Just Wanted to Say Thanks

Sometimes it's a good idea to pause and to say thanks to folks who've blessed your life. This post has been on my heart for some time, so now, here it is. These folks and their pages are over just to the right of this post. I'd encourage you to check them out as you have time.

Thanks to those amazing and gifted students from ACU who formed Social Justice Teams:

Team I: Sara, Laura, Jacob, Josh, Ashley, and Liz because you laid the foundation for all that has followed. That work with stories of women who are both African American and of Indian ancestry and African Americans reared in a white cultural context was excellent.

Team II: Kelsie, Josh, Bryanna, Tim, and David Todd because you walked in places and spaces that no one had walked before. Yes, I know we're still waiting for action from DOJ. Hopefully we'll not have to wait forever. And, your contribution at the conference in King of Prussia, PA was important and timely.

Team III: Michelle, Kimberly, Rebecca, Scott, Sarah, Brian, and Heather, your conceptual work and presentations in larger academic contexts was among the first for this work. Heather, I'd still like to see some of your amazing art work.

Team IV: Daniel, Ruqayyah, and Ty, your work in the area of white privilege which is coming up here in a few days at TAMFT will make a difference.

Abilene Christian University, the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy, and its founders, Paul Faulkner and Tom Milholland, along with amazing faculty, staff, and students, gave me the context to grow as a person, professional, and advocate for justice. It's the best MFT program in the country.

Big Country Family Therapy Associates, now owned by a loyal and faithful friend and co-worker, provided a context for serving struggling people. Dave in particular, his wife, and our Sunday morning Bible class provided another context in which to engage justice and the Word of God. They heard my stories, and they told their own. There's not a better therapist in Abilene than the man who's on the fifth floor of the Compass Bank Building, downtown Abilene.

Gary Grant, President, and the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association along with the Concerned Citizens of Tillery, provided the legitimacy that was foundational for engaging black farmers, hearing their stories, and telling them on these pages and in other contexts. Gary is a visionary, a man of principle and passion, and a man who has become a friend in this righteous struggle. Gary's engagement of Justice Team III and IV last year was an amazing thing to watch. His influence extends far beyond North Carolina.

Dionne, senior administrator of the Department of MFT at ACU, and entrepreneur, is a woman of immense talents who gave of her means to support traveling students on their way to a black land loss summit last year. Check her and her efforts out.

Greg Kendall-Ball, staff member in the Graduate School of Theology, ACU, and I have dreamed big dreams. He's a gifted photographer. Only funding is holding us back from making what we think will be an enormous contribution to the telling of the stories of black farmers of our land.

Larry James of Central Dallas Ministries and I crossed paths back in Memphis at the Harding Graduate School of Religion in the early '70s. His heart and his bright mind were evident then and now. His words on his blog are daily reads. He points people to the Kingdom and to justice in this world, two things that cannot be disconnected.

Micah P. Hinson is a young singer/songwriter who has caught the vision of the plight of the black farmer. One who has always had a heart oriented toward the disenfranchised, he and I have collaborated on a song about black farmers. Only funding is keeping this effort from becoming a "proper release," a video, and the making of the video, a venture that will also engage the choir from Tillery, NC. This and the photojournalism effort would be firsts and would tell the story in contexts not utilized before. There's another effort that deserves to be heard, one co-authored musically and lyrically by Ben Clinard, student at ACU/MFT.

John Boyd president of the National Black Farmers Association and I crossed paths in Memphis in January, 2006. His proximity to DC allows him to operate on large political stage. His efforts in spotlighting the plight of the black farmer are important contributions to this righteous cause.

Dr. Spencer Wood, sociology professor at Kansas State University, and I first met via email around some pivotal things he'd written about black land loss. Then, last year at the 10th Annual Black Land Loss Summit, Tillery and Whitakers, NC, we met face to face. He is a good man who is making significant contributions to this cause. He's a leader and I am simply a follower.

Vern Switzer, or "The Watermelon Man," has an amazing story. He, too, was a farmer who was involved in the Pigford Class Action Suit, and while still farming, he has now begun to reach out via books and stories to engage children and farming. He is a great story teller who can keep elementary students' attention for an hour at a time.

There are more. We need more. Racism and discrimination are not going to go away any time soon. Listen to our daily conversations. Tune in to what others are saying, and how folks are treating others, and it's there.

There's much to be done. Who are the activists that you know? What are their links, their contexts, their efforts?

They came, they worked, they produced

Several weeks back on this blog I wrote with much enthusiasm about Ruqayyah, Ty, and Daniel coming to Ada. It's a 4 1/2 trip from Abilene, Texas to Ada, Oklahoma, but somehow they managed it with busy schedules, clients to see, things to read, papers to write, and their other obligations to manage. It was a packed weekend. We stayed up late, laughed, talked, and, of course, we had to show them the community and have them meet some of the people here in this community.

