Tom Adams
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Gratefully, one kind of noise has stopped – the endless commentary and worry about who is ahead in the polls and who might win the Presidential election. Fortunately, the noise of congratulations for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris can...
I don’t think I am alone in feeling a heaviness and weariness on Election Day 2020. No matter which way the election goes and how soon we know the results, the road forward is not clear. No one has the answers. The acrimony and divisiveness that is present in...
The 2020 Presidential Election is in its home stretch. If Joe Biden wins, January will bring fresh hope for many of us along with a long period of individual and collective discomfort and chaos as we explore this new beginning together with those who voted for the...
The Scripture passage “Love your neighbor as yourself” has been haunting me lately. You may be more familiar with its cousin: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” How are love of others and self-love connected and possible in such divisive times? This...
Today is my birthday and it seemed like a great time to share about the blessings of new birth and grandchildren (see Love, Shalem Friday Blog). That plan got upended when a friend sent me a clip a week ago about the murder of Jonathan Price by a police officer in...
Welcome to Critical Conversations, a weekly blog and resource website (thadams.com) I am launching today. It becomes more obvious every day that we need to connect with each other across our differences if our communities and world will ever heal. My intention in...
“We need each other. Race matters. We need each other. Black lives matter.” And what is mine to do? That question is for me the most important and hardest. It is the question Francis of Assisi, the saint the current Pope chose to be named after, asked of his friends...
“We need each other. Race matters. We need each other.” And each day I learn more about what “Black Lives Matter” means. At its most fundamental, watching George Floyd be choked to death brings home the importance of respect for every life. And it goes so much deeper....
Rose Mary Dougherty, in her days leading groups at Shalem, had a favorite parable she came back to often. With her charming Irish smile, she would ask: “Why do the antelope walk side by side in the jungle?” And after letting that settle for a short moment, she would...
Learning about race and racism is uncomfortable. Race relations in America are a mess. Each day, I see some other aspect of racism – both mine and the larger world’s I hadn’t noticed before. Like many white people, I am waking up to a reality it has been all too easy...
Tom Adams writes and speaks on topics vital to the intersection of our personal lives with our community and global lives. He has for decades been engaged in and written about nonprofit leadership and transitions, spirituality and spiritual growth, how we each contribute to a more just and equitable world and recovery from addictions and the Twelve Step recovery movement.