Facebook Publication Date: 9/8/2022 13:09

Welcome to the September Education Issue!

This month, we are turning our focused attention to education as it pertains to race. And, as is our wont, we will do so in our signature fashion: taking a novel approach to familiar themes, as well as looking at the issue through our own lens.

As is true with most things that we put on offer, though we never mean to needlessly activate you (or tick you off), it is true that a lot of what we will be covering this month (IQ; education and sports; paying for college; the role of educators) will be, to some, provocative.

It should be. The current system and underpinnings of the system surely activate me.

Almost seventy years after integration, every single barrier–access, funding, expectations, curriculum; the list goes on–is still extant.

And it ties in with everything else we could (and will) possibly talk about: housing, employment, the justice system, and so much more.

The current crisis in Jackson, Mississippi is, in no small part, driven by white flight, which was not just only driven, but steamrolled, by integration.

A perfect segue. While the focus of our new magazine format in September will indeed be education, there are other features which will also be covered every month. This month (and possibly also October) we will also tackle another focus: the water crises in Jackson. We will give context, and also provide opportunity for on-the-ground praxis and solidarity.

And as always: Applied relational ethics (natch), the fundamentals of friendship, money and change work (not just LoR, but across the board), winning and losing strategies.

And, yes, this: Lessons Learned. There have been many of them over the last year and a half. Some of them I have spoken of, some not so much; all are lessons etched into my psyche and my soul. The only way this crucible has had meaning for me is that I stay in it and become refined.

The only way to make collective meaning of all we have gone through together as a community is to talk about it here. By here, I mean a little bit in Takeout, but mostly in the Bistro at the LoR Cafe, and also in a very underutilized tab at the website: Lace on Faith.

This is no small risk. There have been more than a few who have been quite vocal in their hurling of epithets such as charlatan and cult leader, which have served their purpose in making me timid about both my convictions and the foundations that undergird them. I have felt more comfortable talking about philosophy and ethics, but while they greatly inform who I am and what I bring to you, and are essential as you understand my journey over the last year and a half, they are, by themselves, insufficient.

It has been my faith (both more specific and more diffused than anyone, save those who walk with me intimately and faithfully might think) that has sustained me through this extended and extant crucible.

I need utter safety if I am to open up the deepest corners of myself, and my Self, and, at least for now, that cannot happen on Facebook or on other external platforms like Instagram and Twitter. I hope this saddening truth will one day change. But for now, I have to deal with current realities, and the realities dictate that the safest place for this level of intimacy and disclosure that I feel is crucial can only happen in my inner sanctum. I need faithful and reliable Companions, with a capital C. I cannot have active marauders or, in some ways worse, passive spectators.

So, to the Cafe I will go.

You are welcome to join me there. Unlike Takeout Window, one needs to enter into authentic and transparent and brave community by registering for the Cafe. It’s easy, and pretty much pro forma. I look forward to seeing you there, and sharing my heart, and my process, with all who would choose to join me.

In this magazine format, we will continue to utilize and to serve the Takeout Window–although in a somewhat different way.

We will begin conversations there, but will have the deeper conversations the topics deserve in the LoR Cafe, both in the Bistro, and also in the different Dining Rooms.

This will indeed mean that those who want more, both in terms of content and of community, will need to register for the Cafe. It’s easy! We are happy to walk with you through it.

We hope you enjoy this new, slightly tighter, and definitely more safe-ish format. The structure is for you–but the heart of all we do is always, always, in service to the North Star.

Lessening and mitigating the harm endured by black and brown people perpetuated by white people and white supremacy is why we breathe.

Inhale.

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