Roy’s Sunday Letter for May 21, 2023

• Good News of Hope: Girl Scout Troop 6000, of Greater New York City, was formed by and for homeless girls living in a city shelter. What began with 6 girls now has 2,500 Girl Scouts across 20 city shelters. Each troop has active support, encouragement, and believing “we are in this together.” Other cities and Girl Scout chapters are beginning to redefine who and how young girls are served.

** A Santa Fe writer friend linked me to “836 Valencia.” This San Francisco nonprofit began the unique mission of teaching children and teens how to write their story. This program strives to improve reading and comprehension as an integral part of learning. The empowerment of writing is now in multiple sites in San Franciso and also in 8 other cities. Nearest to DFW is New Orleans. So, why not Fort Worth, or your city?

• The “Discalced Carmelite Nuns,” a small cluster in Arlington, TX is suing the Catholic Bishop for $1 million. They have their reasons, but nuns suing the Bishop is not news I needed to know. The sad reality is sad!

** More from Thomas Merton, 1965: “The joy of being able to communicate with friends, in a world where there is so much noise, distractions, and very little contact, is why I write.” Merton’s words of 1965, match well with why I send forth my Sunday Letter 2023.

• The US Surgeon General has added to his original writing about the epidemic of isolation and loneliness in our urban, rural, young and not young citizens. He describes the decline in church, faith centers and civic participation as an unweaving of our social fabric, of who we are together. The growth of social platforms and devices add to the separation of knowing, of being patient, of caring with and for each other. Churches and civic leaders are challenged to be relevant, to be meaningful, as they are in every generation. For me, pulpit and civic leadership, over-all, are lacking the courage, or maybe interest, in being relevant and meaningful.

** My nonprofit peers and I invest time and focus to address and implement DEI (Diversity – Equity – Inclusion) solutions in our trainings and conferences. Texas and Florida’s non-leaders have turned away from families, youth, and our future together. DEI is more than a policy. Bringing in faces, gender, and culture that does not look or sound like me can be disruptive or frustrating to traditions and the established order…as it must be, as it should be. There is no other way to be a nation undivided.

Roy, a Girl Scout by heart