Category Archives: Authors I-Q

ADR Authors by last name I-Q

My stories are hungry – Poem by John C. Mannone

 

Man shall not live on bread alone
—Matthew 4:4

 

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand
and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey;
and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter
—Revelation 10:10

 

An earthquake
                    ripped off
the thick mantle covering
of my heart, I opened the book
and fell into its pages of history.
I was devoured by the stories
when I saw Adam and his lovely
Eve in the Garden; no snakes
just a couple of trees.
                    One, a tall
spruce with the scent of pure
pine—the fragrance of prayer.
The other with golden quince,
quaked and rattled in the wind,
whispered promises. They heard
the naked truth and that story
swallowed them, too.
                    My soul
convulsed at the devil’s laughter
when he saw the Evergreen shed
its fascicles to cover them.
Before the storm, heaven cracked
and the sky spilled, now emptied
of His voice.
                    And the wind blew
the pages of the book in my hands
before I could read them, but
they sprayed rain on my face
and each word coated my lips.
I drank them in—the savor
of a better promise
seeping through: a wet rainbow
pressing on my tongue.
                    I could not utter a word,
but listened to the priests & prophets.
Every time they spoke, a scent of cedar,
of crushed pine, sifted through
along with their voices. Even John’s
locust & honey weren’t as sweet,
and bitterness settled in
at the same time. My heart
started to melt as wax
and my blood ached, burned,
oozing like lava.
                    Yet, I was still
hungry, and I ate more
of the stories until I ingested
the flesh of my own thoughts
from a cup put to my lips,
                    for a moment,
for only the briefest moment,
before that scent of pine purged
the vile dregs from my mouth.
I did not want to eat that
story. But a holy wind blew
me deeper into the pages to a place
on a hill. The smell of pine
now heavier on my nose. There,
the parchment stained & torn.
                    I wept as I tried to read.
I could not see the words,
for my eyes were blurred
in the rain—a scarlet rain
washing me and all
the bitterness I had tasted.
And when it was finished…
the sky wasn’t broken anymore.

 Sadie Hawkins Day: An Example of Cultural Delusion – by Eileen Meagher

Sadie Hawkins Day!  I didn’t know anything about it. The vibrations though with which the name permeates our culture and whatever the holiday celebrates have always seemed a wee bit strange and but also lighthearted.  It is celebrated on November 13th and since today is November 13th I feel oddly compelled to inform myself of the wisdom or lack of wisdom passed on by this “Holiday.” It would appear to be a very American holiday, but the Scots and my Irish ancestors might argue with that since they celebrate something comparable on February 29th called of course “Leap Year.” But that is another story!

The Sadie Hawkins Story

The American story is that Al Capp, a famous and brilliant cartoon artist of the last century,3 depicted in his daily cartoon, Lil Abner, the trials and tribulations of a hillbilly town called Dogpatch.  The most powerful and the richest man in Dogpatch was named Hezekiah Hawkins who had a daughter named Sadie and at the advanced age of 35 she had not married.  Sadie was also “the homeliest gal in all them hills” and her father was scared that she would spend her life at home as a spinster, a terrible and humiliating fate for any woman in Dogpatch.

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Gritty Women – by Dr. Deborah Levin

By default, gritty women famous for their accomplishments are highlighted throughout Women’s History Month.  Society looks to prominent women as role models exemplifying idealistic aspirations of achievement.  Often, their humble beginnings are overlooked as emphasis is placed on successes and outcomes.  With few exceptions, famous women did not begin their lives as famous people.  Their experiences, family upbringing, life-learnings, challenges, and accomplishments cultivated into opportunities at the right time.  Famous women made history by taking action.  One should never assume history is past tense.  History continues evolving and growing organically, providing new opportunities to add accomplishments.

Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, explains extremely successful individuals demonstrate unusually high levels of resiliency and hard work.  These individuals have an intrinsic understanding of their desired goals and are determined to achieve them.  Gritty people combine hard work, resiliency, and drive with a sense of direction.

