blessed to be married to a to a husband who or a great combination because he's the one that's constantly like, literally, as I was leaving the house today, was reading, writing, reading, the, communication. He had just written to supervisor Gore about a whole bunch of issues and, he's the one that will, like, sit down immediately.

He saw that article the other day about the the, the black man that had been been, beaten about waiting in line at a taco truck. And, he got right on right away and sent a letter to, Victoria Fleming or are represented Council member to the the district attorney. I mean, so he's the one that's doing that side of things, while I'm doing the things that I'm doing.

It's a great combination. Absolutely. And it's a great relationship as a result, because we just kind of we complement each other and we really feed each other and such a such a tremendous way. So. So sometimes when I'm seeing us as I sometimes you can like we also catalyzed a lot of other neighbors to write letters about that incident to some of their representatives.

So, so sometimes it's not like you doing all of it, but you're, you know, you're kind of you're working with other people, you're community. Right? And you're activating this work. Yeah. Facilitating, as you said earlier, who or what helps you return to love when you feel disconnected or discouraged? So, I, my my aunt Lily, I told the story about Lillian.

Who? I still talk to her. She's 92 years old now. She's starting to have some health issues. But literally, of all the people, potential relatives in my life, she's the only one that I still talk to and have a relationship with because she's just the most amazing person and so positive. She, for the rest of my lifetime, I'll always hear her laugh, and, and we can talk about some, really.

We talk about everything. And, and she's a very, also a very religious person. And she really just her faith is really important to her. And I really appreciate that. And, but I lost touch with her for years. And then I the day that my mother died, I just went online because I had felt this urge to find Lillian at some point.

And I just went online the day my mother died, and I found her contact information on Google and called her, and it was just amazing. She said right away, she said, I can't believe that you found me. It had been years and years and years, and now I felt like I've found her again and I've just continued. So I think about her often, think as I and I express my gratitude to her.

She is a large part of why I am who I am today. And we just tell stories. She tells me stories of her and my mom when they were younger, and their friendship and all that which is just feeds me and so little does that. My husband does that for me at times. I have other friends that do that.

My colleagues in the community, my dogs, talk about unconditional love. Just, you know, so those are my sources.

That's beautiful. And, well, true for all of us. If we if and when we see that. Yeah. Lots of walks on the beach, too. Yeah, yeah. To be one with nature. What does revolutionary love look like in action? In your leadership, your relationships, your community? So again, I think for me, it's, I think without knowing that term or really embracing that, I think that that's the way I operate the last two years of the JC Foundation and the way I interacted with students and the campus, and it's helpful because I always I'm a person, I always likes to come back and, and tie things together and, you know, tie a bow around it.

And, and so that the concept of rational, revolutionary love allows me to see how I actually operated and led my last two years at the community Foundation so that, as I was leaving, I felt incredibly, just complete, like whole, like there was no unresolved business. My colleague had not got the job that I wanted her to have.

And so, like, I can move on. I have to be really complete with that and really whole and at peace. Right? So I can just embrace the next phase of my life. So, fortunately, the, the, the junior college allowed me that, you know, I felt like, so privileged to have that opportunity. But I went to the junior college because of, you know, the pilgrimage that I went on was a result that when I got back, I realized that I was still operating in largely white spaces.

And I didn't want to do that any longer. I wanted to, be in the, the, the, you know, the multi-racial, intergenerational spaces. There's there's we don't live there. We don't operate there very often. But for me, being in that place is like, this is what I wanted more of this. So I looked around and the JC was one of those places that that offer that opportunity.

There was much more diversity there. So I went there because there's there's a beloved community there that I could become a part of because I discovered it's really hard to build your own beloved community. So it's so it's a lot easier just to find it and become a part of it and, and cultivate it. And that's what I did the last two years.

So my question now is I'm retiring. Like, how do I sustain that? Because you you brought up community earlier. That's the thing I'm most worried about in retirement is losing that sense of community. So but I will work hard to make sure that I stay connected to it. And I've got some things coming up, as you know, next year that are going to contribute to that.

