the newsletter of the Boothby Institute

Using Children as Pawns

In 1978, the City of Cleveland Public Schools were in terrible condition academically, staff and student morale were low and finances lower. The City was about to default on millions of dollars in loans to The Cleveland Trust Company. If the default occurred, the school system would be bankrupt and have to be taken over by the State of Ohio. Most of the ultimate damage would fall on the heads of the students in those schools. Dennis Kucinich was Mayor of Cleveland, an avowed socilist who wanted to make big business and its most visible target, Cleveland Trust, responsible for the crisis in the school’s finances. “If only they would be reasonable,” The Mayor would say. Brock Weir was CEO of Cleveland Trust and made no bones about not liking Kucunich, who he saw as a danger to the country, let alone the city.

It seemed to me that there must be a way around this colossal “make wrong festival” that would cause so much chaos in the lives of the children. Jon Hardesty was a top Kucinich aid and longtime friend. We made a deal to hold a meeting with key Cleveland Trust people and Kucinich staffers to see if we could stave of the default. The meeting was scheduled for a week before the default and Fred Cox, Vice Chairman of Cleveland Trust, a couple of other courageous Board Members of Cleveland Trust and all of the top Kucinich people had agreed to meet and I knew we could find a solution. Obviously Weir and Kucinich were not included, though they certainly knew about the meeting.

About 3:30 the afternoon of the meeting, Brock Weir called my office. I don’t think he ever called me directly before or after that day.

“Cumming, did you organize this meeting tonight with those Kucinich idiots to talk about a solution to this school mess?” He was furious.

“Yes, Sir, I did.”

“What? Do you really think I am that stupid that I couldn’t have solved this problem myself if I wanted to?” “Cancel that F@%&*^$ meeting!!!!”

“But, Sir…..”

“You have two choices. Cancel the meeting or I’ll cancel the meeting and you’re fired!!!”

“I want the schools to go down and I want that A#$^&*@ Kucinich to take the heat for it. I don’t ever want him elected to any office, ever again.”

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The lives of tens of thousands of students were dramatically effected in that instant. Those lives were clearly not as important as being right. Dennis Kucinich is now a long standing member of the House of Representatives and founding sponsor of one of the brightest pieces of legislation in the history of government. If we want peace in the world, as much if not more, we need a Department of Peace as well as a Department of Defense. The Department of Peace is Dennis Kucinich’s idea.

A few months later, I was asked to become the Director of Development for what was known as The Hunger Project, an idea of Buckminster Fuller’s and promoted by John Denver, Werner Erhard and Harry Chapin. After much consideration,I took that job. Unexpectedly, shortly after taking that job, I was back to raising the children by myself and realized within a couple of weeks that I could not continue to raise my chiildren and manage that job.

The children and I took ten days to drive back from California and just get settled into the reality of our threeness, once again. It was shortly thereafter that almost everything I thought I understood about the way the world worked was turned upside down. For the previous seventeen years, I had done things that I hoped were useful to the planet.

The day of and those following Joy being raped are a combination of things I remember doing mostly as a review of history, rather than being as if I remember doing them. The call to police, the trip to the hospital. The procedures. I remember feeling deep gratitude to Lynn Hammond for her guidance as we founded the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center five years earlier. What I remember most were loving Joy and realizing I had “failed to protect her.” White rage consumed me. I remember feeling things I had never felt, the desire to kill, the desire to hurt. It would be months before I would see the connection to my having “failed.” Joy was going to be OK, she assured me!

Once I was sure that was true, I think I began to breathe again. It was probably a week before I took a full breath. So here I was, having done things I thought useful, confronted with a crisis, wanting to do damage. I had believed I could choose not to be violent. I did not think myself capable of white rage.

As the days went on, the children and I realized we really wanted to go back to Maine for a month, just for us. We had spent weeks in the summer in Maine in previous years and the idea struck all of us a perfect. Jim and Rosemary Word had a cottage on Spruce Mountain with no running water nor electricity which they generously donated to the cause. We bathed in the pond in town and hauled water in jugs from the spring by the main road. We rebuilt an old Honda 90 motorcycle, ended up with three extra parts, but the thing ran anyway. The children were genuinely nice to each other. It was clear that healing was in order.

By that time, I had figured out that my rage made me just like the rapist, rape being a crime of violence, not sexuality. I listened and listened as I worked to put meaning around what I had so abruptly discovered, that the capacity for everything resides in us all. I made a commitment to the children to move back to Maine and not move again until they were finished with school. That commitment was kept and I began to see what I could do to water what was good in people, to increase the number of people well enough not to damage others.

Lessons learned along the way:

• The impersonality of corporations/institutions often makes it easier to sacrifice the lives of people.
• Good intentions do not guarantee results.
• Choosing which battles are worth getting thrown out of the game over is important.
• Raising children is the most important, rewarding, challenging thing I have ever done. No career could ever take its place.
• You cannot protect anyone.
• Everyone is vulnerable.
• It is always important to be grateful for breathing.
• Age has nothing to do with courage.
• You only think you know what you would do.
• Nothing is more important nor more powerful than loving kindness.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

One of my favorite movies. That probably tells you a great deal right from the beginning. Given the nature of the world, who is it that should be locked up, who set free?

