It's a New Year

As 2008 gave way to 2009, I thought about those aspects of my life that I wanted to devote more energy to, the places I felt that I could improve upon, the details of my life that I was not completely satisfied with. This blog is one of those aspects.

I thought about how I could share more of what I see, what I experience and what I feel and think with my community, both geographically and on the web. During that stream of thought, I realized that I neglect my blog. I get caught up in my head about nobody caring about what I am up to, convincing myself I don't have time or I plain forget. All of these distractions from my blog are me getting in my own way and they show up in a lot more places in my life than just on my blog. Some of those places are harder for me to control and apply new technologies to than others, this blog is certainly one place I can control and do something about.

Call it a resolution, a renewed dedication, guilty conscious or a new leaf. Call it what you will, I am going to work at keeping this blog fresh with stuff that comes out of my head. It may be ramblings such as this, photography, a book review, shameless self promotion (another aspect of my life I am going to devote more energy to so watch out), or something I have not yet even thought of. The beauty of all of it is, it feels good. It feels good to put dedication out into the world. It feels good to create. It feels good to share.

Keeping in the spirit of sharing, I have to cut this short without posting any images because I am off to a facilitator training for Building Bridges. BB is a program in Asheville that brings groups of diverse people together to have conversations about race, racism and how it continues to show up in our world. The course is nine weeks long and I attended the winter session last year. BB provides all of their "students" with a workbook that has different articles, studies and readings that are designed to promote conversations during the nine week course. We meet together as a large group for a presentation, then break into smaller groups to have our discussions. I learned a great deal form the last session, having the opportunity to sit with over 100 people in a room to hear a presentation then the privilege to sit in an intimate group of 12-15 people of all walks of life to discuss the readings is truly inspirational.

The Spring session will start January 26th and meet Monday nights from 7-9pm until March 23rd @ MAHEC 501 Biltmore Avenue. See their website for more information.

This session they have invited yours truly to be a small group facilitator, so I must go now to attend my first facilitator training. I promise to bring back snippets of wisdom, insights or at at least my own musings about what I learn to this medium. Maybe some of you will read it.