Yeah. Thank you. Do you want to share what you're working? So the the project I'm working on right now is since the first pilgrimage I went on in 2017, because most of the people I travel with were were for the Seattle area, because this whole project came out of the University of Washington, where I'm an alum of that college.

And, but when I came home, I had that beloved community, but they all went back to Seattle and I came back to Santa Rosa. I was like, where, you know, where's the community now? And I went up to Seattle a number of times and reconnected and whatnot. But I wanted that community here. And again, I tapped into where the I feel like the beloved community exists.

But I've always wanted to take a group of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County folks on that, that pilgrimage to the South. So I'm finally going to do that in March of 2026. We picked March because it's spring break for the junior college. There'll be a number of people from the junior college on this trip, and then other community members.

It'll be multi-racial, intergenerational. It's a little different trip now. But we basically fly into Atlanta and we get on the bus there, and then we drive into Anniston, Alabama, and then, Montgomery. There's a lot going on in Montgomery now. Right now, because of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson has transformed Montgomery. And then we're definitely in time in Birmingham and Selma, as well.

So I'm just excited to take a group of people local. So we can bring that community back here. And that energy and that commitment, to deal with, you know, when we open the newspaper and see stories about a black man being beaten in our community like that, we, you know, like, I reached out to him that day that we all take some responsibility for that, and something happened.

We don't just let those things happen. Right. I bring attention to seeing the community and embracing the community and being a part of healing the community. Yeah, we can all do that. How do you choose when to sage and when to warrior? I think again, I said earlier about doing a little bit of both, that way.

So we don't burn out on one or the other. Writes all about balance for me as well. And I, I just think there are.

Certain situations where I'm going to do one over the other and, I think it's really kind of more based on the circumstances. And it's kind of an interesting because I'm in a transition right now. It also so that's some of the questions that I'm answering for myself is, and that's one that I'll definitely want to come back to because I'm going to I'm going to be in a new role.

I'm, you know, I'm not working. And I'm enjoying the extra sleep and the extra walking.

But at some point I'm going to have to do something right. I mean, I know I'm taking some people to Alabama. I'm doing doing that, but, what what what's, what's beyond that? And so again, I really appreciate you and this framework that will really help me, you know, carry that into my retirement and just, you know, get the best out of it.

Well, you're welcome. And I just got to say, you're a month into your requirement, and you already have a spreadsheet and a work plan, I think. I think you're staging and worrying in the most complimentary way. You know, and, I mean, I, I it's beautiful. And I'm excited to, to be a part of it. And I'm grateful that we get to continue to collaborate together.

What kind of future are you helping to build and what's your role in it, do you think? Well, we talked about this earlier. I think the, the, the, the they're called truth and purpose learning tours. So that tour that I'm scheduling in March that that's a big part of it. And I think, it's the conversation I went to on this trip again in December, right after the election, I went back with Common Power to do another trip.

And it was really hard because right after the election and everyone was feeling really kind of defeated and all that and just I felt that's not where we were when we finished that trip. So there is there's something in the power of that experience and so there may be a bigger role for me with common power. I know that they're trying to expand their their reach beyond they're mostly Seattle based.

Some of their other folks are spread out like in other locations. But, they really want to grow this movement. And what's exciting for me about that is that, especially as a 65 year old retiree now, is there, you know, are I think they're training the next generation of foot soldiers, right, to continue this march.

Right. So I had the pleasure of meeting some of the original foot soldiers who may, you know, brought the civil Rights Act to fruition and whatnot. But but there's a whole new generation coming along, and it it it uplifts me and empowers me to know that they're there and they're actually being trained, right? They're not just like, you know, the people are very intentionally bringing them along.

And because we need them. So I want to be a part I want to be a part of creating the next generation of foot soldiers. Yeah, that that sounds like fun. That sounds very joyful. One lesson that you hope others carry forward from your journey, from what you've shared with us today, I think the one lesson would be, this takes time.

