I keep a sticky note on my computer monitor with my personal checklist. It’s a reminder, especially when I am stressed or overwhelmed, to go through my checklist, take stock of these dimensions of myself, and to devote attention and care to all of these capacities. This is more than self-care, it is self-equipping.
With all of the recent changes on our college campus due to COVID-19, I wanted to share a message with our seniors and graduate students in these challenging and unprecedented times.
I’m not an expert on viruses, but I do have a lifetime of experience in public health. Public health is about the health of all of us, as a community. Public health does not deny our innate need to attend to our own safety and survival, but it also calls us to do more than that: to act on behalf of the common good.
Last week I accompanied the Voices of the Earth (formerly named the Women’s World Music Choir) on their spring break tour in Puerto Rico.
Last week I was in Arusha, Tanzania to lead a research team meeting at Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (NMAIST). I’ve been doing collaborative research on the health of mothers and children in Tanzania since 1992.
Inclusion is not a quick or easy journey. One public statement — by me or our governor — doesn’t complete the work. More than any formal statement, it is the ensuing conversations, relationships and deepened commitments that create inclusive community — the kind of solidarity that Pope John Paul II defined this way: “We are all really responsible for all.”
During our King Celebration 2020 this week, we were asked: "What is your work?" My work is to collaboratively lead Goshen College to be hospitable and just for all of our students and employees, regardless of race, first language or nation, skin color or any other appearance, gender, or sexual identity.
We all know the feeling when we’ve been part of a conversation that really mattered — one in which people were fully present, spoke honestly and clearly, and where ideas were formed and tested. We need more of that — not only at Goshen College and all of our places of work, but also in our churches and communities.
I am ready for a new word for the new year, and it will be embrace.
Practicing gratitude makes us feel good, but science also shows that people who practice gratitude get better at coping with stress, seek more social support, respond to negative events more positively and become more patient.
