Focused Serendipity

I was doing really well on writing blog postings in July and August of this year, working on installments of the "Recovery" focus -- which I plan to return to soon. But, around that time, a whole new set of events occurred that encouraged me, at least temporarily, to set aside that focus and concentrate on another path.

Over this past year, when I made connections on LinkedIn -- as people accepted my invitation to 'link' -- I sent out a 7-paragraph 'bio' that talked about what my activities had been, in terms of men's emotional wellness, how I had arrived at 'where I was presently', and listed the Internet links to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute [MMWI] website and blog. I was gratified that about 50% of the people to whom I sent my bio responded. Most of the replies were in the nature of "thanks for the information, it's good to connect", which was pleasant, but additionally a number of people said "I really like what you're talking about and want to connect at a stronger professional level". For those replies, I wrote back and engaged in a short, but vital conversation. And then, a few people 'acted upon' the information in my bio and said they wanted to interview me for articles or radio shows. That was the most amazing part: it's gratifying when I am able to 'link with lots of other professional people', but it's even more empowering to carry on real conversations with LinkedIn connections and make the connections 'real'.

So, I am going to discuss the most resilient of links that I made and what has resulted from them heretofore.

KETC, Channel 9 Community Producer Class

Before talking about the links, I want to focus on a Video Editing class I took at KETC, the St. Louis PBS channel (it ties into what follows). KETC sent out an invitation in August, inviting nonprofit organizations to engage in a Video Editing class at the station, with a special emphasis on Community Producers who had taken the class before. I had taken the class in 2012 and produced a short video for their "Homeland" project.

We had a choice of any community focus that we wanted to engage in, for our projects. Most of the class decided to focus on the events in Ferguson, Missouri, following the murder of Michael Brown by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. That had been dominating the news for several weeks and had raised (for very good reasons) community anger about police brutality and the overt discriminatory enforcement of the law at the expense of African American citizens -- which, frankly, has been going on for a very long time in Missouri. But this death, in particular, was 'the straw that broke the camel's back' and finally lit the fuse of anger in the African American, and St. Louis antiracism, community.

As much I have been, throughout my community organizing career, focused on antiracism issues, I decided to focus my own video on the issues of adult male sexual abuse survivors, which is the primary focus of MMWI. The class lasted 6 weeks, and I completed my video right before I left for New Mexico (see below). Given the time constraints, I decided to interview myself [as a male sexual abuse survivor], Linda Fiehler, my significant female partner, and Rev. Dr. Mark Robinson, my therapist. The class agreed, at the final session when we showed our 'product', that I had the most professional video, the most 'completed' one, at least in part because I had the advantage of having taken the class once before.

The subject of my video, which was posted on the KETC website, is "Achieving Intimacy After The Devastation of Male Sexual Child Abuse". The video can be accessed at: http://youtu.be/b9BcIr3GhVs.
(If you reach a 'Something went wrong' point, just ignore that and hit the 'follow this link' in the lower right corner, which will take you to the video.)

St. Louis Business Journal - Part 1

One of the people to whom I offered an invitation to connect on LinkedIn was the publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal. I didn't 'know' her beforehand, mainly I was reaching out and making connections to people within my own community whom I thought had interesting positions and ideas that would be beneficial to MMWI. In addition to people in Missouri, I focused on connections with people in New Mexico [where I lived for 32 years before moving to St. Louis], Native Americans, plus professionals working in the fields of psychology, mental health, human anti-trafficking, domestic abuse, art therapy, and other fields that related to the mission of MMWI. I was also focused on spreading my connections worldwide, and managed to make connections in Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. I enjoy having that 'global perspective' and accessing ideas and approaches to issues from many different perspectives.

Anyway, to my delightful surprise, the publisher at the St. Louis Business Journal (I found out later) read my bio and thought 'this would be an interesting person to interview' for their "Character Profile" article, which they have in every weekly edition. She directed one of her editors to pursue the interview and he in turn contacted Meg Crane, who is one of their writers, who in turn contacted me. This all occurred in mid-September. Meg called and asked me for an interview. This was the first time in over 10 years that anyone had taken an interest in finding out more about the mission of MMWI (there had been two articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2001 and 2002 about the organization, which had generated some community interest, but then media coverage had fallen silent).

