Pepsi Rising Above Negativity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlXrQesm2Eg&feature=player_embedded

This is an amazing video by Pepsi which artistically captures the gravitational force young people feel pressing against them as they work to reach their dreams.

I want to be careful to say that I have no criticisms at all about this commercial. It is well done and will resonate in many a young person internationally.

What I will say is that the video misses the true source of friction that young people face which is the internal resistance young people face...the insecurities, the fears, the selfishness, the pain, the need for love with little clue as to where to find it in any lasting form. What a great video that would be!

Helping young people find traction in these areas of friction is the very secret to effective positive youth development.

Important document on Youth Development

This is an excellent document and it is central to the U.S. Government's current understanding of youth development. Read through it as you have a chance and please jump in here to give your perspectives.

http://ase.tufts.edu/iaryd/documents/pubPromotingPositive.pdf

Spiritual Thriving

December, 2005

by Linda Wagener

Perhaps you have read collections of children's letters to God. One of my favorites goes like this:

Dear God: Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had separate rooms. It works with my brother. Larry

As a developmental psychologist, I am not only entertained but also intrigued by what these letters reveal about children's spiritual development. They demonstrate that children think about the ultimate and often unanswerable questions in life - questions about creation, meaning and purpose, good and evil, suffering and death. Take for example these thoughtful letters from Daniel and Janet:

Dear God, I love you because you give us what we need to live, but I wish you would tell me why you made it so we had to die. Daniel

Dear God, I wish you would not make it so easy for people to come apart. I had 3 stitches and a shot. Janet

Although there are many definitions of spirituality, one common approach is to consider that spirituality is the universal human potential for connectedness and transcendence. Spiritual development is the process of growing toward an understanding that the self is embedded in something much greater, including the sacred. It begins early in life as children discover their place in their families and continues to expand to include friends, neighborhoods, communities and ultimately all of creation. Spirituality propels the search for connectedness, meaning and purpose, and contribution, and is an essential aspect of what it means for a child to "thrive."

Healthy spiritual development, like other aspects of human functioning, is dependent upon the existence of developmental "nutrients" such as loving relationships and opportunities for meaningful contribution. Spiritual development can be compared to the process of language development. All humans are born with the capacity to discern the patterns in the language that they hear daily. Similarly, children are sensitive to perceiving the sacred in the patterns of connectedness in the world. The particular form of the spirituality that they acquire depends upon the influences that surround them. Children who are immersed in a network that emphasizes love, gratitude, and forgiveness are likely to develop a spirituality that has these as foundational characteristics. Children who are immersed in a context that is marked by conflict, revenge, and judgment are likely to develop a very different form of spirituality.

There are a variety of resources that contribute to the spiritual development of young people. Traditionally, religious experiences and communities have been those that most directly focus on children's spirituality. Children also draw on a wealth of other spiritual experiences such as wilderness experiences or artistic expression. For some children their spirituality rests most directly in their ethnic, cultural or political/ideological understandings of the world. The building blocks of spirituality include unique personal experiences, such as a feeling of tranquility during prayer or meditation or an experience of awe in gazing at a sunset.

Dear God, I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday. That was cool! Eugene

Family mores and practices are also powerful influences on the shape of young person's spirituality. Family prayers, shared reading of sacred texts, family traditions, and family philanthropic practices are just a few examples.

Dear God, Is it true my father won't get into heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house? Anita

Shared vision in relationships resting on a set of common values is another primary foundation for spiritual development. A commitment to recycling, feeding the poor, volunteering with others or protesting perceived injustice are examples of young people enacting their spiritual development. Prevailing cultural values, symbols, and metaphors also influence the spirituality of young people. Dominant cultural values such as materialism, hedonism, or achievement orientation are likely to result in a self-centered form of spirituality. Contrasting cultures characterized by an emphasis on service, gratitude, or social justice are likely to be expressed in forms of spirituality that focus on others. Cultures that are marked by war, oppression, racism or economic injustice may result in spiritualities founded on survival or revenge.

Although spirituality is a core aspect of what it means to be human, many cultures and contexts have paid little attention to the process of its development in young people. In part this may be due to the fact that spirituality, like religion, is considered to be part of the private sphere of life and so is not considered to be an appropriate domain for public conversation and attention. It also may be true that we have failed to understand that even very young children wonder about the deepest and most difficult questions of human existence.