“Anyone who would question his killing (of Osama Bin Laden) needs to have their head examined.”

Barack Obama.

Set me up for the exam. There is obviously no way anyone not there can know if the death of Bin Laden was unavoidable. That isn’t the question. Given the presumed logic of The President’s quote, anyone who has committed such atrocities, should be put to death. Period. Who voted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How many slaves died because they volunteered to be indentured for the fun of it? Which Native American tribe shall we put in charge of monitoring justice and penalties for the rape of their land and their people?

The taking of a life as a solution to a problem confuses the value of a being and the behavior of that being. That is what Albert Boothby wanted me to understand when, after his wife Alice was run off the road by the KKK and upon hearing it, I said, “I hate Bigots!” Albert wheeled around at me and said, “That would make youth problem. We must learn to love the bigot and hate the action.”

The cheering over the death of anyone allows us to explore first hand our own fear and insecurity, let alone enraging a new generation of terrorists ready to shout, “So take that!” God did not say, “Love the ones who think like you.” She said, “Love your enemy as I love you!”

How does it look like doing more of the same is working? How about a hundred year experiment with loving-kindness? “Now that guy must be crazy!”

[More...]

Bill In London, May 14 & 15; From Chris Morris’ Website

The transformative power of loving kindness

Loving kindness is at the heart of everything Bill Cumming does. Whether he’s working with business leaders or homeless people, Fortune 100 companies or the state prison system, loving kindness is his key.

This one-off weekend workshop will be about experiencing and exploring the powerful nature of unconditional loving kindness. We intend it to be a transformative, life-affirming weekend.

How you show up in the world is the foundation for everything you experience. Whether you want to transform your own life or bring a new clarity to others, loving kindness will open the way.

We encourage you to bring your own challenges – personal, business, political… you decide – and use Bill’s ‘problem solving matrix’ to get a new, deep, real perspective on any issue.

When Michael Neill (bestselling author of Supercoach) heard that Bill was coming to London, he shared this insight:

There are times in everyone’s life when we ask ourselves if our work is worthwhile and if we’ll ever make a real and tangible difference in the world. Ten years ago, I heard about the work of Bill Cumming and I worked with him every week for the next 2 1/2 years. His influence on my coaching and on my life continues unabated. If you ever get the chance to spend any time at all with Bill, do whatever it takes. You will be struck by the man, by his message, and by the reality of your own potential to change the world. – Michael Neill

As well as the two day workshop, you’ll receive an MP3 recording with suggested exercises you can do before we meet. There will also be a post-workshop phone call and a meet-up later in the summer (perhaps a picnic) to regroup and discuss our experiences. So while the weekend experience with Bill is the core offering, there will be more for us to develop and explore together.

Bill Cumming’s work focuses on creating inspired environments where individuals take responsibility for their lives and the organisations for which they work. A former English teacher, he has also pioneered educational and wellbeing programs that have been run in major companies and institutions across America. He is a coaching veteran with 30 years experience working with many people, from the CEOs of multi-million dollar businesses to people in schools and prisons.

I promote events like this because I want to make them happen. It’s not a profit-making venture for me but naturally I have to cover my costs.

If you’re committed to learning and truly cannot afford £250, please call me personally to discuss how else you could contribute.

Book online or call 0207 043 0543

Chris Morris works with a variety of organizations. Events are run through Chris Morris Limited, registered in the UK. Tel: 0207 043 0543.

OWNERSHIP FROM INDIVIDUAL TO INSTITUTION

Leaving Hawken School was not an easy decision. The school was well on its way to being on strong financial footing and the temptation to stay in a familiar, comfortable place was overwhelming. However, working with boards of directors involved with the YMCA and Hawken School had opened my eyes to a tremendous unmet need regarding non-profit organizations.

Non-profits are managed by CEO’s, Presidents, Headmasters or Executive Directors when it comes to the day to day operations of the organizations. However, the ultimate responsibility for fiscal and policy matters resides within the Board of Trustees. Board members of these organizations had, until the early sixties been primarily made up of retired corporate executives and an occasional woman of privilege who had the time to devote to these “good causes.”The only I knew of calling for a different level of “board responsibility” were Henry Sherrill and Bob Greenleaf with their individual and collective notions of “Trustees as Servants.”

As non-profits proliferated and took on increasingly large national and global initiatives, they began to seek current business leaders as board members and boards began to rise to an appropriate level of ownership and responsibility. Unfortunately, it would be a long time before the homogenious (primarily white, anglo-saxon, protestant, male) nature of boards would include other races, religions and an appropriate number of female participants.

There were a set of unwritten attitudes among many boards.

“These people are doing good work, we shouldn’t ask too much of or be too hard on them.”

“They’ll get it done when they can, there are so many needs to be met.”

“You can’t expect people who work for so little money to be really effective.”

“The Board just meets every so often to make sure everything is going OK.”

“The really rich board members will take care of the finances of the school.”

