I want to start off tonight with a
little bit of a loaded question so I
apologize in advance but really quickly
show of hands how many of you believe
that our country is headed in a negative
direction
generally speaking show of hands one or
two of you okay
2/3 to 3/4 well congratulations I want
you to know as an audience you’re very
average nationally speaking roughly 2/3
to 3/4 of Americans believe just like
you that our country’s headed in
negative direction what’s more
interesting is that actually your very
average historically speaking and in the
40 years that Gallup has been
administering this survey almost the
entire time roughly 2/3 of Americans
have believed that our country has been
heading in a negative direction
congratulations now there’s been some
blips on the radar there’s been a few
moments of joy and good times but what’s
really really fascinating is in that
40-year period can you guess the time
and period where we as a people the vast
majority of us said that our country was
headed in a positive direction it was
the four months following 9/11 now at
first this doesn’t make a lot of sense
right this was a period of great tragedy
of great loss but yet when we look
through history we see time and time
again that tragedy often brings out the
best in us and it unifies us together as
a people that we come together and we
say you know what there’s bigger things
at hand that we really need to take care
of and Sebastian Junger has coined this
phrase the upside of disaster in his
book he talks about just periods in
history where you see this phenomenon
over and over again and he refers to one
moment in a Savano
Italy where an earthquake killed 95% of
the citizens and he quotes one of those
survivors who says the earthquake gave
us what the law promises but does not in
fact deliver which is the Equality of
all men
and I was having this conversation with
with Fletch RMC a few weeks ago and he
had this great comment he said what
we’re really looking for what you really
want is unity without tragedy if we
could only find something to unify us
with that that wasn’t a tragic event
that would really be the ideal and what
I’ve seen in my context is city
engagement director for love our cities
and working with over 60 cities across
the nation is time and time again we
found that people love where they live
right we care about our city we care
about the place that we live and it can
be this unifying force that draws people
together and the idea that I want to
really express and talk about tonight is
if we’re all unhappy with the narrative
of our nation at the end of the day
we’ve got to recognize that we is its
citizens or the narrator’s and then if
we’re upset with the narrative and we’ve
really got to start thinking about what
our role is in changing that narrative
and I’d like to share a little bit about
the love our city’s story where it
started and some of the principles that
we’ve been learning that we think are
critical for changing the narrative of a
city and a nation so in 2008 we had a
pastor here locally in Modesto and he
was he was looking at the narrative of
Modesto right at that time
Modesto was height of the recession kind
of Eric was talking about it was ranked
one of the worst places in America to
live and we had high unemployment high
foreclosure rate right students were
showing up to church literally with
shirts that say Modesto sucks on him
hopefully none of you here were doing
that and he said we’ve got to address
this right and he started looking at the
church and in his church and he asked
this question that I think is is it’s
kind of a question of futility but I
think we all need to ask from time to
time is if the church were to disappear
tomorrow if we were to go away would
anyone notice or care and it wasn’t that
the church wasn’t doing good things it
was but there seemingly was this
disconnect between what was happening in
the church and then what was happening
in the rest of the community so the
pastor said we need to change this
narrative so the first thing he did
almost mockingly to the minutes Modesto
sucks people
he said let’s make sure it’s that say I
love Modesto great starting point then
he turned around and said okay you know
let’s go to all the people all the
stakeholders in the community let’s go
to the city manager’s office to
nonprofits to schools and say hey if we
already get a bunch of people together
to volunteer what could we do and they
came up with eight or nine projects they
expected about a hundred people and over
eleven hundred people showed up at the
event and from that experience a lot
Modesto was born and as it grew over the
years and more people started to show up
they said you know what we know we need
to do is we need to have this rally and
we need to have it at a neutral equation
actually it’s right outside this
building right we shut down two city
blocks this year we had over 3,500
people and we said let’s have an hour
that just shows people you know what
there’s others out here who think like
we do that care about our city I might
not know them they might look a little
bit different with me but that’s okay
the one unifying thing we have going for
us is that we care about where we live
