Category: Asset Based Community Development

People can change…why faith is their bottom line and telling our story is so vital to changing public perception…


President Obama’s speaking engagement at the National Drug Abuse Summit this week in Atlanta has created a week-long focus on our national opioid painkiller abuse epidemic, among other recovery and/or substance abuse related topics.

A friend of mine, Kim Manlove, was invited to be on the original panel of some 40 speakers from around the country. President Obama was a recent “surprise”addition to the stage, joining a panel with Sanjay Gupta, an ER doctor and two people in recovery from addiction. 

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Amazing conversation with President Obama at this year’s National Summit on Prescription Drug and Heroin Abuse

Making in-roads on all cylinders, on all fronts…

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Doctors resist new painkiller prescribing procedures

Several stories on or related to the topic are floating around this week’s new cycle:

The first news piece outlines new procedural recommendations as well as mentions the availability of a national database to assist doctors in discovering potential abuse signs. Although I’m sure it will take doctors a little more time in their already busy routines to add these checks and balances, I believe it’s worth it.  And, let’s be clear – this is not an easy or perfect “silver bullet.”  But, it seems to me if we’re going to make inroads to eradicating this epidemic, we have to hit on all fronts, on all cylinders and try anything and everything we can to turn the tide…

I believe every citizen of our country is worth it.

I believe every person in our neighborhood is worth it.

I believe anyone in our family is worth it.

I believe even the “outcast” and the person “on the fringes” of “society” is worth it.

 

Like Edison, we may need to try 10,000 ways that won’t work in order to find a couple that might work…

 

I know Bob S.’s friend’s grandson is worth it.

I know my mother was worth it.

I know I’m worth it.

This is no longer a war on drugs…it’s a war FOR recovery!
Treatment works!  Recovery works!

Our new “recovery czar” Michael Botticelli coined this shift in language as one of many ways to start to change perception, to shift our emphasis and to reduce stigma in America. He is the FIRST person in this position (formerly known as “drug czar”) who is a person in long-term recovery.

His story is powerful…

A frank conversation on recovery, the so-called “war on drugs” and other important topics –  between two individuals in long-term recovery

As in war, some are fighting to maintain control,
their position of power,
the status quo…

Rather than own their own part of the sidewalk, and work in tandem with, and not against, our government allies, the industry lobbyists are having a field day this week.  They are reacting in full force against the government’s meddling in their sphere of control and power. Whoops, I meant influen$e…my apologies.  [sarcasm duly noted, for clarity]

One reaction, from the American Pharmacists Association (APA) on their Facebook page, starts with a question (and then force feeds us their opinion as the one any only answer):

Health officials are calling on physicians to use new painkiller prescribing procedures designed to prevent the abuse, misuse and death from taking high-risk and addictive drugs. However, some physicians say new process is burdensome. What, if any, impact would these new procedures have on pharmacists? http://ow.ly/ZZDtt

Thanks, but I’ll look more deeply and more broadly before I form my opinion…

On an individual level,
it’s still easy to oversimplify the issue,
to deny one another’s humanity…

It feels like this week is “three steps forward” in some areas, and two steps back in others….

Having said that, I stumbled across several painfully sincere comments about “druggies and dealers” among the online comments following one of the articles I included in an earlier section.

One of the commentators believes the following “is at play…”

…I started having chronic pain over 10 years ago and the tears from the pain flow daily. No one really cares. They are too worried about the druggies and dealers, so who has time and enough compassion to help those in real pain??? NO one !!!

~ Tina Dinnler, Facebook

My summary of the theme across many of the comments is:

…the medical community has influenced our government leaders to put the interests, safety and needs of “druggies and dealers” before that of other [more well-deserving] citizens [higher on the social ladder] who have valid life-changing medical pain and needs.

~ my summary interpretation from the article and comments regarding the new recommended prescribing procedures, from the APA’s Facebook page [sarcasm duly noted, for clarity]

Of course, the commentator is one of those more valuable citizens to which she refers. And her needs or the needs of people like herself are far more valuable than anyone else’s (especially the bottom feeders of our pristine, Puritan-like society) — the “druggies and dealers.” 

 

How easy it is to label, then dismiss.

We all do it at one time or another.  We turn our backs on our fellow human being.  We observe a behavior, and quickly assign motive, intention and eventually blame. We avoid owning our side of the sidewalk and cleaning it up as and when necessary, and instead direct everyone’s attention, sometimes cleverly and with great intention and manipulation, to the other side of the street.  Thus, nobody ever sees us as human.

And, we can therefore deny another’s humanity.

 

How easy it is to give up.

It’s easy to say people can’t change, because it protects our emotions, our heart, our vulnerable nature as caring, compassionate and trusting beings. If we say people can’t change, we somehow feel safer…and we don’t have to look at our own “shit.”  At least for now…eventually, we all hit our own “bottom” of despair…we start to lose hope…

Without hope, there is no trust…and without trust, there is no faith.

And without faith, there is no love.

 

How easy it is to give up on love.

And without love, there is no hope for change.

People can change…

Like many “druggies and dealers,” I have a past.

Like many “druggies and dealers,”  I have a story.

My story of early recovery in 2010

Todd, most of us don’t make it…

I’ll always remember those somber words from my first sponsor.

When I echoed his words back incorrectly with a naive “yea, I see what you mean…many of us don’t make it,” he corrected me with firmness and importance “No, Todd – most of us don’t make it…”

Like most, my roommate at Fairbanks Michael B didn’t make it….
Like most, my mother didn’t make it, dying alone on the floor of her family room…
Like most, a friend and former using buddy of mine Graham didn’t make it…

Like some, a friend and former dealer Jake did make it…
Like Jake, I’m making it…but only one day at a time.