There are several models of spiritual development that come from a variety of traditions. The most familiar to us is that of religious education. In this model, children are taught the beliefs and values of their tradition and often at some point participate in a religious ceremony that heralds their entry into membership. Examples include the process of confirmation in Christian traditions or the Bar Mitzvah in Judaism. A second tradition is that of spiritual formation. In this approach, an initiate works with a guru or mentor who imparts the wisdom of the tradition in various ways that include teaching, but also suggestions of certain practices. A third approach to spiritual development is that of individual reflection, practice, and discipline. A seeker might deliberately seek solitude in order to clear their senses and open themselves to spiritual experiences. Eastern traditions often emphasize the importance of developing habits of meditation as an example.

Regardless of the form it may take, young people need contexts in which they can grapple with the spiritual issues of understanding what constitutes a good life, the meaning of evil and suffering, and their own place in the scheme of creation. An environment that fosters prosocial values, meaning, identity and a sense of belonging and commitment will enhance spiritual thriving. Spirituality may in turn motivate young people to contribute to their families, neighborhoods, schools, and communities. The preponderance of available research suggests that spirituality has a powerful effect in life. It is inversely related to many negative outcomes, such as engaging in risk behaviors and positively associated with a number of positive behaviors, such as generosity, empathy, and volunteerism.

Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in my family and I can never do it. Nan

Many people worry these days that young people are growing away from the religious traditions that sustained their parents and grandparents and are seeking new ways of understanding. Others contend that religion and. by implication, spirituality are at the very core of the most violent and irresolvable conflicts across the globe. For these and other reasons, this appears to be a moment in the public imagination when issues of spirituality are gaining attention. In spite of the current social changes that threaten to undermine the healthy development of young people, I believe that attention to spiritual development may lead to creative new solutions and resources.

For more reading I suggest:

The Spiritual Life of Children. Robert Coles. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, MA 1990

Hurt: Inside the world of today's teenagers. Chap Clark. Baker Academic. Grand Rapids, MI. 2004.

Stages of Faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. James Fowler. Harper Collins. San Francisco, CA. 1995.

Reflections, Observations and Suggestions on Thriving Children

March, 2006

by Duncan Campbell

An interview with Duncan Campbell, Founder of Friends of the Children,
a revolutionary program working with seriously at-risk children that utilizes the
principles and tools of "thriving".

What has been the catalyst for your interest in thriving children?

As a child activist, a person who has worked with delinquents, and a founder of a mentoring program for seriously at-risk children, I always am asking myself what makes a young person, especially those at risk, thrive, and what are effective tools to improve these children's lives.

Recognizing that these also are the reflections of a business person, you can probably tell that I come at the questions, tasks, outcomes and activities of the positive youth development movement with a different approach. Yet I also have had the great fortune to be a small part of a group that has been researching, discussing, writing, and doing critical thinking about what makes a child thrive. Hopefully, my insights will add a perspective that is helpful and pragmatic to this pioneering effort. Even more important for me, the tools and techniques that are developed from this work can help to create real and positive change for seriously at-risk children.

Your perspective is somewhat different from that of the academics. Why is that?

I come more from a "practitioner's" perspective - more pragmatic and more interested in the application of the academic's ideas and principles. Another difference is that my own very personal definition of a "thriving" person has been one who is friendly, good-natured, caring, warm, kind, moral - that is, a "good person." They hopefully, but not necessarily, would be spirited. As you can see, there is no mention of intelligence, skill level or worldly standards of success.

What do you mean by the "application" of the ideas and principles of "thriving?"

For me, it is better to look at "thriving" as if there are levels, or tranches, or increments of "thriving". I also believe that you need to realistically apply the concepts of thriving to four different groups of children. These groups are:

1. Gifted children
2. "Good" children
3. Children in general
4. At-risk children

Recognizing these categories, it becomes easier to think about the different dimensions. If you think of thriving in terms of the capacity of a child to reach their fullest potential, as I do, then the different indicators tend to naturally form around each of the four categories.

