There Certainly Is Ice, But Is There Really Just ice?

I welcome those that know me and those that don't as I begin another foray into the blogging universe to put my thoughts out there as if I have something meaningful to impart or some piece of treasured knowledge that would benefit those in the greater world. In the past I have always blogged about politics, that is to say specifically liberal Democratic politics. It is still an interest area, but I feel pulled/called/driven to pursue something different, and also to create a new niche for myself in this world and show up in a different way than I ever have before. To be sure, putting yourself into the electronic world is a journey and not without risks and perils. As I have been collecting my thoughts my mind does drift back to the old words of Bilbo Baggins as told by Frodo in the Lord Of The Rings:

'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.' -Tolkien

And so I too take a step from the doorway of my 'home'. Home is an apt word to describe where the motivation to start this blog came from, because the concept of home is representative of a place where you feel safe, where you feel comfortable, where you are sure of yourself and of your world and you can usually know what to expect, but also the place where you can close the door and get away from the outside world, to not have to see what you don't want to see, and can be a place to hide if you are not careful.

Recently I had the door of my proverbial 'home' kicked in after I attended the Social Justice Training Institute in Long Beach, CA. It was an intense experience intended to help the participants start to explore their own work that they need to do to be more effective in their work as diversity educators, social justice advocates, and I would argue as human beings. Having been someone that was in tune with these issues in the past I thought that I really got what Social Justice was about. However, after attending the Institute I realized that I don't think I got it at all...and that there was much more that I could be doing and much more that I needed to learn.

So this place and my new Twitter account are going to be the places where I seek to process what I am learning, what I am noticing happening around me in Iowa, and most importantly what I am doing to try and create the kind of world that I want to live in and want my kids to live in. It could be stimulating, it is likely to be frustrating at times, but I think it will be worth it...and honestly I can't just journal and keep it all locked away and not process it with folks!

First step will be to get enough courage to post my initial stream of thoughts that I wrote on my way home from SJTI. Hopefully I will be in that place soon!