In the weeks just before and after my decision to leave Hawken, I had been working on a training seminar call “Trustee Effectiveness Training©” which was designed to give new board members and seasoned veterans the opportunity to align on a set of operation principles and procedures that would allow the institution to operate much more effectively. It was designed to clarify the difference between policy and administration. For example in a college setting, given the conditions in the world today, the college pursuing a foreign exchange or year aboard program for its students is board policy. The administration is responsible for the running of the program, training of staff, logistics, safety and all other matters that relate to the program.

During the process of development of these “Trustee Effectiveness Programs” I met, came to know and love dearly, my second profound set of mentors, Dr. and Mrs. Leland Schubert (Leland and Helen). Helen’s Grandfather had be Secretary, Treasurer of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing(3M) at its founding. Leland had a distinguished crier as a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University in Athens, Ohio. Upon Leland’s retirement, they came back to Cleveland and began the process of giving away as much of their accumulated wealth as possible before they passed away. They had endowed their three sons with ongoing support and the family in general were aligned on doing what they could to contribute constructively to the world. For a period of a few years, I had the privilege of assisting in that process.

The Schuberts were exceptional people. Humble (not that Leland didn’t have his points of view), hard working and incredibly creative when it came to giving money. When I first met them, they drove an eight year old Oldsmobile because it had low mileage, worked perfectly and was quite reasonable to drive. When Carl Stokes was elected the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city, Leland made several attempts to meet with the new Mayor. On his sixth visit, he was successful and proceeded to give the Mayor a check for one million dollars because the Schuberts didn’t want the first Black Mayor of a major city to struggle for discretionary funds. No one knew about that gift because as was usually the case, the Schuberts had requested anonymity. I came to know that if there was a new or controversial new project somewhere and a good sized anonymous gift, it might well be the Schuberts.

As Leland and Helen got on in years, they occasionally asked me to be their legs and ears, researching potential grantees.In one particular case, they had contributed a hundred thousand dollars to an all Black college, in an attempt to support the school in becoming more financially secure. The college had been turned down by the Department of Education for a Grant to Black Colleges. Leland asked me to go meet with the college President and see if we could be of any help in that process. The grant application had been handled carelessly and, though well over three hundred pages in length, was vague about the specific objectives designed to strengthen the academic and administrative activities of the college.

Working with the President and key faculty, we rewrote the grant so that there were clear goals and specific measurable objectives regarding everything from trustee governance to administrative team responsibilities, while reducing the size of the grant to just over sixty pages. The grant was subsequently approved and prior to its final acceptance, the Department of Education wanted to meet with representatives of the college for a final review.

At the President’s request, I joined them in Washington where we met with an Under Secretary of Education in a corner office, who said that the application was a terrific improvement, clear, concise and responsive. He then added that it needed some “added weight.” I asked him what he meant, since his evaluation had been clearly positive. He said, “Weight, pages, pounds; it needs a ‘thud factor.’ It will be judged as not significant enough unless it has more pages. ” I could not believe my ears. A senior government official was asking us to add pages to give the impression that the grant was more significant. With great effort, I kept my mouth shut so as to not jeopardize the college’s receipt of the grant. We added some appendices and about a week later I travelled to the college to meet with the President regarding implementation of plans as outlined in the grant.

“We don’t want you to do any of that. We may never do any of that. We just want you to introduce us to more of your wealthy friends in Cleveland, for which we are willing to pay you.” I excused myself from the meeting and asked if there was a phone I could use. Able to reach Leland directly, he told me to leave immediately and come home. That was the last contribution Leland and Helen made to that college. It had been there intention to match the government’s one million dollars at the rate of two hundred-fifty thousand dollars a year. Clearly, no longer.

During this same period, I was doing the Trustee Effectiveness Workshop with various NPOs: The Junior League of America adapted it as their training program for all members, The Cleveland Rape Crisis center, The Galveston Historical Society, The Cleveland Institute of Music and the Akron Chamber of Commerce.At least once a month, the Schuberts would invite me to lunch at The Union Club, a prestigious, highly segregated club for the elite citizens of the greater Cleveland area. In order to join us, Helen had to walk around the building to the Ladies Entrance and because we were then a mixed group, we eat in the Ladies Dining Room.

Milton Schlesinger, the Father of Mike, a great Hawken teacher, became the first Jewish member. It was 1976 and I was astounded that the Schuberts would participate in such an archaic tradition. They assured me they were working on it and pointed out that they couldn’t do that from the outside. They said it was better to be where the decisions were being made than in the street.

The lunches were spectacular. We looked at problems right in our back yards and around the world, looking for solutions and shared recent observations and ideas. The City of Cleveland was at a pretty low ebb. It took the brunt of late night talk show jokes, being alternately referred to as, “the mistake on the lake” or home of the “fire river.” The Cuyahoga River, which runs through the downtown area, had burned a few years earlier. Cleveland is now and has always been a great city, full of cultural and recreational resources. Like many urban areas of the north, however, is was a model of defacto segregation. Most schools and neighborhoods were one color or another. If it had not been for Bert Gardiner and a few others who could move between angry inner city residents and the corporate community, Cleveland would have burned as many cities did in the 70s.

