Week 4:
Power-Conversations, Inter-faith scholarship and the Loneliest Whale

July 14, 2021

This past week has been full of power conversations with my peers, co-workers, parents, and even kids participating in the Summer Meals Program (SMP). Power Conversations focus on diving and exploring people’s concerns, their imposing worries, and their future aspirations. As such, to coalesce an inclusive vision establishes the same stakeholders in a setting of ‘influencing’ the vision itself. Since leadership is an interplay of critical participation, reinforced through perpetual accountability, its summary is to let people speak up in primary stages when a leader crafts a vision, only to be followed by thorough accountability of the leader answerable for progress on that laid out vision. Such accountability is both ways where the leader holds the stakeholders, citizens, responsible for meaningful participation. In turn, they have the leader accountable for his/her/their character, integrity, and commitment to success.

The SMP has been an excellent spot for me to begin to have these conversations with returning leaders, newly joining leaders, and the kids and their parents. The pictures above represent hours upon hours of interaction, learning, conversing, exploring, and how the pandemic, a year-long emotionally challenging, nearly traumatic trough, has influenced the human species. These conversations revealed to me the other side of our happy-go-merry human story. A story with numerous climaxes, burdensome episodes but simultaneously speaks of our resilience and courage as humans. It exposed to me how vulnerable the human heart and mind are and how valuable something as simple as ‘interacting with someone else can be. The past year has imbued certain preferences and reshaped our priorities in decisive ways. Learning about these priorities, how not being able to make it to someone’s birthday, or funeral, or graduation, or baby shower, has empowered us to put human emotional well-being above just material growth. That kind of learning itself takes time to be absorbed and processed. These experiences have had a dramatic impact on our ability to sketch a vision for the coming years. And I believe any leader will have to take that into account to navigate these pandemic-hustled and health-scared minds. Without such accountability, any vision of rebuilding our communities post-pandemic will be inevitably incomplete.

Some more pictures from the delightful evening meals program. We continue to serve the surrounding community and have added a lunch along with dinner as well.

The Summer Meals Program is divided into 2 larger groups based on age. 4-8-year-olds, and then above 8 years. These are the Maze makers- they are older kids, some in their teen years participating in the Summer Meals Program.

Moreover, this Fellowship has really put me amidst a network of established leaders who continue to create a phenomenal impact in their communities. This week, I met with Mr. Vincent Ware, the director of the MASBoston Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Program here in Boston. Mr. Vincent has been working with the Muslim American Society for some time now and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the organization. It is a special privilege for me to learn from such excellent professionals who have dedicated a substantial amount of time to developing and improving their communities.

In addition, I have had the incredible privilege of teaching a Sunday School class focused on the question of Islam in America. Such experiences contribute and lead to having quality power conversations. It is through opening up that leaders can really connect with their surrounding community. I feel honored for an opportunity of this kind, of facilitating an interfaith scholarship, at the Fourth Presbyterian Church.

Additionally, here’s a wonderful picture of myself and Reverend Burns Stanfield together from when we watched the intriguing documentary about ’52’, The Loneliest Whale. With this opportunity, I should point out that Rev Burns’s brilliant and personal mentorship during this Fellowship has translated to an exciting array of opportunities for my growth. I am profoundly moved to have his thorough insight on how to lead, organize and achieve milestones. With the depth of his foresight and breadth of his creative intuition, I feel profusely empowered to undertake challenging roles.

Lastly, this is a picture from our gathering at Professor Michelle Sanchez’s home. (She is seated with her husband standing in the white shirt, in the middle). A week full of energy, excitement, and effervescence comes to a close.