Look To See Me

My thoughts on why the Supreme Court nominee matters to me...our nation's choice will have an impact on my family.

I'm sharing with my listeners my newest poem and talking about the depth of our identities...our hopes, our fears, our joys, and our grief. We are never defined by just one aspect of who we are.

Think about who you can offer love to. What simple gifts can you offer someone that could be very meaningful in their life? Do you offer love that heals? Maybe you can help change lives one small moment at a time.

Today I’m going to talk about personal growth. Growth and change take vulnerability and courage. Are we will still exploring our own identities and thinking about our habits and the thoughts we carry each day? How many of us get stuck in a pattern and never think about the world around us, how we can use our gifts and talents to bring positive changes to our communities, or how we can join in with other community members to improve the quality of life for others while we also increase our own strengths and find happiness in pursuits we had never imagined?

I used to naively believe that there never had to be “sides.” There never had to be choosing who to stand with because I thought we could learn to stand together. I believed in tables…I believed in conversations. I believed in being willing to hear another person’s voice, to understand another person’s life experiences. But then life taught me that some people are unwilling to come to the table and listen. Come to the table…join the conversations…there’s laughter and joy on the other side of the tears we will shed when we realize all the unnecessary losses that have occurred when we excluded people from the table.

Today I’m going to talk about all that is good. I have thought long and hard about what I consider to be the good in the world…what I will choose to love and be a voice for as much as I am able. I think we all need to use this time to define what we will stand for and what we define as all that is good in this world. Hang on to all that is good. Now is the time to embrace the good, share the love, offer hope, enable healing, and find joy and love and hope for yourself in the process.

In this podcast, I discuss my book, Writing Your Faith Journey, which challenges readers to put their faith into words. This resource encourages people of all faiths to leave behind a faith legacy for children and grandchildren or family members and friends that will include thoughts on various faith topics that have been important on their faith journey. The resource can also be used to start community conversations that explore our faith foundations. Recorded at Lipscomb University’s Summer Celebration in 2009.

Today I offer a reading of a Service of Healing originally written for a worship setting in Atlanta, Georgia. This reading reminds us to hang on to hope, to love, and to all that is good as we struggle in these uncertain times.

Today I’m going to talk about nurses and their tradition of sacrifice. I’m recording this during the shelter-at-home mandate in my city during this coronavirus pandemic. I want to use this podcast to thank some of the people who are selflessly working to help bring this crisis to an end and who are working to help ease the suffering of all who are ill at this time. I’m also going to talk about some of the famous nurses in United States history.

In this podcast, I talk about people making one right choice at a time today. There’s a quote from Frozen 2 that says, “When one can see no future, all one can do is the next right thing.” I’m discussing what each of us can do in the moment we are in to not only help others but to also bring joy to ourselves as we do it. There are some wonderful things that individuals and communities are doing to think outside of their own worries and work to help others.

Today I’m going to talk about the role historians play in whose stories we are hearing and which people we are seeing. They are uncovering stories of people that have brought hope and healing and innovative ideas to our communities in the past and paved the way for us to do so today. Historians are reminding us that people can make a difference and bring about so much good in the world. These stories being brought to light by today’s historians help me better understand the stories of the people around me…the diverse people who make up my community—my local community and my global community. They weave all of us together through a foundation of hope and courage and perseverance that we may have never known we shared.

Today I talked about those people seeking truth. When I look back over the podcasts I’ve done throughout the last two years, I’ve chosen topics that need a light shined on their truths…I’ve highlighted groups that really seek to know the truth about people and circumstances and work to help us see the truth about others. Life itself is bigger than any one person or group of people. Life and its accompanying breath and love and hope draw us all together in an interconnected bond that we often fail to realize. When we disconnect ourselves from the bigger picture, we lose part of our humanity and part of our connection to a love and a hope bigger than ourselves.

Today I’m talking about two groups of Moms who have given me the courage to speak out and to love and to find hope for all people. My silence though the years allowed all of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community to continue. There is no pride for me in all that I failed to say—didn’t do. For the people I never fought for and spoke up with. I’m so glad the LGBTQ community has never given up the fight even when so many of us stayed silent. I’m silent no more. I’m a proud Mama Bear giving Free Mom Hugs. See you at the next Pride Parade…Happy Pride Month…Happy World Pride. You are loved…be courageous…be strong…be you….

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about poetry. April is National Poetry Month, in case you didn’t know. National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. So, in honor of this month, I’m reading here several of my poems from my book titled Looking, Seeing published in 2018.

In today’s podcast, I want to highlight two libraries that are doing an exceptional job of reaching out to others and using their resources to meet the needs of their communities. First, let’s look at Chicago’s public library system and then the Miami-Dade Public Library System and the community programs that are truly changing their communities.

So, teens are definitely worth looking to see. I’m not going to talk about teens in general, though. I’m going to talk about some teens that have become very special to me because they are friends with my son.

This month is not about our white interpretation of Black History Month. It’s about us looking to see the black neighbors in our community…hearing the black voices in our nation…and going back and seeing history with a brutal honesty…finding truth in the black voices that we have too often tried to erase. Includes a partial reading of King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail."

