Diffusion of Responsibility: simply put, when a task is placed before a group of people, there’s a strong tendency for each individual to assume someone else will take responsibility for it—so no one does. {psychology today} Diffusion of responsibility is based on the phenomenon that if something urgent must be done in a situation, the more people there are present, the more likely someone else will assume that the other people will step up and take action. It usually... Read more
There are plenty of aspects to this week that left me tired and fretful, but this morning I remembered this beautiful act of resistance, started by my dear friend, Leanna. For a year, every Friday, she’s resisting by engaging gratitude, seven gratitudes for seven days of the week. Let me tell you a little about this woman. She will speak and she won’t be silenced, and her voice, I believe, can move mountains. She is the friend that sat with... Read more
ACTUALLY, it was a social work classroom. She had a shaved head and I had some sort of pixie cut, and we slowly began sitting together, working together, answering questions in class, passionate about the people and stories we studied. After a few years of being in the social work program together, we knew that we were called to the same spaces, in the same ways, to care for those that have been broken and abused, to take up the... Read more
Dear President Trump, As a new era begins in your life, so it begins in mine. About a year and a half ago, I began culturally engaging my Potawatomi Citizen Band/Chickasaw/Cherokee heritage along with my husband and two sons. It has transformed my life in every way, coming back to something inside of me that has asked to be paid attention to. In a way, I’ve promised myself that I’ll never be the same again, never go back to... Read more
I’ve read a lot of posts giving us permission to put 2016 behind us and move forward with hope. Maybe we’re grieving the death of a part of us, or someone that we left in that year. And when 2017 rolled around, we said good-bye to everything and everyone to begin again. But the problem with leaving “the past in the past” is that we miss who we are because of it. I’ve watched people I love mourn those that... Read more
I stood at my sister’s kitchen sink the other night, after we’d had a post-Christmas meal together. My family was there for one day, and we knew our time was limited. My mom put away the leftovers while I washed what I could, looked out the window, thought about what this new year might bring with it for us. In the middle of the washing, the word outside popped into my head. I was looking out the window at the starred, cold-dark... Read more
O Creator, This name is one of the most beautiful we can give you, because it speaks such pure truth- You create and recreate us–and the hope of every being–day after day. In our earliest beginnings, you crafted something sacred into us, insignificant breaths chosen for something larger, something more. And further back to the first beginning, wherever and whenever it was, everything had a curated purpose under your watchful eye and gentle hand. And so today and everyday, we... Read more
Peace, Dearest, I searched for you today. I was in Aleppo, and I held a dying child as she searched my eyes for your presence and I searched hers for the same. Dearest Peace, I sought you out in the middle of the protest, each one a fight for people to become more human to each other, each one a battle in your very name. I listened for your voice when the news shouted vulgar lies at the world, one side... Read more
{LOVE.} I’ve written before that we have slow mornings at home. We play and read, we sit on the couch and look out the windows for a while, and there is no rush. And the more I practice this, the more I need and treasure it, and the more I mourn for our society in which so many people are pushed out their front doors before they’re even awake in the mornings. Advent is a slow and steady thing. It’s... Read more
Years and years ago, advent came as a long season, generations of waiting and hoping for someone to rescue and repair brokenness. But in those long and hard years, I imagine there was some anger and some grief, a little hope lost along the way but still held onto in the end. This Advent feels different for me, as I watch the world, even the world of the church I’ve always known, show itself through different hues. I take the... Read more
Stories - with Kaitlin B. Curtice
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