Take, for example, the first Thriving Index that Thrive Foundation established several years ago, which I really like because it is so inclusive and, in addition, it provides a more detailed list of attributes. Now look at the following chart, which has all their attributes spread out into four levels of functioning:

Good Outcomes	Very Good Outcomes	Excellent Outcomes	Optimal Outcomes
Honest	Open	Loved/Embraced	Joyful
Self-controlled	Safe	Giving	Creative
Respectful	Contributive	Self-confident	Authentic
Equipped	Hard-working	Values friendships	Content
Socially skilled	Comfortable	Successful	Realized potential
Resilient		Communicative	Understands their uniqueness

For "at-risk children" to reach a "good" level, it is enough that they have at least some of the THRIVE attributes of being "competent," "respectful," "socially skilled," having "self-control," and "resilience" (the latter being the most important attribute of this group of children). These are solid, fundamental attributes, which can make these children healthy and productive members of our community.

Moving to "very good outcomes," you see that some children have an increased capacity to be "hard working," "adaptive," "open," "comfortable," and "contributive."

As we move towards "excellent thriving outcomes," some children are able to regularly practice these attributes and become "successful," "giving," "communicative," "self-confident," and, most importantly, knowing they are "loved and embraced" and, in turn, "loving."

In the case of "optimal outcomes," Bill Damon's work about "noble purpose" and "moral exemplars" most clearly sets the highest standard and, consequently, the highest expectations. Using the Thrive Index, the attributes that most clearly align with Bill's work are optimal terms like "cultured," "creative," "authentic," "realize potential," and "understand their uniqueness." These are qualities that not all of us will be able to reach.

Are you suggesting that at-risk children can only attain levels of thriving in the first category?

No, not at all. There are many examples of young people who have experienced great prejudice, personal limitations, and/or other challenges who have attained levels of thriving that surprise and inspire all of us. But my point here is that we must approach our work with youth using the hard-earned lens of realism and pragmatism. Should we say that an at-risk child will be successful only if he or she gets straight A's? It may be a great accomplishment for that young person to develop self-control, to find a vocation that earns him or her an honest living, and to develop social skills that may not have been easy to attain. The strengths-based approach that we practice at Friends of the Children honors the full spectrum of young persons' potential.

What do you like about Peter Benson's and Search Institute's "Thriving" Indicators and Rich Lerner's 5 "C's" in relation to at- risk children?

Peter's work to date has emphasized "healthy development" with "positive outcomes," such as academic success; caring for others and their communities; the affirmation of cultural and ethnic diversity; and commitment to healthy lifestyles. For me, these outcomes are reasonable for those children who have both the capacity and environment which can help a child fulfill what I would call "high expectations." Our work with "seriously at-risk" children emphasizes "attainable expectations," which means they are realistic outcomes for these children who usually do not have the enhanced capacity and/or environment. For our children, graduating from high school could be "academic success," since most of them were not expected to finish grade school, let alone high school. As to "caring for others and their communities," just for "at-risk children" to respect themselves and others could be a sufficient outcome as they may not have the extra wherewithal to extend themselves to caring for others and their communities other than on a limited basis. To put it another way, as some commentators have expressed, children who survive dysfunctional backgrounds rarely have enough left when they reach adulthood to move from being a "good citizen" to an "optimal citizen". These same comments would also apply to Rich's 5 "C's" of character, caring/compassion, competence, connection, and confidence. In relation to both Peter's and Rich's work, the prior thoughts on Thrive Foundation's Index about the relevance of different children's background on their capacity to acquire or achieve certain attributes are very applicable to their ideas.

What other works around "thriving" do you like?

Since I am very outcome and results oriented, I really like the Kaufman Foundation's focus on long-term student outcomes (including student performance and commitment), and young adult outcomes (including economic self-sufficiency). In addition, since I personally value the importance of "relationships," an important outcome in Kaufman's work on thriving is the capacity to have healthy family and social relationships.

Beyond the work I've mentioned, there are a number of other attributes which I think are essential to any meaningful discussion around "thriving." They are empathy, hopefulness, spiritual engagement, initiative, motivation, curiosity, resourcefulness, enjoyment of life, the ability to overcome adversity, the capacity to delay gratification and, most importantly, the ability to have healthy and loving relationships with others.