It took a while to set things up, but finally we engaged in the interview in mid-October. As it turned out the only day we could do it was right before I was headed off to the Southwest to visit Bryce, Zion, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon, see friends and family in Albuquerque, and attend the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference at Ghost Ranch. The schedule was so tight that we arranged a photo session and the interview on the Friday before I was leaving on Sunday. At the time of the interview, the KETC video (noted above) had not yet been posted, but I told Meg I would encourage KETC to post it before the publication of the St. Louis Business Journal article, so they could include the link in the article.

The interview was really quite enjoyable (Meg Crane is a very professional interviewer). We scheduled it to last an hour, but it ended up going for 2 1/2 hours! At the end, Meg said she hoped that someone would 'take the bait' and be willing to fund MMWI, based on its focus on men's emotional wellness and the issues of male sexual abuse survivors, especially given how that no nonprofits in Missouri have that dual focus.

Off to the Southwest, and An Interview in Albuquerque

After a delightful week traveling with my long-time significant female partner to Bryce and Zion Canyons, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we returned to Albuquerque to visit with my brother and sister-in-law, and visit my close friends. On the second morning we were in town, we turned on the local news, mainly to see what the weather was going to be that day. As it turned out, there was an announcement about some police-community relations hearings at the Albuquerque Convention Center that evening. Albuquerque has had it own share of police brutality problems over this past year, with 37 police killings of citizens (some of them caught on video, which lead many citizens to be concerned that the killings were more like executions); a recent Economist article talked about Albuquerque having the most violent police department in the United States.

I noted to my significant partner that I should attend those hearings, given my former role as the Chair of the Albuquerque Policy Advisory Board (1981-82). After a day of seeing friends, we attended the hearings that evening. As it turned out, the forum was mainly a presentation about how a series of meetings were going to be held in the spring of 2015, to address citizen concerns about police behavior. One of the speakers was the mayor, who encouraged people to talk to him afterwards. I took that opportunity offered, and approached him and talked about my former role on the APAB. After giving him my business card and noting that I now lived in St. Louis, I offered my advise on how to set up an effective police-community review board.

As I was leaving the meeting, I noticed that there were several reporters from the local Albuquerque television stations in the back of the room, and being a 'media savvy' person, I approached one of them and noted that she might be interested to know that I was the former Chair of the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board. Immediately she turned to the cameraman and said "turn on that camera" and conducted an interview. Upon returning home, I told my brother about it, and we recorded the broadcast of the 10 p.m. news on KOB Channel 4, which had a portion of the interview. The following morning, Linda and I had breakfast with Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a former supervisor of mine, who is now a New Mexico State Senator. Jerry smiled and laughed "you've only been in Albuquerque 24 hours and you are already on the news!" He was happy that my experience with that Board had gotten some coverage again.

New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference

I hadn't been at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference since 2005, mainly due to financial constraints. But it was great to return and see old friends. This year's conference was the 30th Annual and I felt that was a great reason to come back. Many of my old comrades thanked me for returning, noting that "we're happy you've returned, because you have been a constructive critic of this conference over the years and we've been motivated to change some of it's foci as a result of your comments." I thoroughly enjoyed myself, making new friends in the process.

One thing that made the whole experience so empowering for me was that I came back to the conference having 'accomplished' something, concerning men's wellness, in Missouri. I had been a critic of the conference over the years, feeling that it's focus had been almost exclusively on both white, middle- and upper-middle class college educated men and on men in only the larger New Mexican cities of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces -- thereby ignoring men of color and men from the smaller towns in the state. [I had organized Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute in Missouri precisely to counter those limitations and more inclusively spread the message about men's wellness to communities of color and working-class males.] To my delighted surprise, several of the attendees were non-white males, and there were several men from other New Mexico cities and from out-of-state, which told me that their 'outreach' efforts had been successful. This year, I had, to my delight, had the interview with the St. Louis Business Journal before coming to the Conference, and I told my friends about it. I had been trying to motivate the Organizing Committee to promote men's wellness 'far and wide' and had, in the most serendipitous sort of way, successfully promoted it in Missouri. Many of the guys were very happy for me, and encouraged me to send them information about the article once it was published.