By this time Dennis Kucinich was Mayor of Cleveland and one of his goals was to undermine and embarrass the business community. He believed that capitalistic greed had created most of the problems in the city and the country as a whole. He certainly wasn’t completely wrong and his rhetoric contributed to an unstable environment. ( An aside here. In my opinion, Dennis has proposed one of the most important ideas in the twentieth century. He suggests that if we want peace we create a Department of Peace as a Cabinet level department in the White House, that would look for non-military strategies to bring about peace in the world.)

At one of our Schubert lunches, I proposed that we write to the then CEO of Cleveland Trust (later to become Key Bank), Brock Weir, that we train the top six hundred officers within Cleveland Trust (CT) and offer those trained to non profits in any of the 138 communities where there were CT branches. Not only would the NPOs be strengthened, contribution dollars could have more impact and the bank’s image might be improved. I wrote the letter and much to everyone’s surprise, Weir said yes.

I reported to Bob Miller, a brilliant marketer, one of the original Dee Hock team who created the VISA brand, now the President of The Generation Foundation which incubates ideas from the academic community in Cuyahoga County and a dear friend. As a function of the community outreach, we discovered a disturbing pattern of red-lining in inner city areas and began an aggressive program of lending in those areas. What had started out as good for the non-profits, turned out to be even more important to the bank itself, as it did rise to the occasion and dramatically improve its service in all areas to inner city customers, thus putting CT way ahead of its competition when the Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1979 allowing it to grow and buy banks while others struggled with compliance.

We’ll leave the last chapter of the Cleveland Trust story until next time.

Lessons learned along the way:

• Taking responsibility for an institution means owning everything that is good and not-so-good about an organization.
• Unfortunately, having money and having achieved visible success in the world doesn’t necessarily translate to character development.
• The way we are being with one and other is often more important than what we do.
• Providing services to people you do not respect, gives them a reminder of what they have not yet achieved.
• If well people ran more social service agencies, they would, in all likelihood, be dramatically more effective.
• A person’s position has nothing to do with the magnitude of their contribution.
• If we do not learn to respect and and value those who disagree with us, our democracy may be in danger.
• Possibility is directly connected to ownership and responsibility.
• I have been blessed by so many mentors and friends of amazing quality.

[More...]

A SIXTH GRADER WISHES FOR THE WORLD

Journal of Emma Khorassani, a sixth grade student from California, written to respond to a teacher’s question, “If you could wish for anything, what would it be?”

For my family to be safe. I would want this because I care for my family and I would want them to always be safe from harm.

For the wars to end. I would like the wars to end, especially for the holidays, because not every family gets to celebrate the holidays with peace, happiness and no tears.

For my family to be healthy. I would like my family to be healthy so they can live a long happy life.

For friendship in the world. I would like friendship in this world so everyone will have company and they won’t be lonely.

For less greed. For less greed in the world, we can benefit more happiness to or for the poor people. This will touch their heart, and yours for this act of kindness.

For helpfulness. If everyone were to help with one small thing, the less problems there would be, and that is what I would like.

For caring for others. I wish that people could care for others no matter how they look or act so we could have more peace.

For love for animals. I wish that everyone could also care for animals so all animals would have a good home so they are not abused.

For everyone to appreciate. I wish everyone to appreciate what they have because not everyone has as much as you, for example in Africa.

For me to get good grades. I wish I can get good grades so I can go to a good college so I can have a good education.

Isn’t it interesting, that except for wanting to do well in school, there is nothing here other than a concern for those who are in need, lonely, hungry or abused. The instruction was to think deeply. It is my profound hope that we can do as well!

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

Over the past few months, I have been writing about the things that shaped my work and the work of The Boothby Institute and we will resume that process again next month. The events in the world cause me to believe we have some immediate situations that require our involvement.

Given the situations in the United States and around the world at the moment, I would ask you to consider some questions and perhaps some actions regarding those situations. Last month I began to talk about the problems in institutions when a board of directors does not have a clear vision of its responsibility for an organization. In a non-profit organization, the group physically responsible is the board of directors. In a democracy, it is the electorate which elects officials and is responsible for their performance.

We are in the midst of a critical test for our democracy. We have weathered storms before and never before have we known so much and chosen to ignore what we know. In Great Britain, with all of their cuts and austerity, budgets for the poorest and sickest people in the world have been increased.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have enough; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Jimmy Carter said that the world cannot live one-third rich and two-thirds poor, as is the situation now. The uprisings in the Middle East are about the rich stealing from the poor. It seems to me that Emma’s priorities are in better shape than most of ours.

There is debate in the U.S. House and Senate about what to cut.

What are the criteria?

Who establishes the priorities?

Does it always come down to those without a voice?

What kind of a world do we really want to create?

“Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, try the following expedient: Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless man you have ever seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him (or her)…. Then you will find yourself melting away.

-Mohandas K. Gandhi

Is it clear that the world is made up of all its people?

Violence will not stop unless all the people are fed and cared for.

A LETTER FROM A DEAR FRIEND

I ask you to consider the letter I received from one of my dear friends and a classmate in college.

To Whom It May Concern:

As I read the targets of the proposed budget cuts, I am forced to ask, “Where am I in all this?” As a 64-year old, employed, comfortably but not luxuriously situated, white male without children, I am neither the beneficiary of the proposed tax breaks for the wealthy, nor will I suffer (directly, anyway) the cuts aimed at the poor, the young, and the vulnerable. I feel strangely guilty.