You mentioned earlier the need for specific tools for children, families and practitioners; what are a couple of examples of those?

The Search Institute, out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has developed a number of specific tools, which are centered on the 40 Assets model, written about in Peter Benson's All Kids Are Our Kids. Peter Benson and Peter Scales also are in the process of developing new tools that will help communities assess strengths-based outcomes, based on the work of the Thriving Indicators Project that I've had the chance to participate in during the past number of years.

Cynthia King-Guffey and Thrive Foundation for Youth also are working on a very useful and practical tool, the Thrive-O-Gram™, which is being developed for use not only within the parent-child relationship, but for youth workers, mentors, teachers, pediatricians, and other practitioners who work with diverse youth. The work of the Thrive-O-Gram parallels the development of a strengths-based assessment tool that is being developed by our mentoring organization for seriously at-risk children, Friends of the Children. This tool will be useful to gather information and facilitate communication which will enable each child to make constructive and positive changes in their lives.

It is critical that these tools are developed in a manner that will make them practical, easy to use, and outcome oriented. Such tools are important because they lead to deeper, more realistic and meaningful assessments, and communications which in turn lead to positive change for children and families.

In closing, do you have any further observations and/or suggestions?

In order to achieve a "national transformation" around "thriving children," we need to strengthen our efforts in order to influence policy makers and opinion makers. Specifically, we need to enhance the strategy on how to further engage national youth organizations, as Rich Lerner is doing with 4H and Peter Benson is doing with the YMCA. In addition, Search Institute needs to increase its tools and training around the 40 Assets. It is imperative that we deepen our involvement with mentoring initiatives, ranging from Big Brothers, Big Sisters to Friends of the Children.

Furthermore, we need to accept limitations for certain children ranging from unrealistic expectations about certain children attending college or becoming an NBA player or rock star. This means having a vision of the positive potential of a child with both optimism and realism.

For me, what is most exciting about this work on "thriving" is that it can raise the expectation level of our children, families, and communities. The reason I am so committed to both the mentoring model and the thriving movement is that they both promote the two most critical ingredients fueling genuine positive development in all youth: relationships and expectations. As communities, families and mentors more effectively provide these ingredients in a young person's life - sustained, loving relationships combined with optimistic, realistic expectations - more children will have a shot at living lives rich with meaning and fulfillment.

The "Thriving" movement has been described by certain commentators as a dramatic sea of change with the potential for "a groundswell of action." This can only occur if we begin a major effort by which "thriving" is embedded not only as a goal but as a way of life. Not only will young people thrive, but there will be a more hopeful future for each of us and our communities.

Thriving: A Personal Journey and an International Movement

September, 2005

by Peter Benson

The first time I used the term "thriving" was in 1990, to demark a set a positive outcomes (e.g., academic success, caring for others and their communities, the affirmation of cultural and ethnic diversity, commitment to healthy lifestyles), as a way to complement the litany of negative outcomes that, for decades, had dominated federal, state and foundation approaches to documenting the health of U.S. teenagers. Fifteen years later, I find myself as intrigued as ever by the processes, theories, and indicators of thriving as when Search Institute, way back when, first put a stake in the ground about thriving and America's youth. "Thriving" has come to represent the joyous substance of my life's work, as I seek, with others in the field of positive youth development, to change the way America views its young people. What is the dominant storyline about young people, ages 12 to 20? I believe that we must forge a new vocabulary about why youth matter and why their healthy development is crucial for growing the health and vibrancy of the society in which they live.

The foray into thriving indicators has three purposes:

1. to provide U.S. communities with a more balanced view of adolescents and their capabilities and contributions - guided by the hypothesis that the overuse of negative indicators tends to demonize youth, leading to the public's withdrawal from their lives;
   
   
2. to provide programs and agencies with an alternative set of metrics for evaluating program success (indeed, many youth development programs are designed with positive outcome intentions but forced to make their case by documenting impact on risk behaviors); and
   
   
3. to posit a set of positive indicators that could begin a national conversation about the kinds of constructive behavior, postures and commitments this society values and needs. As this conversation matures, it is expected that this new vocabulary will transform our frames of reference for how well we as a society are rearing our children and adolescents. National success in this arena informs everything else, including the economy, the vitality of the workforce, life expectancy, and perhaps - most importantly - how future generations of adults engage as parents and citizens.