You know, I'm 65 years old. I've been, you know, I had my career for 40 years and all the stuff that I share with you, I feel, you know, I, I put this together over a really long time. Yeah. You know, it takes time. So to be patient, to realize that it's not it's not something you can, you can get in a course or a you know, you can, you know, it's just it's a process.

And I think that's the scariest part for people is that it's never going to be you're never going to be finished with this or be over. That's like one of my favorite shirts that I bought when I went to the South for the first time. As the march continues, like the march never ends, we always want it to end.

We always feel like, well, why haven't we? Like, why hasn't racism actually ended? And we'll be in this fight forever for the rest of our lives? So to realize that and to and but to not get exhausted by that and to take breaks, you know, take a day off, but especially as a white, you know, white people don't have a lot of stamina for this work.

We'll do it for a while, and then feel like, oh, I've done that. Or like we do. We have to keep talking about that. Really? Yeah. So is something that I'm constantly struggling with, like because I have the privilege that I can just stop doing this for a period of time and, and not have to really be focused on.

So I had to be really mindful of that as because I'm committed to all these are the things we've talked about. So but I can check out and I can drift away and I don't want that to happen. So so just something to be mindful of. But you know, to to, you know, give other people grace to realize not everybody's at the same place.

And but it's it's not a quick fix. No, it's, it's 100%. It's a, it's a long haul. And to have the self-compassion to know, you know, when you need to sage and when you're ready to warrior again. Feels like such an important aspect of of this learning process. And, you know, the two mantras I lean on the most daily are keep your faith and stay your course.

Yeah. Carry on. We could probably say a few things about how the dominant culture, makes it easy for us to check out, especially those of us who have a lot of privilege. Yeah, exactly. And that's something that I didn't. I didn't realize that for, you know, until much later in my life, I never really because we don't have to ever look at those things.

Right. We're the dominant culture. So yeah. So I'm just so grateful that that these are some of the things that I've learned that I, that I'm still learning. I mean, I just I know that, you know, every time I feel like, oh, I'm there, I get it. It's like you have to say, but you probably don't get it completely yet, so keep going.

More to keep looking into it, more to be revealed as we close out our conversation. Just a couple more questions. What's your message to others who are beginning to awaken to, to their own inner sage and inner warrior, their own, inner leader? I think it's what I said earlier about being patient and knowing that this is a long term process and, to, to be to also just to be gentle on yourself.

And, you know, sometimes I know I beat myself up a lot in the process and I've become better in not doing that. And, but, you know, seek people and resources that will continue to teach you and challenge you. You know, I just like you're excited that you've introduced me to Valerie. I feel like I've had different teachers in different phases of my life that I've, you know, like Alice Walker when I when my early days of activism, I read every single book that she had ever read because I felt like, wow, there's this woman that like, knows how to put, you know, things that I thoughts in my head.

She can put them on paper and the words are there and really helped me start to think about things that I knew were inside me, but I didn't know how to articulate them or what they were about. And you'll have different teachers through their time and, and, you know, know when it's time to find a new teacher and, and all that.

But again, it's like it's like lifelong learning. It's like that. We talk about that in colleges all the time. We're like lifelong learners. So to embrace that and and almost to like, you know, look forward to it and, you know, it's it's all part of like creating a meaningful life. And so that at the at the end of that life, you feel like I've had the I've had a really good journey and I put everything into it that I could and got the most out of it and left the world of, you know, better place, that sort of thing.

But the one thing I want to share is I've been, you know, I've, I loved listening to Coldplay. Uhhuh. Yeah. And I just recently discovered that's the incredible. It's on their rainbow album, and it's Maya Angelou. It's just an amazing. Her voice comes on, and she's someone who I. Who I just, you know, will read her work often, but there's,

And it's basically it's a song that talks about, clouds and rainbows, but she's it's her voice saying, I've had many clouds. But I've had many rainbows in my clouds. Which is something that I just keep repeating to myself over it because it's so true. I mean, you think about it and think about the tremendous clouds that some people have had in their life, right, right.