I recently discovered a wonderful community resource. I challenge you to explore the Sesame Street in Communities website and familiarize yourself with all of the free resources there. You may run across something that will help you. But, also, if you know what’s there, you can pass these tools along to community members who may need this information.

In this podcast episode, I’m going to talk about an organization created to provide support to the patients and families of the Heart Institute at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. This organization is called Big Heart Fund and we created to honor the memory of Kellen Austin Dorse.

In this podcast, I’m going to talk about just one aspect of the work of Healing Hands International: the agricultural component. Ever since I first wrote an article about HHI, I’ve been fascinated by the way they work to discover the needs of a community and find practical, sustainable solutions to help meet those needs. The agriculture program empowers communities to fight hunger by providing instruction on basic gardening techniques that can be used even in drought prone areas.

Tennis star Serena Williams has teamed with the Allstate Foundation Purple Purse project to help us all understand the devastating effects of financial abuse and give us an opportunity to share conversations about how we can bring this to an end. I also share my story of surviving financial abuse.

This podcast invites us to look closer at the lives of people around us and to take time to hear their stories. This week I reflect on what happens when we fail to look to see the truth about other people. I challenge all of us to create a common table where we can share our stories honestly and boldly in order to help bring about peace and hope in our hurting nation...a nation grieving over tragedies in our communities.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m once again going to talk about an individual instead of a nonprofit group. This week, however, I’m not going to talk about a public figure. I’m going to talk about a private individual…a person who could be defined as an average person in America with a career and a family. Today's episode is about a mentor and a financial coach. This is dedicated to all of the quiet heroes among us who often work without recognition. (Bonus poetry reading)

An overview of the publishing career of author Julie Cantrell and a glimpse into how she uses her voice to help spread information about domestic violence every October. Challenge: let’s be educators from time to time and pass along accurate information that can help others understand the struggles of others. And let’s agree to be educated…let’s read these posts rather than skim past them.

A short story read by author Chris Pepple...a story which challenges us to work to bring positive changes to our communities and challenges us to listen to the stories of the people in our local and global communities. "I knew that when more people began to hear my voice, then more people would want to silence my voice."

I wanted to know more about how an organization that aims to serve our community gets a start—how do you tackle large societal issues such as homelessness, poverty, and abuse when you are starting with just a vision? Here’s what I learned from a woman named Timishia Ortiz who is the founder and CEO of The Jasmine Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about a program that empowers the refugee community in Memphis, Tennessee, and the surrounding areas through many educational and encouraging programs--the Refugee Empowerment Program.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about a program that works with kids over the summer to help them maintain and improve their reading skills. Project Transformation brings together college-aged young adults, children and churches to transform entire communities.

Chris Pepple reads an original short story from her first published book, Look to See Me. "Shifting the Bowl" is a story of mothers and daughters and family memories...a glimpse of grief and the things we cherish as we heal.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about a special place that helps kids find healing from abuse and become kids again. I’m focusing on the Memphis Child Advocacy Center. Let’s look at what the mission of the Memphis Child Advocacy Center is…their goal is to work in the community so that children are safe and families are strong. Their mission is to serve children who are victims of sexual and severe physical abuse. They focus on prevention, education and intervention.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about some people who are changing the lives of homeless families—specifically I’m going to talk about the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality in Memphis. The mission of the Dorothy Day House is to keep homeless families together as they are struggling to overcome poverty and homelessness.

In this episode, I’m going to introduce you to some people who are changing the lives of children who need schools supplies. I’m going to focus in on one group who has been doing a great job of helping kids start back to school with the supplies they need since 1995. I’m talking about the Kids in Need Foundation.

In this episode, I'm talking about some of the people who are changing the lives of survivors of domestic violence: YWCA Nashville's Weaver Domestic Violence Center and volunteers that work with the YWCA through a group called Re-New. The staff members at the YWCA and the Re-New volunteers take the time to really see the needs of domestic abuse victims. They hear their stories, then they help victims write a new ending.

Since I can’t get to the Café for a few weeks to eat there, I decided to just change the order of my podcasts and talk about them. Thistle Farms Café is located in Nashville, Tennessee, located along West Nashville’s revitalized Charlotte Pike corridor, and is tied into the Thistle Farms complex with their headquarters and social enterprise facilities. Thistle Farms is a nonprofit organization that lives out the idea that “love heals” through all of their projects. The organization was founded by Reverend Becca Stevens twenty years ago and serves to offer a place of hope and healing to women survivors of prostitution, sex trafficking and addiction.

I was recently part of a group of people who visited a Memphis neighborhood for the Neighborhood Walking Tour as part of the Binghampton Stories Project. This Project created an opportunity to do just what I talked about in the intro to my podcast—take time to really see other people and hear their stories. This project is a collaboration between The Center for Transforming Communities, Caritas Village and the Theatre Memphis Department of Outreach and Education. It was made possible by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Welcome to Look To See Me, a podcast which invites you to hear the stories of other people in your local or global community. Through hearing stories which historically have been untold or ignored and through taking time to truly see another person, we can work towards peace and healing in our communities. There's a beauty to the diversity around us--a diversity we can choose to explore.