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Ordinary Women Accomplishing Extraordinary Things – by Dr. Cynthia R. Jackson

Ordinary women with extraordinary backgrounds have a diverse lifestyle to achieve astonishing things in life. Women’s History Month pay tribute to these illustrious, ordinary women. Most ordinary women intentionally seek everyday activities and experiences that are diverse and have impactful outcomes. I am an ordinary woman with extraordinary accomplishments. I grew up in the slum area of inner-city Houston, Texas, but still had the determination and resilience to graduate high school with honors, the top 10 of my class.  Thereafter, I pursued and obtained my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston.  I was the first member of my entire family to attend college.

I enlisted into the military as an active duty Army soldier, truck driver (18-wheelers and 5-ton vehicles). While on active duty, I pursued and obtained my Master of Arts in Education and Doctor of Educational Leadership. After transitioning from the military, I became a Department of Defense high school physics and chemistry teacher, while obtaining a Master of Divinity degree in Biblical Studies. I have a diverse educational and professional background, as an ordinary woman, accomplishing extraordinary things in life.

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The Era of Diversity Talk and No Action Is Over – by Joseph Nwoye

It’s Time for A Paradigm Shift 

Joseph NwoyeDiversity is increasingly becoming a powerful force in the determination of an organization’s success. Everyone has talents, some of which are recognized and used, and others never identified and thus never put into use. Organizations that engage diverse teams can draw on the synergy associate with it to innovate and subsequently achieve unprecedented success.  It is evidenced in Harvard Business Review article, titled, “How diversity can drive innovation.”  In that piece, (Hewlett, Marshall & Sherbin) assert, “Employees of firms with 2-D diversity are 45% likelier to report a growth in market share over the previous year and 70% likelier to report that the firm captured a new market.”

Considering various research showing the correlation between diversity and business success, many organizations are now, for good reasons, calling for greater diversity in the board room and significant areas of leadership in our global market place.  There is clearly ubiquitous evidence demonstrating that diversity correlates with business success. McKinsey and company assert “New research makes it increasingly clear that companies with more diverse workforces perform better financially.” According to Deloitte, “Diversity and inclusion at the workplace are now CEO-level issues, but they continue to be frustrating and challenging for many companies.”

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Take a Cross-Cultural Nap – by Julian Kaufman

Would my fellow Americans like to take a nap?  We Americans value hard work and when we stop working we feel guilty. We believe that we’re falling behind while others are getting ahead.  And we don’t want to be viewed as lazy or lacking drive and ambition. However, there are many benefits to a nap.

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Global Leadership: Five Steps to Calibrating your Cultural Compass — by Dr. Richard Griffith

Global Leadership today: The modern workplace brims with activity as people dart from meeting to meeting. Sometimes our communication is too brief. At times our messages are not well thought out. Even when the communication is crystal clear, the message can get lost in a wave of workload. But because our organizations tend to rely on best practices, people have a common frame-of-reference when there are misunderstandings. Best practices are a common denominator that allow us to understand and predict behavior, and serve as “true north” as we navigate the complexity of modern organizational life.
As organizations expand internationally and multi-cultural communications between employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers become more frequent, we are finding that the common denominator of best practices begins to unravel. And once we can no longer fall back on best practices, our inner compass can go haywire.

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A Christmas Drama – by John C. Mannone

Four Contemporaneous Scenes

        I. The Inn

Torchlights singe the late night air and the kicked-up dust glows on the path to the inn. A man in a brown robe leads the donkey, each step measured. His wife, wrapped in a wool shawl, stays the autumn chill. For a moment, she must stop, grips the nape of the donkey’s neck, and winces, as before, bracing for the next contraction. He steadies her, wonders if Mary’s okay. She relaxes her hold and smiles, but the harvest moon glinting off her eyes belies her calm assurance. As sure as ebb and flow, the next wave of pain cannot be quelled—her hands pressing her belly as if to stem the tide. Joseph’s feet, no longer downtrodden by fatigue, rush him to the inn. He raps on the oaken door as if his fists were made of brass. But his own would have him not. Go Away! A gruff voice rumbles through the wood. There are no more rooms. Those words echo in the desperate air with Mary’s cries. Yet, there is a shuffle of shoes. A clenched-jaw voice on the other side of the door seeps through, Jacob. Let them in! The innkeeper’s eyes wedge, Yes, Eliana. She stokes the fire, pots clacking on the coals. Water boils. He shows them to the straw-crib behind the house, where the sheep lay.

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