I am staggered that so many newly-elected officials, many of them claiming to speak for conservative and deeply religious constituents, can so calmly contemplate such severe privations visited upon veterans, children in schools, college students, teachers, medical researchers…the list goes on and on.

The words of the prophet Amos are all too apt for today:

“For crime after crime…I will grant them no reprieve, because they sell the innocent for silver and the destitute for a pair of shoes. They grind the heads of the poor into the earth and thrust the humble out of their way” (Amos 2: 6,7).

A nation which balances a budget exclusively on the backs of the weakest able to endure it is storing up misery for this society and shame for its lawmakers. May God grant wisdom and a change of heart to every member of this session of Congress.

Sincerely,

Eric Linder

Whether you are moved by Emma’s list or Eric’s letter, see where you stand and see if you are willing to do something about it.

With all my love and every blessing!

Namaste!

Bill

LOVING ABSOLUTELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY

What might happen if we took seriously the idea of loving each person absolutely and unconditionally? At the very least a few more people would do less harm to themselves and others. Perhaps damage in general would decrease. I’ll bet one thing would happen for sure. Every person who decided to undertake this little challenge would feel better every single time they added one more soul to the roster of those loved absolutely and unconditionally. Who wants to play?

FOURTH CLASS CITIZENS AND A COMMUNIST PLOT

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In the spring of 1969, the State YMCA of Maine offered me a job as Executive Director of a rural District YMCA in Aroostook County, the northern most county in Maine, six hours from the Maine/New Hampshire. Actually, they recruited me based on the relationship I had developed with our local YMCA Director in Camden,  Lloyd Snapp. Lloyd knew that the situation in the schools had a strong impact on me and he believed in the things we were attempting to accomplish. Read More …

ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE, THE LEARNING CONTINUES, HUMILITY AT THE FOREFRONT

The year was 1968 and it was our fourth summer working at Upward Bound. The program had now moved to the Greensboro campus of The University of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College, an institution primarily designed for people of color not pursuing a traditional college education. (Negro colleges themselves were unique institutions with their own set of challenges to be later discussed.)

That summer was hot in terms well beyond the thermostat. There was no air-conditioning and the darkroom we used in the basement of one of the buildings was usually over ninety-five degrees, adding a new chemical to the stop baths for film and prints, our own sweat. During the last few weeks of the program, Greensboro had begun to experience an increase in violence from whites and blacks. A brick was thrown through the window in the faculty apartment where we were staying and landed a few feet from the crib where Neville, just a year old, was sleeping. It was the event that allowed me to see that there was a dramatic difference between putting myself at risk and putting my young family in harms way. Read more …

Blessings Of The Season

Make yourselves a spectacular
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
whatever your celebration of the miracle of life might be!
And use the proper name for the event, remembering that others’
traditions are as valuable as yours.

Namaste!

Bill

In addition, I would like to share this special commentary:

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS
Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it
does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful
lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees… I don’t feel threatened..
I don’t feel discriminated against.. That’s what they are, Christmas
trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me.
I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a
ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all
brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t
bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key
intersection near my beach house in Malibu .. If people want a
creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred
yards away. Read more …

You Don’t Know Sha-na-ne and I Love You!

(The First in a Series of Incidents that Came to Shape a Life)

Fifty years ago, I thought exactly that way. I grew up in a home where words like nigger and spick, kike and Heb were used. Not often and enough. Every time I heard the words, I cringed. I didn’t know exactly why and I knew nothing was innately true about an entire group of people. I knew those words were wrong.

There weren’t any people of color in Simsbury, Connecticut that I remember from 1952 until 1960. It may be that there were people of color and I had never seen them; it might be that in those days I could not have seen them under any conditions. Often, I was dropped at the YMCA in Hartford for a Saturday morning because both my parents worked. There were kids of color in the pool were we swam and I remember thinking, well one thing is for sure, the color doesn’t come off. At least not that I could tell. I didn’t tell my parents because I figured there were probably lots of places not nearly as much fun as the “Y” I might end up.  Read more…

One More Thing

About God

Since I began this work more than forty years ago, I have assiduously avoided any conversation about God or any stand in relationship to my feelings in that regard. My belief was that each person has their own beliefs and that was all there was to it. All of that notwithstanding, I have approached this work as if God/Allah/Buddha had said this is what I want you to do. The events of this past week have caused me to completely reverse this position and it is my intention that what I am about to say will be a contribution and not more fuel for the fire.
Read more…

Value and Worth in the World; the Economic and Human Costs

Oct 27, 1858, Roland Macy opened Macy’s Department Store in New York City. It was Macy’s eighth business venture — the other seven failed.

So, R.H. Macy became valuable and worth something when he was a “success?”

We often hear people talk about what they earned. What they achieved. What they produced. I wonder what another person, any other person, given the same circumstances, might have produced?
Read more…

Advanced Empathy – Experiencing Someone Else’s Pain on Their Behalf?