In the last five years, considerable advances have occurred in discussing, naming and measuring positive outcomes. The labels for this work include flourishing, optimal development, competence and well-being. A recently published volume titled What Children Need to Flourish: Conceptualizing and measuring Indicators of Positive Development (Moore & Lippman, 2005) offers a taxonomy of positive outcome indicators including life satisfaction, hope, generosity, spirituality, connectedness, self-regulation and community service. Since 2001, Search Institute, in collaboration with social scientists at Fuller, Stanford, and Tufts, has sought to identify those thriving indicators that have the greatest saliency in the lives of our youth and are the most crucial to the well-being of a democratic society. Significant progress is being made on this continuing, important work.

As crucial as it is to continue the dialogue on identifying desirable and socially-valued positive outcomes, a new and compelling issue is surfacing. While positive outcomes are important "benchmarks" (along with reducing negative outcomes) for measuring how well a nation is raising its young, we also must seek to understand how it is that a life of hope and generosity and engagement evolves or develops across time. The question here is whether, from (let's say) ages 12-18, a young person is moving toward, or is on a pathway to, a hopeful future. Growing healthy human beings requires far more than knowing about "end points" we seek to get them to or bombarding them with a new set of programs seeking to engineer them toward socially-valued endpoints. Lives develop. They grow and change across time. So a key issue is about developmental trajectories. And there are many trajectories or paths. The social sciences know a lot more about negative trajectories (e.g., how young people develop an antisocial life or "grow" into any number of psychopathologies). What is missing is a parallel understanding of upward trajectories of development via which, across time, young people flower into the kinds of persons who embrace life and make full use of their special gifts.

Thriving is the term I now use to discuss this upward developmental trajectory. It can be more poetically understood as being on a pathway to a hopeful future. Being in a thriving mode could happen (and should happen) across the lifespan. While my current interest is in understanding the thriving process among young people, there is a need to also understand the process at other points in time. Everyday now I find myself wondering: am I, a seasoned adult, living in a thriving mode? And I use the thriving lens constantly in understanding how my adult children are doing and how the many staff are doing who work at Search Institute. That latter question raises the interesting issue of what a work culture looks like that promotes thriving people.

My thinking about thriving is grounded in the theory of positive youth development. It starts with several principles:

• all youth have the inherent capacity for positive growth and development,
  
  
• positive growth is enabled when youth are embedded in nurturing relationships and environments;
  
  
• growth is further promoted when youth have the opportunities to participate in multiple, nutrient-rich contexts;
  
  
• while support and empowerment is important in the lives of all youth, how that support needs to happen will vary according to the individual youth, and the social, ethnic, and cultural contexts within which that youth lives;
  
  
• communities have the potential to be powerful contexts for positive youth development to take place; and,
  
  
• youth are major actors in their own development.

There is particular developmental magic when young people discover an aspect of themselves that gives them joy and energy, when they invest in its exploration and expression and when this aspect of their lives is connected to people and places that know, affirm and actively encourage their "spark." This is the magic of thriving. It is self and context playing together to give a young person the opportunity and courage to choose to be on an upward developmental trajectory.

I suspect that every parent, grandparent and teacher [in fact every adult] has something positive in mind when thinking about what they want for kids. "I want my son to fly." "I want my daughter to be the best she can be." "I want my grandchildren to be happy." "I want my students to make a difference in the world." "I want all children to have the chance to live up to their fullest potential."

We all have these aspirations for our young. Aren't these the images that should come forward when we talk about how our nation is doing in raising our young? I am reminded that a common greeting in the Masai culture is "and how is it with the children?" I doubt that the answer to their question focuses on the frequency of violence, drug use, carrying weapons or hurting someone. Instead, I am sure the conversation moves to how the children are moving forward, how they are making their way in the world, how they are strengthening and exercising their gifts and talents. My passion is to provide parent, youth-workers, and policy-makers with a new vocabulary and a transformed view of America's diverse youth that empowers them to move towards a hopeful and meaningful future.

Recommended Readings

I. Theory and Research

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. NY: Harper & Row.