St. Louis Business Journal - Part 2

When I was visiting Zion Canyon, Meg Crane had called to tell me what she had written for the article and asked me to confirm that she had gotten the information correct. Shortly after I returned from New Mexico, the article was published (in the October 31-November 6 edition). I sent links to the article to a great many friends in Missouri and New Mexico. Unfortunately, KETC posted the video too late for the information about that link to appear in the St. Louis Business Journal article. But I was able to tell lots of my friends and colleagues about the video, and many people had a chance to view it, as well as read the Journal article. Many people responded warmly, thanking me for giving them the opportunity to know me better and to know about the mission of Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute.

In addition to many other positive outcomes, my Unitarian church is assisting me in setting up a Men's Wellness Ministry. The title of the St. Louis Business Journal article was Mariposa ministry and Meg had included, following upon my encouragement, a note about how my minister at First Unitarian had been working with me on the organization of that program. My plans for the ministry are widespread and inclusive, and I'll be talking about them in more detail in subsequent blog postings.

The one thing, though, that hasn't been generated from the Journal article, not really to any surprise, is 'someone coming forward to fund MMWI'. I never figured it would 'happen by osmosis'. I knew I would have to pursue that connection if it was going to lead to funding. But years ago, when I was in the Nonprofit Management and Leadership Certificate program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, one of my professors had noted that it was unlikely I would ever be funded unless I could find someone, hopefully who had experienced sexual abuse as a child, who had their own 'deep pockets' who would be willing to fund the nonprofit, given how few foundations fund men's wellness issues (Meg had repeated this advice in the Journal article). And, frankly, I don't know those kinds of people. So, while the article was powerful and personally empowering, and it has given me the opportunity to let my many connections know what I do professionally, it hasn't, heretofore, generated any income for the organization.

A Fine Time for Healing

Now, I arrive at the 2nd major result of my LinkedIn connections. Randi Fine, a psychotherapist who is one of my LinkedIn connections in Florida, offered me the opportunity to appear on her BlogTalkRadio show to discuss the issues of male sexual child abuse survivors. She felt the subject is rarely discussed (something I have noted extensively on the MMWI website and blog) and wanted to give me the opportunity to talk about in on a national forum.

Hence, I will be the featured speaker on the A Fine Time for Healing BlogTalkRadio show this coming Friday, September 26 (the day after Christmas) at 11 a.m. EST. The link for the show is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/randi-fine/2014/12/23/promoting-male-sexual-abuse-awareness-with-donald-b-jeffries.

Listeners can call in to talk to me at (424) 220-1801. If anyone misses the show on Friday, they can still access the link at a late date and listen to the show, as it is archived.

Focused Serendipity

I used that terminology because of my sense that it is about being 'focused', in that I engaged in efforts to send my professional biography to my LinkedIn connections, but 'serendipitous' in that I had no idea what would result from my efforts and the results have been quite amazing! As my brother advised many years ago, "just keep planting those seeds and you never know which ones will sprout". Between the St. Louis Business Journal article, my reconnections with my friends at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference (I've volunteered to be on their Outreach Committee and to assist in organizing next year's conference), my antiracism work in St. Louis, the development of the Men's Wellness Ministry at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, and the BlogTalkRadio show this week, who knows what will result from the 'planting of these seeds'. I'm excited and empowered by all these wonderful events of the past several months.

One last note: after doing the interview in Albuquerque, about police-community relations, upon returning to St. Louis I followed up by forwarding a letter I had written last year to the St. Louis Mayor's Office -- concerning my experiences with the Albuquerque Police Advisory Board -- to Alderman Terry Kennedy, who recently introduced a bill before the St. Louis Board of Alderman to form a Citizen's Review Board for the City of St. Louis. I also sent copies of the letter to the Chief Sam Dodson at the St. Louis Police Department, and to Ray Hartmann, publisher at St. Louis Magazine, who has been quite vocal about the need for such a local Board. I haven't heard back from any of them, but I've 'put out the word' about my experience with that process, and hence 'planted another seed'.

Who knows which of these seeds will sprout and how that will effect the long-term outcome of my life and/or Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute? I wait with positive feelings, even while continuing to "do the work that needs to be done" concerning men's emotional wellness, male sexual child abuse survivors, and antiracism community organizing. As a close female friend said to me years ago "Sometimes you have to sit back and allow the Universe to express an opinion". I await those continuing empowered results.