Brian Paff, Director of Communications, Laurelville

Brian Paff, a very creative young leader-in-the-making at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center, interviewed me for his podcast series at the Laurelville website.

Brian wrote a press release about the series of three speeches I gave at Laurelville April 30-May 1. The theme was dancing with change, and Brian took a picture of Stuart and me demonstrating the function of the “frame” in learning to dance.

Here is the direct link to listen to the 15-minute Podcast Q and A. Hope you will find something I said useful–or at least interesting. Subscribers to this blog, I hope you will enjoy this new way to add “voice” to a blog and give me some feedback. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do simply by adding your email address on the right side of this screen.

Everyone: What have YOU learned about dancing with change? What did you learn as a child that has held you in good stead as an adult? As I hold grandson Owen in my arms, and dance to his happy songs, one of my prayers for him is that he learns to dance with change. Have you learned anything about change and/or leadership from the children in your life?

“What We Nurture” with Sylvia Boorstein from On Being on Vimeo.

I love Krista Tippett’s American Public Media show called On Being. The broadcast she did on Mother’s Day, seen in video above and in this online link–an interview with Sylvia Boorstein–allows the listener to experience the power derived from claiming motherhood (and grandmotherhood) as central to one’s story in life. Two thumbs up!

And I love six-word memoirs. Did you see the responses published in The New York Times to the Mother’s Day six-word memoir contest? Check them out! They are poignant, cute, hilarious, and profound.

What came to your mind as you watched or listened to Sylvia Boorstein? Or as you interacted with the online meditation and poetry that accompany the interview?

Have a six-word memoir about your own mother to share?

We have already looked at the huge role memoir played in the last political campaign.  We have chronicled the six-word memoir, the 25 Things About Me phenomenon, Facebook, and reviewed many memoirs here.  Now it is time to begin thinking about radio, especially NPR.  Think about your favorite shows:  Story Corps, “This I Believe” and “This American Life.”

“This American Life” has been the top podcast on iTunes for years.  I love listening, often laughing, always engaged in someone else’s world and more reflective about my own.

Here’s just one show you can listen to now by clicking the hot link in this sentence.  If you don’t have time to listen to the whole show, let me pull out one sentence for you to contemplate here.

We always ask people “how did you meet?”  We never ask “what has kept you together?”  Consider this post the exception to that rule.

What has kept you and a loved one together–whether that togetherness has been one year or fifty years?