Tag Archives: inspiration

A Word in your Ear – –

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Jack has been very remiss with Wednesday blog posts – but there have been many distractions –

I learned a lesson some years ago that has stayed with me over the years. I was a senior manager in a community college in Scotland and was going through a difficult time. This was due to the hidden actions of other colleagues, and I felt isolated and alone.

Two of my colleagues (both women) could sense I was troubled and invited me out a few times to restaurants or bars for a meal or a drink. I’m sure they did this together so there wouldn’t be any gossip although they would have been perfectly capable of dealing with that anyway.

The lesson it taught me is that whenever it seems that anyone is behaving in a manner you consider unprofessional or unnecessarily awkward, you need to remember that you don’t know what else is going on their life. Most people try to keep their work life and personal life apart but I suspect that is almost impossible these days, with so many people in upheaval from the recent storm.

Seeing the devastation affecting other areas, I got thinking about how sometimes it’s upfront and obvious how people are affected by events. In those times, maybe we give grace a little longer. I’ve tended to give people the benefit of the doubt anyway, but these days everyone can see what’s happening.

But not always – – –

Sometimes those battles are hidden, and in those situations a little friendship, even a kind word, goes a long way.

I’ve been described as an empathetic person and I think it all goes back to those two wise and observant women! Ever since then I’ve tried to give folk some slack. If we can all do the same during these stormy times, perhaps we can weather it a little better—together.

A Life’s Work Rolls On – –

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Jack’s guest post is a bit late this week, because Wendy beat him to it on Wednesday – –

When I first met Wendy she was working as a community storyteller in Kingsport, Tennessee. She used her skills to help folk in a housing project engage with the world outside through telling their stories of re-entry from prison life, from their native Appalachian towns, and from learning about other cultures through her telling them stories.

Throughout our time together she has used these storytelling skills as well as her writing to continue supporting various communities – refugees and asylum seekers in England included. She worked with the Muslim moms there to help them tell their own stories and again learn about other countries from children’s storytelling, and also teaching them to tell stories in their community.

On arriving in Scotland she quickly set up a storytelling cooperative called ‘Storytelling Unplugged’ which ran afterschool clubs and library events as well as activities in health centers and even in the only Scottish children’s hospice. Eventually she wound up on The Scottish Government traditional arts committee.

She is the only person to have served on both the US and Scottish storytelling national governing bodies.

All of that led eventually to where she is now – in Appalachia as the Executive Director of GMEC (Graduate Medical Education Consortium of SW Virginia – a real mouthful!).

So now she brings together all of that plus a PhD in Folklore and a Masters in Public Health and an enthusiasm for foraging and gardening to (drum roll please)….

bringing together medical students and trainee doctors to learn how to interact with their often misunderstood patients through programs of community nourishment and a mixture of storytelling and writing. All of that and encouraging youngsters to become medical professionals and others from outside Appalachia to relocate here and set down roots.

Wendy puts the community into medical community, and I am proud of her! Especially when her whole use of storytelling to build trust and combat misinformation landed her on NPR last week. Their program THROUGHLINES was doing a conspiracy theory and medical misinformation blog post, and they interviewed her as one of their experts. Hers was the final quote of the whole program, speaking the truth by saying that the truth mattered. In fact, it is a matter of life and death.

I am proud of my wife’s accomplishments, but listening her talk about people telling the truth might have been my proudest moment yet!