I mean, you think about slavery or the Holocaust or I mean, yeah, those clouds. Right. But somewhere and these are the stories that we all like. Wow. You know, when you hear these rainbow stories, we're just like, wow. So, it's just and I realize myself I've had many rainbows in my clouds.

What is one small calm thing you do or witness that reminds you we're made for these times.

For me I've had again, I've had the incredible privilege to have walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge twice now, and the last time I went, I was blown away because Charles Mauldin was on that trip, and Charles was the seventh individual, behind John Lewis the day of Bloody Sunday. And I spent a lot of time with, with Mr. Charles, as we call him in the South and most amazing man, a foot soldier who you've never heard about, like, he's not and you know, all the history books and he's not a Martin Luther King, but they're they're foot soldiers, like like like him.

That that really made a lot of what happened happen. And the women who organized the the bus boycotts and they weren't MLK or Rosa Parks, but the incredible army of foot soldiers and but, Mr. Charles asked me to walk with him across the bridge. And the he was the first, you know, I was walking next to him across the bridge the last time he wanted me to have that experience and how transformative that was.

So for me, I go back to walking across the bridge, literally in my mind, I'm there, I'm walking by, and I just remember what it felt to have that experience and to imagine the people that took that on and and made that walk and the experience that they had and the courage and the fire that they walked into.

Right. And that's the place I would take myself back to when I need to. Wow, that is so powerful. And remind me you've told me that story. How old was Mr. Charles when he did that? Charles was 17, but Joanne Bland was 11 years old, and she had already been arrested 13 times that day when she made that walk.

And she's another person that we've spent time with and her health isn't so great right now. So that generation won't be with us much longer. So another reason I like to take people and give is because you get to spend time with these individuals, but they won't be with us much longer.

And in closing thoughts that you want to share, I just want to say thank you express again I've, you know retiring I've been doing a lot of reflection and I, you know I got to share my mom's voice though, saying like why do you, why does this stuff have to mean so much to you? And, you know, why do you have to think about these things so much?

Because of her generation, right? Didn't really do much of that. But, I just appreciate the opportunity to do some additional thinking about this, and it helps me think about where I'm, where I'm going with it and, and what my future might look like and, and how I may continue to be involved in the community. Well, I'm so grateful that we get to continue our journey together, that you're using your retirement to, integrate and activate your passion for the beloved community and help us all find beloved community right here where we are, because it's it is here.

It's it's just we've been conditioned to see other things or just be distracted by other things. But, beloved community is here that if there's anything right now that I can say definitively what my future will be, it will be living and cultivating that beloved community. And if nothing else, right. That's, because, you know, I had that experience in the project and just it showed up for me.

And it's from beginning to end. And I think, like, especially now, we really I mean, a beloved community is such a place that you're will you're just willing to do anything for the people in that community right here, right? Because you care about them so much. I remember when the first pilgrimage I went on, by the end of the trip, all the young black people on the trip were calling me Uncle Jay.

And, oh, my God, that just blew me, because I just felt like I never felt like I belonged so deep in, you know, in my life, you know, it was like. And I. And they treated me as an elder. I wasn't like, what? That was a few years ago, but still. But there's a and within that beloved community, there's a place for everyone, right?

Everyone is valued and respected and revered in such a way that you would be willing to fight to the end for that. With those people, right? Yeah. It's a beautiful thing to be so embraced. Yeah. Think belonging. Yeah, yeah. And Jade, thank you so so so much. Really. This is our first conversation in what we hope is a series.

And this was wonderful. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the work that you do.

So folks, thanks for listening. We're grateful that you've joined us in community today. And that you believe, just like we do, in the importance of building belonging, resilience and justice in this region. We know it will have ripple effects across the state and across the country and around the world. So your presence is really meaningful and we're very grateful for it.

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Thanks for starting here.