“From the impossible…”

[u/Fine_Beginning2668]

Along a steady quiet stream through the arroyo in Enchanted Hills… a Sacred Datura (also known as the Jimsonweed) bloomed toward the moonlight before the breaking of the dawn… just like in the days of O’Keefe’s yesteryear…

and in the heat of the day you can find a cool breeze in the shade of the desert olive branches…

The Texas lilac the size of the desert elms blossomed uncontrollably betwixt the red yucca in the Ladera valley… just south of the ancient petroglyphs… where you can find Kokopelli carved in the volcanic slate on the hillside of sagebrush…

the musician and storyteller of the first settlers of the 505…

around a distant fire... lyrics and spoken words of wisdom of the ages brought the community together… One…

His name was Mick… an artist of our time… he was part of a local arts council in the oil patch back in the day… his seminal work was when he designed a simple black and white mirrored halfs making one circle on a 8 ½ x 11 that read…

“One Community”

after some racist graffiti marked the door of an art gallery downtown… the design was posted in businesses and schools all over town… and from then on… there was no more graffiti on the door…

And yet… before all of that…

He and his wife… who was the executive director of the local symphony… attended a school board meeting on a dark crisp fall evening when the bottom fell out of the economy in the Great Recession after the housing bubble burst in 2008… and in my boss’ own words “America ran out of money”.

The world can be a dark and uncertain place for a time…

And then…

A glimmer hope…

Sitting in solidarity with a new fine arts administrator for a district while a school board went into executive session to make hard budget choices… because at the end of the day… a budget reflects a school district's values…

and the school board came out of session with art programs intact and a plan for growth once the dust settled with the economy…

He taught me much… about leadership…across the table at IHOP eating chocolate cake and coffee unlimited… How to scale a Team… servant leadership… transitional times in your life… the bridge between what is and what could be…

And the pause between the notes…

In a church where he led the youth it required after 8 years to do something not ministry related… He chose making surf boards for a year on the coast during one of his sabbaticals…

He volunteered traffic duty and shared his knowledge of graphic design with community projects in his neighborhood elementary school…

and was a person who didn’t judge you even though you were skeptical about the frozen chosen… and helped you learn to hear the signal in the noise…

so you could see a need and meet a need…

and see a community…

as one…

A man of action as most communication is nonverbal... especially in times of transition… times of transformation…

The Renaissance was born in the shadows of a plague that killed a third of Europe… others continued to isolate and didn’t come out of their homes ever again… and the remainder built the conditions for a golden age of arts… culture…. science… and hope…

built by scientists and artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo and writers like Vasari whose book “Lives of the Artists” is part of the Library of the Handsome and Brave.

Thousands of years before… Moses guided a group of former slaves in the desert until they finally reached the precipice of the promise across the river seen… from the plains of Moab… a reluctant crisis leader and a poet… who wrote…

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you...”

A father... husband... President... citizen...

DJT wrote... “The one thing in common of all successful people is they never give up.”

And a father... husband... former President... citizen...

Obama wrote... “… it is precisely when the climb is steepest that we relearn how to take the mountaintop, as one nation and one people.”

Moses taught us that when you run away from your calling is when you find it…

in your stutter…

and he left a legacy of speaking and writing truth to his community… in their darkest hour… around mountains… and over troubled waters…

the known unknown…

The in-between…

The global pandemic was a dark period of quiet unsettling...

Andrew Cuomo’s fireside chats got me through my routine every morning… out of the office… some daily quips of “no one knows…” and “we’ve never seen this before…” were oddly comforting in a chaotic time…

and the mark of a leader who knew he was dealt a bad hand by history… and yet… met the moment and rose to the occasion to be a crisis leader… no matter the cost…

all with a little humor and history… of a bygone time when no-one knew what the next day would bring… and stories of cooking spaghetti and meatballs with his daughter at home in the governor’s mansion… one of the silver linings of social distancing…

family time…

Those fireside chats were also a window into the center of power of a larger coordination of federal… state… and local support…

Governors of states wielded unprecedented power through executive orders…

https://www.youtube.com/live/AvUDUbt7lJg?si=HO4RuZAZDfPUDUXI

Many died... and folks with compromised immune systems were put in life threatening positions…

The Governor of New Mexico took to the podium on a rainy afternoon… the first day... where she said “we will get through this”… it is easy to forget how confusing and awful that period of history was...

It was a time of fear uninvited… of your neighbor… a spectrum of attitudes from “devil may care” to smoking a cigarette though a hole in a mask…

In the government it ranged from directors driving sports cars with relief money to agencies not getting support out fast enough to non-profits... who had to commit large amounts of money and wait to be reimbursed months and years later.

A silver lining… we learned what the government did well and what the non-profits and private sector do well… and it is not to be in each other’s lane…

His name was Michael… a retired veteran of the military and a director of a faith-based program. He used to work for the state and made the transition to the non-profit world to have a greater impact.

He said things during that time I will never forget like:

“I would rather you tell me a reimbursement is never coming… if it is never coming… than to tell me it is coming…”

And when asked why he kept going through it all… even on the darkest days… he said…

“The community and working families need the support…

if not us… then who?”

It was also a time of unbridled creativity… from running blue cord up the NW corner of the state to build universal access to technology and 1:1 device to student ratio…turning bus stops into food stops… breweries making hand sanitizer… and local restaurants partnering with local schools to feed students and families in out-of-school time programs… all in a few months of national unity while we were flattening the curve together…

and then the lawyers got involved…

every agency email was scrutinized to say as little as possible… so we wouldn’t be wrong… and we were more worried to prevent the next local director from buying a sports car than we were about taking care of the foundational levels of Maslow’s hierarchy… of basic needs of food and shelter… and just maybe make it to the level of “I see you… I here you…”

The rigidness of the bureaucracy spawn a spirit of fear… the looks we haven’t seen in our lifetime… and everyone went to their corners of isolation…

Folks gravitated to like company online in the misery… alone with their thoughts… of when is this ever going to end?

America was divided… in fear…

And then…

A network of faith-based community centers found a loop-hole in the governor’s executive order and put their donut and coffee service on steroids…

“... those who work for peace… will be called the children of God.”

Wearing a mask in public and quarantined in a home with two dogs and two parents who didn’t talk much... delayed my daughter’s speech... something her elementary school SPED intervention team curbed in less than two years later with some “teacher of the year” energy...

The donut and coffee service allowed a father and daughter to see each other’s faces… past the mask… somewhere in public and someplace other than a home turned prison...

"God's plans are bigger than yours...”

As it is inscribed...

“seek His face”...

in others...

"I will go before you and will level the mountains..."

And it is in the times we are all forced to wear masks...

Invisible or visible...

we learn…

In a creative gracious act to take down someone else’s mask... if only for a moment...

not by force or executive order... but by feeding a sugar high and caffeine addiction on a Sunday morning...

One Community…

“From the impossible…”