Like Michael B.’s father questioned me on the phone, can people change?
Like my mother, most of us don’t want to change…
Like Graham, some of us want to change…but lose the battle to chance…

Like Jake has shown his two toddlers, born after he got clean, that people can change…
Like Jake, I’ve started to change…after almost 5 years of playing with chance…

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Center for Disease Control clock of prescription drug and Heroin deaths so far this calendar year

 

Like her grandson who will get out of jail in May…
He will faces his own opioid and heroin addiction as a homecomer…

he will need love, trust, faith…

and a home where people care about him.

Together, let’s keep him from becoming number 6,893…

Trust, Faith, and Coming Home…

People CAN change…

You already have a home.
Right here.
You have people that care about you.

Even when there isn’t trust, there’s always faith.
Faith that whatever the other is doing, it’s for a good reason.
As long as he has faith in me, I’ll faith in him…

Hey, hun…your trust is too important to me…

I have faith in you…just like mom had faith in me…

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This is an angel from from my mom’s garden. She sits up in the rafters of our porch, looking down on those who come and go from our house watching over us with peace, love and light.  I love you mom.  I will also be your little boy.

“Nobody ever does that anymore…” Oh yes they do…


…and that’s why it’s important to keep telling the story!

Yesterday, something happened to me that reminded me of a neighbor’s story I had wanted to blog about…but never did. So, here I am telling both our stories.

Driving home yesterday, we found a wallet in the middle of our street.  It had a VISA card (unsigned!), card with their checking routing and account number listed, $125 in cash and several other store “customer cards.”  Using the man’s driver’s license and a bank teller card, we tracked the guy down through his local bank branch.  When we returned the wallet, he was thankful — and said something to the effect of, “Nobody these days would ever return a wallet – so thank you.”

Oh yes they do…and I can “raise you one.”

Our neighbor B. recently lost an envelope full of cash – about $200.  He was buying materials at Lowe’s, and set the envelope down while he was collecting his purchases.  (He had a valid reason for having cash in an envelope – I forget the details, but that’s not relevant.)

B. called around to each place he stopped along the way to see if anyone had found it.  He got a phone call from a man later that day, letting him know the envelope was safe.  B. arranged to pick the envelope from the man and his wife. B. was so excited to have found it – thinking there was no way anyone would ever return an envelope full of cash – that he planned on giving the man a reward for his actions.  He figured 20%, so was going to give the man $40 as a sign of gratitude.

When B. got to the man’s house, they exchanged pleasantries and laughed about the situation.  The man gave him the envelope – and told B. there was a little something in there for him.  This of course had B. intrigued – so he checked the envelope.  There was $240 in the envelope.  The man and his wife not only wanted to return the lost cash – but wanted to “go above and beyond” and pay it forward…literally.  So, they added $40 of their own to Bruce’s envelope.

B. was blown away. Here he was going to show his appreciation, and instead was met with generosity and hospitality.  When B. tried to return the cash, explaining that he was actually going to give a $40 reward, the man and his wife said “no, we want you to have this.  If you get a chance somewhere down the road, pay it forward and return the favor to someone else sometime.”

As I’m writing this story, I realize I could have slipped an extra $25 in the found wallet to be a part of B’s “paying it forward” network.  But, there’s always next time…

So next time you hear bad news in the media, or hear someone talking down on people “these days” as having no morals, ethics, or sense of community…tell B’s story and pay it forward…

What kind of disengagement would it require not to stay busy and not to stay tired all of the time?


“Abundance is the antithesis of accumulation.”

I was recently pulling together some material on Abundant Community for a friend.  As I was doing this, I came across the audio from a workshop held in 2014 at Broadway United Methodist Church on “Living Toward a Culture of Community and Abundance.”

John McKnight, Peter Block and Walter Brueggemann led us in a series of discussions around the topic of abundance – interwoven with poetry and thoughts from Mari Evans and others. It was an amazing experience. Ideas, action and changes from the ripples and waves created that day continue to be revealed in and around me.

Here’s a short excerpt from Walter, who does a powerful job of making themes and lessons from the Old Testament come to life and have meaning for our communities and families today…

The dominant gospel narrative, which is performed again in the New Testament, is to find the freedom and courage to depart from Pharaoh’s narrative.  It is not an adequate food narrative.

In the last 5-10 years, almost everyone now knows that Pharaoh’s narrative has failed.  But, it has such a grip on us that we continue to pretend that it is the only narrative in town. We bust our ass trying to make it work, and convince ourselves that it is still true.  If you go along with the system, somehow it will still work.

The sign of that is how incredibly busy and tired we stay all the time. Pharaoh wants his slave subjects to stay busy and tired all of the time.

The question for those who want to leave this narrative is: what kind of disengagement would it require not to stay busy and not to stay tired all of the time…because people who are not busy or tired have energy to think about alternatives.

Walter Brueggemann, August 2014

Walter then shares some insight into another narrative for us to consider.  It starts with this inexplicable bread called Manna.

It is the narrative of abundance.

#abundance #abundantcommunity

…

Click here for the full audio feed…

The audio from the entire conference is included below:

The Abundance Festival Audio
Living Toward a Culture of Community and Abundance

Welcome – Rev. Mike Mather and Deamon Harges
Opening Poems – Mari Evans
Creating Connections – Peter Block
Walter Brueggemann
John McKnight
Peter Block
Closing Statements
Closing Poems – Mari Evans