Keyes, C.L.M. (2003). Promoting a life worth living: Human development from the vantage points of mental illness and mental health. In R.M Lerner, D. Wertlieb, & F. Jacobs (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science (Vol. 4) (pp. 257-274). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Moore, K. & Lippman, L. (2005). What do children need to flourish? Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive development. NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

Scales, P.C. & Benson, P.L. (2005). Adolescence and thriving. In C.B. Fisher & R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Encyclopedia of applied developmental science (Vol. 1) (pp.15-19). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

II. Stories of Thriving Youth

Barrett, B., Annis, A., & Riffey, D. (2004). Little moments; big magic: Inspirational stories of Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the magic they create. Gilbert, AZ: Magical Moments Publishing.

Delisle, J. (1991). Kid stories: Biographies of 20 young people you'd like to know. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit.

Desetta, A., & Wolin, S. (2000). The struggle to be strong: True stories by teens about overcoming tough times. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit.

Peter Benson is the President of Search Institute

Why the Next Revolution?

I find generational transfers fascinating. Nothing could be more important to a family, a parent, a child, a community or a people and yet nothing has been more troublesome throughout the history of mankind than the process of living a life as a follower of Jesus and then raising up a next generation who will follow Him even more deeply.

In the Bible as you get into I & II Samuel or I & II Kings, you find the repeated cycle of one good king handing the throne to a son who goes on to be a bad king. Instead of one generation setting up the next which sets up the next which sets up the next to know and follow Jesus with greater and greater depth, one generation's life of faith and obedience is washed away by a next generation which forgets Him.

The enemy wins in this situation because while there are so few examples of great men and women handing off their faith to greater sons and daughters who then pass on their faith to even greater sons and daughters, there are millions and millions of stories of the opposite.

The world's most common occurrence these days is faithless individuals rejecting Jesus and having babies outside of committed relationships who then grow up without the necessary ingredients of a healthy, loving family and a vibrant relationship with Jesus. These children grow up with a hole in their heart and even more desperate in their lack of faith and love. This lack of love and faith propels them into even more high-risk behaviors and into producing their own unloved children who receive even less and less selfless love and who, as a result, grow up emptier and in pain and increasingly likely to turn and use another human to fill the void.

This vicious cycle accomplishes the exact opposite of a successful faith transfer. Instead of one generation setting the other up for a deeper level of life in Him, one generations sets the other up for deeper and deeper levels of dysfunction and, as a result, communities are distorted.

It is time now to turn the tide.

The word "repent" is commonly defined these days as "to make a turn." Another word for turning is the word "revolution." A "turning" has begun in which this cycle of bad generational transfers outnumbering godly generational transfers will be broken. The impact across the earth will be dramatic.

Communities will be developed and changed. Families will flourish. The Kingdom of God will be displayed in beautiful clarity. Young people will be saved from death and will live lives that see not only their dreams come true but they will learn to turn and help others do the same.

This is the Next Revolution

Beginning With an Apology

I am beginning this blog just as I am beginning to realize some of the trappings of globally accessible media such as this. The ability to broadcast and transmit words to people across great and small distances has led to some very strange phenomenon. Jesus walked. He didn't fly. His ministry was contained in a relatively limited physical area. His words were heard by those within earshot of His voice. You couldn't receive His words without simultaneously having to relate to Him as a person.

These days things are different.

People across the world read books & magazines, listen to messages, devour web content and on and on and on and as they do they begin to live out and respond to messages spoken by people they will never be able to personally know.

The trend in churches is even towards large gatherings to listen and follow words from men who most of us will never eat lunch with.

This is damaging. Jesus modeled a method of equipping men and women that was not so. He spoke and lived at the same time. His words were backed by His life lived among them. They listened and then were expected to live what they heard. The same teacher who taught them with words then held them accountable for how they applied what He had said.

Blogs do not allow this process.

So with that said, I will not advertise this blog which is very much meant to be a platform for an important conversation.

Something is changing. Something is being said. He is leading us somewhere and we have to go.
I will be obedient to say what He is telling me to say, with God's grace. If you are called to be in on this conversation, I strongly encourage you to do the same.

I am looking forward to our good conversations.