What I realised during the past week whilst attending the ‘Coaching Happiness’ course with Dr. Robert Holden is that the majority of the participants do not experience themselves as loved unconditionally or experience their value and worth in the world as a given. It amazed me that so many people professionals that are out there assisting others (and doing a fab job a lot of the time) do not have those two basic assumption, understandings/experiences.
Read more…

Nothing New Under the Sun Does Not Equal Nothing Important

“Each and every hour make up your mind…. to accomplish the matter presently at hand with genuine seriousness, loving care, independence and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do if you perform every action in your life as if it were your last, putting aside all your wayward impulses and emotional resistance to the choices of reason, and all pretense, selfishness and discontent with what has been allotted to you. See how few are the things which a person needs to master in order to live a tranquil and godly existence. The gods ask nothing more of us.”
Read more…

Non-Monetary Assistance Requested; The Future of Our Children’s Lives May Depend On It

We have failed miserably it communicating to school committees and superintendents of school on a national and international level. The Gates Foundation won’t answer our letters. Probably because we don’t want any money.

Of the proposals that are being suggested at a national level for school reform, most have to do with content. Yes, let’s have agreed upon outcomes and make sure everyone teaching is on the path. Let’s do tests with students at the beginning of each year to see where students stand and at the end to see what has been accomplished. Both good ideas.
Read more…

5 Charged in Gang Rape of Girl, 7, in NJ Apartment

TRENTON, N.J. – Two men and three teenage boys were charged Saturday with gang-raping a 7-year-old girl who was sold by her 15-year-old stepsister during a party at a crime-ridden apartment building in the state’s capital, police said.

Details of the arrests were announced at a Saturday evening news conference outside police headquarters. Police Director Irving Bradley said detectives had been working around the clock since the crime was reported March 28.
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Life by Me

This week a wonderful woman named Sophie Chiche asked me to write 400 words on what I would say to the world if I had the chance. I did and Sophie accepted it for a book to be published soon which I think will be very interesting. It includes others you may know a bit better than me.

There are two things that make up the essence of most of my communication and my life: loving people and allowing them to know that they are powerful enough in any moment to take charge of their lives. It is my experience that once people know that they are truly loved and that their worth and value are a given, that they begin to be good to themselves and others naturally. If you are reading this it means that at least one person loves you, whether I have met you or not!
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Media and Choice

(Using television and movies as a vehicle for allowing young people to be able to discern value and substance.)

When the children were little, even though we owned only a small black and white television, they became aware of the media, mostly through contact with it and exposure to it through friends and neighbors. After a while they began to ask to be able to watch certain programs that appealed to their age group. The request that really got my attention was for the Dukes of Hazard, an adolescent adventure show with fast cars and hot pants (called Daisy Dukes). Having watched about fifteen minutes of the show and determining that it had no social redeeming factors and actually encouraged disrespect for women in general and the law, I could see no reason to bring it into the house.
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Internal Knowing

Every month, as I sit down to write something I hope will be useful to our readers, I look to see what seems most important or has caught my attention relative to supporting people in creating lives of value and purpose. Recently, I have been working with a variety of people from all corners of world, yet the issues seem to have a common thread that is important and worth looking at carefully.

These are bright people, who have worked at being awake, alive and constructive in relationship to life. Yet given all they know, they continue to skirt the arena of well-being without coming to embrace it completely. They put themselves in situations that create chaos. They speak ill of others. They judge and evaluate. They don’t take time to do self-care. They watch television and read articles that promote values that are use oriented and/or designed to denigrate other human beings.
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Attention to the Obvious: Make Yourself the Gift of Loving-Kindness

The process of surgery and recovery from it creates a unique opportunity for introspection and growth. It is probably the same phenomenon that causes us to say some of the following.

“Why does it always take the death of a friend for us to realize that life is precious?”

“Why can’t people act like this all the time, not just when there is a national disaster?”

“Why is it that we don’t really appreciate something like water or heat until they are no longer available?”

The answer in every case is that we are primarily unconscious in our passage through life.
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Understanding a Person, Understanding a Contribution

As a young child I realized somehow that maybe I was a little different from the norm in that I was a sensitive little boy who needed love and kindness all of the time. While all children need this, I was lucky enough to receive it from my parents, although I did not think that at the time. I spent time trying to assist others to be as happy, even though I wasn’t happy myself. That seems quite mad doesn’t it, but actually it’s a good way of explaining how I felt on the outside and also on the hidden inside. We start off our wonderful journeys in life with the same beginnings, someone cuts the cord and off we go!!!
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The Critical Factor in Inspired Environments

One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us, but still one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy? I do not think so. And then one asks: My God! Is it for long, is it forever, is it for eternity? Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is very deep, serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by supreme power, by some magic force.
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School, Work and Home

The development of a sense of ownership is critical in every environment. People who have a sense of ownership tend to be excited and inspired about what they do. We have discussed in considerable detail the connection between a teacher being inspired and her (his) ability to impact the lives of young people. A similar opportunity exists within corporate and family structures as well.
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Chiropractors in the Yucatan

Two weeks ago, I spent an extended weekend in the Yucatan Peninsula with a group of sixty chiropractors, there with one of their coaches, Dr. Jeffery Slocum, a chiropractor and President of Leaning Curves, a company he created to broaden the scope and effectiveness of the chiropractic community in general. Presenters (and we were one of about twelve) were asked to present and stay for the two day event and participate in “Purposeful Connections” with all the other presenters and participants. I found the format refreshing and personally engaging.
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Creating Environments That Work

And by our definition, environments that work are inspired.