After a morning run for Ty, Daniel, and me, one of my wife's world famous breakfast casseroles, and a tour of the key spots of the city, we settled into an afternoon of thinking out loud. We all wanted to stay with the essential ideas of developing a conceptual model that engages structural and narrative theory, work of previous teams, and ideas related to racism in its various forms that emerge from institutions of power and privilege upon the lived experiences of people.

We were able later to engage the expertise of two professionals here in Ada, Aaron Long and Joshua Hinson, in putting together a poster that speaks to the ideas and concepts that we consider to be germane to the topic at hand. We expanded it a bit by adding a second group alongside Black farmers for the purposes of comparing and contrasting. We are of the opinion that it gives us something to think about, and something that should continue to stir us to action.

At the end of the day, institutions of power and privilege are still amongst us. Racism still is ever present. Decisions are made as to worth on the basis of skin color, and other de-personalizing things, and our world is the poorer for it.

Though I'm no longer at ACU, and no longer teaching in the MFT program there, I am pleased, very pleased, that these students opted to continue the work of Teams I, II, and III.

Here is what this group of MFT students at ACU produced.

Words to the graduates

These are the words that I spoke over the MFT/ACU graduates on Thursday night, August 7. In that audience were seven members of Justice Team III and three members of Justice Team IV.

The work of these teams has always been a "co-curricular" thing. While the students do take a research course in which they explore via quantitative and qualitative methodologies these things that we write about here, the experiences of travel and interviews and all have been above and beyond the curriculum. They are going to make a huge difference in the world. Already has started.

We Serve a God of Extravagance

MFT Department Graduation Banquet

August 7, 2008

There is a time and a place to speak of extravagance, not in the ostentatious sense of the word, but in the God-intended sense of the word. As I see it, we serve an extravagant God who creates extravagantly, a God who loves extravagantly, a God who gifts extravagantly, and a God who calls us to extravagant living and loving out of our giftedness.

So we come to this place to honor those who wish to honor their calling. I think it is something like this. And then there was a star on the horizon, just as there is every evening as the sunlight fades. Then there is a second, a third, a fourth. Some show signs of brightness, but soon they burn out; perhaps they're not stars but meteors that only exist temporarily. Others find a different orbit than the rest. Some travel widely across the sky and for longer periods of time than the rest of us, Jeff Holland and Gretchen Etheredge, while others are a bit younger, Sarah or Kimberly or Rebecca. Others take rather circuitous routes to reach us, Ruqayyah or Kristi or Carlos or Ty, while others are a little more direct, Jordan, Mindy, or Daniel.

Whatever the path, we wind up in the same place and the same space for a span of time. We don't feel like stars, and we certainly don't always feel terribly gifted, but there are those moments when our calling is clear. It may be after moments of terror with either a professor or a client, but then the chosen and the choosing merge into something meaningful.

It's clear that we're not always in charge of our paths, that obstacles are placed in front of us, to challenge us or to refine our faith as of by fire, or to encourage us to continue in our calling. Back when I was in graduate school, one of my professors who intimidated me immensely, Dr. Jack P. Lewis, coined the phrase "ministry of study," and that, I think is what you do here, while practicing on people, so as to reach that incredible balance of understanding how theory does indeed drive practice and within that context of the therapy room, that intimate, lived moment, we actually get to see attitudes and behaviors change.

It's also clear that someone is in charge of "seasons" of our lives, and that it's not us. The teacher of old wrote, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."

And so, there's a time to be born and a time to die;

a time to think about MFT and a time to accept the invitation;

a time to plant and a time to uproot;

a time to receive the scholarship offer and a time to ask more from Dr. Halstead;

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to wonder if Abilene is the right place and a time to drive away from it nostalgically;

a time to tear down and a time to build;

a time to sit in your first lecture with Milholland and a time to hear Goff for the last time;

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to put the first letter on the first page of your first paper and a time to put the period at the end of your last reference page;

a time to mourn and a time to dance;

a time to watch Hinson interview a family and a time to say,"I can do that, too;"

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them;

a time to feel the anxiety of the client hour #1 and a time to experience the emotional tug of the last hour, whatever the number;

a time to embrace and a time to refrain;

a time to be reluctantly supervised and a time to welcome the coaching;

a time to search and a time to give up;

a time to wonder if you'll ever be worth what folks will pay you and a time to realize that a laborer is worthy of his or her hire;

a time to keep and a time to throw away;

a time to buy those books on bestbookbuys.com and a time to sell them to incoming, unsuspecting first years;

a time to tear down and a time to mend; and

a time to doubt your calling and a time to embrace it tenaciously.

