Harvey… 🥹 putting faces and stories to statistics is the only way for holy progress. One of the reasons I’m grateful to work on the ground with students and families in the public schools. The reasons are always more complicated and poignant than the judgment and blame society loves to place.
Kelly, that's exactly what writing the poem did for me. It forced me to slow down and put a face on what I usually process as a statistic or a policy debate. The right-brained work doesn't come naturally to me. Finding the metaphor, capturing the emotion, sitting with the image long enough to feel it, is harder for me than writing an argument. But this one surprised me with how much it softened something in me while I was writing it. Which is probably the point of poetry that I keep missing until it works on me without my permission.
And your work on the ground with students and families, seeing the complicated and poignant reality behind every story society wants to flatten into a judgment, is exactly the kind of proximity that changes people. Grateful for the work you do.
Harvey… 🥹 putting faces and stories to statistics is the only way for holy progress. One of the reasons I’m grateful to work on the ground with students and families in the public schools. The reasons are always more complicated and poignant than the judgment and blame society loves to place.
Kelly, that's exactly what writing the poem did for me. It forced me to slow down and put a face on what I usually process as a statistic or a policy debate. The right-brained work doesn't come naturally to me. Finding the metaphor, capturing the emotion, sitting with the image long enough to feel it, is harder for me than writing an argument. But this one surprised me with how much it softened something in me while I was writing it. Which is probably the point of poetry that I keep missing until it works on me without my permission.
And your work on the ground with students and families, seeing the complicated and poignant reality behind every story society wants to flatten into a judgment, is exactly the kind of proximity that changes people. Grateful for the work you do.
I felt the heartbreak. Thank you Harvey
I have prayed some of these prayers. Thank you.
Grateful this poem found you, Christine, and grateful you are here.
Powerful.
Grateful you felt that, Marylee.
These voices deserve to be heard.
Oh my🥹🥹🥹. So beautiful
Thank you
Beautifully written, and food for thought.
Beautiful and heart breaking.
Psalm 34:18 — "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."