Are you excited to go to work or school each day?

While enjoying vacations, do you miss the atmosphere at work or school?

Do you feel valued and appreciated by those with whom you work or study?

If any of the above is true, and it must be our hope that they are, then there is a basic groundwork of respect present in your school or place of business. Perhaps the most important ingredient in creating an environment where people experience being treated with dignity, grace and loving-kindness, is that there is an institution-wide agreement in place that the value of a person does not come from their grades or their achievements.
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The Wick Project: A Letter From Peter

The work on the Wick project has been going very well, and I have confidence that deep changes will take place within the people involved. There have been positive changes already; one resident and family have taken on board a change of reaction attitude towards conflict on the estate, which resulted in calm, peace within the family home, and also a lack of retaliation violence from the two sides of conflict.
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Inspired Environments, Part 2

As promised, we are going to continue our conversation regarding inspired environments in general and inspired schools, specifically. As with all other things, everything that has to do with creating inspired environments is inter connected and influences every other part of the process. One person, one attitude, can either be a defining spark or the holder of an attitudinal wet blanket.
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Inspired Environments, Part 1, Definition

The following definition of “Inspired Teaching” describes both the attributes of inspired teachers and things one must do to achieve inspired environments. It was developed three years ago by a group of public school teachers and administrators (Valerie Benton, Suzanne Loring, Helen Buzzell, Diane Wyder, Priscilla Conner, Delana Yeaton, Chris Wyder, Fatma Perry, Lisl Fuson and Laura Ouellette) in Maine School Administrative District #9, Farmington, Maine in cooperation with The Boothby Institute. It is not intended that this or any definition be agreed with or considered “the” definition of inspired teaching. What is important in every environment is entering into a conversation about what being inspired is and how to achieve it, developing a working, ever expanding, alive definition that fosters inspired environments and supports those who create them. While the actual definitions are likely to be almost identical, the process itself is what is important.
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Inspired Environments: A Matter More of Questions Than Answers

We are in the process of writing another book, this one having to do with creating inspired schools. As I began to think about the opening paragraphs of this work, I realized that we are really talking about inspired environments, period. The place could be a school, a bank, a law firm or a grocery store and being inspired about what we do would be a worthy goal in any of these environments. We happen to be talking about schools.
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Tribute, The Last Second and Supercoaches

What if I told you that my mom drinks orange soda pop in bed, after she’s brushed her teeth for the night?  Or that she believes SPF 4 provides real protection from the harmful rays of the sun and attempts to justify the sunburn she always gets when we are on vacation by arguing, “This is how I tan – I red tan.”  My favorite line of my mom’s is when we are in the car together driving some place and I notice that her seatbelt isn’t on, so I prod her to buckle up and she replies, “I always wear my seatbelt when you’re not here.”  I bet you can just imagine me shaking my head, laughing and muttering “right.”  I mean really, does that make any sense?
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“Barak Will Fix This!” and The Last Word Will Be Yours

Increasingly, I am aware of the attitude of “Barack will fix this” in our society and around the world.

What three things could you and I do as individuals, today, that would allow us to understand more clearly the state of global economics, improve economic conditions or make the world a better place?

Here is An Inside Perspective, Ideas From Our Readers!
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Imagine a Mirror

For a moment, I’d like to ask you to image that this page is a mirror. Perhaps, better yet, finish reading what is written here and go find a mirror and decide how you intend to be from this point forward.

Since the election in The United States last fall, it has become really obvious that we are no longer a group of countries or states that are going to survive by taking actions that are in our own enlightened self-interest alone. We are going to have to take actions that are considerate of all of the people on the planet.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 7: Ground of Being

You are being held in a ground of being of loving-kindness and the power that resides within you as you read these words: you are loved and capable of taking charge of your life at every moment.

Before anything is communicated to anyone in any environment, the audience, the individuals you want to communicate with must experience that they are valued by the speaker. Teachers who know they have something to learn from each of their students are far more effective. Corporate CEOs who truly value each employee are far more likely to develop a dedicated workforce. While the transference of information alone may be of interest to some people, most are far more likely to hear communication when there is an atmosphere of dignity and respect.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 6: Creating Patterns of Consciousness with Language, Attitude and Discipline

Everything we do to increase our consciousness contributes to our equanimity, ability to produce results and contribute to others. Listen carefully to the words you select. If a student says, “I’ll try to have an assignment in by Friday,” they are acknowledging that they really don’t plan to have the work in on time. Plan on Monday at the earliest. If you use the word try, decide before you go any further if you intend to produce a particular result or simply “try.” While I do not approve of the labor practices at all, the Egyptians didn’t try to build pyramids, they built them.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 5: Good Discipline, Bad Habits

“We must be the change we wish to see.”   Mahatma Gandhi

There is one thing more important than anything else in maintaining a sense of what is important in the world, being awake, present and coming from a place of loving-kindness: self-care, the process of tending to our own well-being.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 4: Discipline & Training