So, how do you put God, extravagance, MFT, stardom, your sitting here tonight, and your calling together? I think it goes like this, and just a little further on in that particular section of Biblical text. In that section, rewritten tonight, is "He has also set eternity in the hearts of people; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

My prayer for you is that you will embrace the eternity within you, that you will live out your calling extravagantly, and that you will inch ever so closer to fathoming what extravagant things God has done and is doing through you, and by doing so you will both honor your amazing giftedness and make the world a better place.

And, a PS to the social justice team graduates:

A time to consider joining and a time to jump onto the team after much prayer;

a time to ponder the overwhelming injustices in the world and a time to decide that 'I can do a little something about them' in my corner of the universe;

a time to read of the plight of the Black farmer and a time to hear Hinson tell their stories and a time to go and talk to them directly;

a time to write letters to the President of the US and the secretary of the USDA and

a time to read their letters of response;

a time to grieve at the injustices wrought upon Black farmers of our land and a time to be astounded at their resiliencies;

a time to read about the plight of the Black farmer and a time to listen to the interviews;

a time to wonder how you'll be received if you tell your family and friends what you're up to and a time to get in the mail an article from an aunt or an uncle who is now aware of the struggle; and

a time to pray, 'Lord will these meager efforts ever make a difference,' and a time to do them again, and again, and again.

"From Therapy to Advocacy, Principles to Practice," at TAMFT

Here are some interesting photos of interesting people who presented some interesting ideas recently. They grasp the larger issues of the Black farmer struggle and how it's embedded in our larger social context. They get it that injustice continues across our land. These are students in the MFT program at Abilene Christian University who have devoted their time and energies to putting their ideas onto the page and out into the public arena. The setting was the annual conference of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Galveston, March 27, 2008. For those not in academic settings, the "poster session" is one in which they literally put up a poster with their ideas on it. They stand in front of the poster and engaged passers-by in conversation about it. Also, they presented their ideas in a larger research forum. From what I heard (I couldn't be there due to family matters), it was a lively presentation complete with a challenging question or two from the audience.

Here is what a few of them said about the experience.

Rebecca: "When I attended the Black Land Loss Summit I was overwhelmed and moved by the stories of struggle, racism and resilience. Their stories were embedded with multiple levels of factors that affected their landscape of discrimination and hardship. Communicating this within a conceptual model at the TAMFT Conference through words and graphics was complicated. Although their experiences were told, it was frustrating to not be able to relay the emotional sorrow I felt at the Black Land Loss Summit within a professional setting."

Kimberly: "An explanation of our conceptual model was sandwiched in

between our two other speakers in the forum. As a representative of the third social justice research team, I spoke about the various social structures at work regarding the issue of black farmers and land loss. Our diagram depicts several groups of concentric circles denoting the micro and macro levels of these structures. One group represents the government, another advocacy. There is one for the field of marriage and family therapy, and one is representing the black farmers. These various structures move throughout time with various levels of the system interacting with various levels of another system. The structures within their historical and cultural contexts. I told about one example where there was a collision of these structures. A few members of our research team were able to attend the 10th Annual Black Land Loss Summit where representatives from the USDA were present along with Advocacy reps. As the cultural context is still saturated with injustice, at these points of collision we endeavor to bring change."

Scott: "Presenting at the conference was both exhilarating and sobering. The thrill of presenting the stories that I have delved in for the last year to fellow therapists to help them understand the plight of the black farmer pushed me to work hard to honor their stories through our team’s efforts. A certain sadness followed the realization that many still do not understand or choose to hear the extent of the marginalization of the black farmers; even those with ears to hear can choose to block out the voices that challenge their schema. Clearly we live within the tension of celebrating the victories of those whose stories we tell and fighting further battles to keep the story from ending prematurely."

Michelle: "For the TAMFT conference I spoke briefly about social justice foci in curricular and co-curricular endeavors among COAMFTE approved MFT programs. A major component to my part of the presentation was emphasizing the importance of stimulating second-order change within MFT programs and the individuals comprising the program. Taking on matters of social justice, regardless of the group undergoing oppression, requires change within oneself as well as inspiring and seeking the amelioration of suffering and oppression through others. Being willing and aware of ways to incorporate diversity in an MFT program requires listening and learning from a wider array of individuals than before. I also emphasized the importance of incorporating diverse readings and other assignments that challenge the dominant culture and MFT models allowing for others to contribute to the theories and implementation of MFT."

Others spoke. Maybe we can get their words out here the next few

days or so.

Thanks to Jeff Emery, MFT at ACU student and professional photographer, for his skills in capturing these images.