Almost everything I learned about power and control growing up turns out to be distorted or in many cases purely inaccurate. The search for understanding around these issues remains primarily intellectual as opposed to experiential in nature. Any understanding of power, control and choice must be experiential in order to truly impact individuals. Access to real power comes from the little things in life. Emptying the garbage is one of the best demonstrations of this particular phenomenon I know of. It also creates the opportunity to understand the absolute interconnectedness of power, control and choice.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 3: Capacity

What I discovered in that maximum security prison in Somers, Connecticut was that the capacity for all things resides within each person. The indomitable will of a Nelson Mandela and the perseverance of Christopher and Dana Reeves are within you. The grace and dignity of a Mother Theresa is within you! The person reading these words, you! Not “someone” else. This capacity is within all people!
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What Every Person Can Do Part 2: Attitude and Circumstances

Rain in and of itself, or any kind of weather for that matter, does not produce a particular reaction in human beings. And when it rains or snows, some people act as if they are done for the day. It is not possible in these conditions to produce a spectacular day. Yet, if it rains in a third world country after a year-long drought, there is dance in the street, rejoicing. The rain does not produce the reaction. Our reaction is learned behavior, capable of being changed.
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What Every Person Can Do Part 1

“What One Person Can Do” is first and foremost it is a process about two things: knowing that you are loved absolutely and unconditionally and that in every second, every situation, without exception, there is always a choice. No matter how it may seem, there is always a choice.

Following is the first installment of several on the topic of What Every Person Can Do… by Bill Cumming.

Everything you see in other people, theirs strengths, courage and determination as well as their weaknesses reside within you. The capacity for all things resides within each person.
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All or Nothing At All

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle
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Inspired Teaching 2

A few months ago The Boothby Institute and a group of Maine teachers entered into an experiment which has the potential to alter the effectiveness of education at a global level. It was our supposition that a group of teachers who chose to come together to explore what it takes to be an inspired teacher could clearly define it and outline exactly what was necessary to produce that result. Here’s where we started and the result.
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Inspired Teaching: Ending the Myth (that we don’t know the ingredients of Inspired Teaching)

It is our intention to end the myth that we do not know what inspired teaching is and how to achieve it.  For the past twenty years, we have listened to those who suggest that the accumulation of facts and information are what is critical.  It is our experience that in order to create inspired learners, we must encourage, grow and nurture inspired teachers.  Do we want people who know facts or thinkers who know how to access information?  Do we want creative people who are self-starters or followers?  Could there be a connection between what we have been doing in the preparation of teachers, what we require of them and the difficulties that have arisen in our global economies?
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A Letter From An Aunt

(Editor’s Note:  Often readers of this newsletter have heard us discuss that there are many ways to come to a place of experiencing loving-kindness and the power of choice.  Very few are more powerful than this one received in the midst of huge physical crisis.  I told the recipient never to say she had not heard directly from God.)

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Love Yourself Day

“The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here.  Eat.  You will love again the stranger who was yourself.  Give wine.  Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life; whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.  Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.  Sit.  Feast on your life.” -   Derek Walcott
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Grounds of Being

Today, I had to make a long trip on slippery roads to correct the error of a major corporation and get money to a stranded individual.  It had been a day where anyone who could have taken responsibility for a situation chose not to do so and thus the trek in the snow.  Murphy’s Law was in effect everywhere one turned.
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Grateful

It is the week before Thanksgiving in the United States. It is also two weeks after the day my Mom was born and today is my Dad’s birthday. At this time of year, I am more mindful of my gratitude. I want to remind myself to be grateful for the following not just now but every day…

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Breaking Point (Prisons That Don’t Work, Why and What Can Be Done)

Last week The Discovery Channel ran a special report on the Solano Prison and the general conditions that exist in the State of California prison system, narrated by Ted Koppel.

Based on information on the Department of Correction’s website, the population of the prisons is at 204% (two hundred and four percent) of capacity, as of today. That means that facilities designed by those who are supposed to know best regarding maximum effectiveness and issues that relate to creating increased tension for inmates and staff are more than twice as full as they should be. Additionally, California has the distinction of having the highest rate of recidivism in the United States at 70% (seventy percent). That means that seven out of ten prisoners released re-offend within three years.
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What One Person Can Do, A Retrospective Look

I’m not sure what motivates, or really influences populations in other countries.  There are probably countries that have a calmer approach to life, they run at a slower pace, they breathe.  But here, in the United States, and in the 21^st Century, we just seem to run.  Our pace is fast, we look for others to blame when things go wrong regarding the choices we make – believe that’s called not taking responsibility – and we need instant gratification for almost everything in our lives.   We need a quick fix; we need to know what’s coming next.
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Never Say Never

For many years I have said that the processes used in the “What One Person Can Do” conversation could not be put into the format of a book. First and foremost it is a process about two things: knowing that you are loved absolutely and unconditionally and that in every second, every situation, without exception, there is always a choice. No matter how it may seem, there is always a choice.
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The Voices of Others

There are times when the voices of others shed clear light on ideas and issues we find important.  Over the past few years I have collected quotations that illuminate a piece of the power that resides within us all.  I hope you will enjoy them and find them useful for meditation or discussion.  A few are part of the “What One Person Can Do” conversation and as such may seem familiar to some of you.
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