and then after that we push them out the
door and we send them to different
places around town and we have them work
on volunteer projects from fixing up
homes to working on parks to painting
schools and as we did this over time
more and more cities began to say we
like what you’re doing can you help us
so we started providing services for
other cities like I said today we now
work with over 60 cities nationwide that
number continues to grow almost every
month
this year this year we’ve had over
20,000 volunteers go through our program
we’ve had over a hundred eleven thousand
since our inception and the thing that’s
really cool that we get to see is this
beautiful collaboration between the
faith-based sector city government
nonprofits businesses all rallying
around this one unifying idea that’s
changing the narrative of our cities and
I think underlying that there’s there’s
probably three principles that I would
pull out that I would say are really
important if we’re going to think about
changing a narrative the first one is
that we have to demonstrate civility and
by civility that this is a term that’s
almost become outdated in our age sadly
when we talk about civility it’s really
looking at someone not as a bunch of
ideals but seeing them in all of their
humanity and as I love to use our
definition of love our cities to
demonstrate civility because I think
it’s packed with some some interesting
nuggets and I’ll start with love if I’m
going to use a definition of the word
love I’ll use a psychology term or
definition that states that love is a
sacrifice of oneself for the spiritual
growth of another to sacrifice of one’s
self for the growth of another which
means at the end of the day that love
has a cost whether it’s emotional
physical spiritual whether that’s time
or money there’s something that we
actually have to invest in someone else
if we’re really truly gonna love them
we see this in marriages with children
with friends and then we look at the
word cities and sometimes when we think
of cities we think of roads parks
monuments bridges sports teams but if
you really go back and look at the root
word of cities of the Latin word means
citizens so when we talk about loving
our cities we’re not talking about
loving a place but a people and so in
that if we’re gonna change the narrative
of our cities we have to ask the
question do others know that we care
really the first question we have to ask
is do we care right assuming that that’s
a good response though then then it
really becomes do others know that we
care and can we demonstrate civility
the second thing that we need to have is
a need for humility now a couple years
ago a friend of mine invited me to a
meeting I had faith-based leaders with
city government and I promise you was
not Modesto somewhere else promise you
and so we walk into this meeting and it
was all about homelessness and the city
basically the conversation started like
this faith-based sector we love the fact
that you have a heart to help the
homeless and that you come into town and
you provide these services and you feed
them and you do these things now you and
I all know when someone leads in like
that right the Hammers about to drop
right it’s like this is the yeah but
conversation right and they say however
we need you to stop and we need you to
stop because what you’re actually doing
is undercutting all the services that
we’re trying to provide and working with
other nonprofits in the community and in
this part and to be honest to say I’m
not sure if they were joking or telling
the truth but literally in this meeting
they say you’re actually creating a
second problem for us just homeless
obesity
and so but the point is is is that
sometimes sometimes I think we look at
an issue and it’s really easy to have
this 30,000 foot view of the problem
right we look at something like
homelessness and we say black and white
issue homeless people must be hungry we
have food we have people that’s rally
the troops let’s go to go downtown let’s
feed them everybody wins but yet we see
time and time again and I think we all
know this inherently that when you
actually get on the frontlines when you
actually get up close to what’s going on
issues are never black and white
they’re always shades of grey that
solutions are complicated for excuse me
problems are complicated solutions need
to be holistic and oftentimes when we
see a problem and this happens in
Modesto too is we’ll see ten groups all
addressing the same issue on islands
separated from each other not talking
and what I would suggest with with this
idea of a need for humilities instead of
doing that why don’t we start looking
around the people in our community and
saying hey who’s already working on the
frontlines
who’s doing the hard work day in and day
out that have invested their whole life
doing this and then ask them my favorite
question in the job that I do how can we
help no strings attached because if you
go and you do that to someone who’s
literally too invested their whole life
meeting the needs of your community and
they give you a request and you actually
fulfill that nothing puts wind in their
sails more so we need to have a need for
you have a need for humility if we’re
going to change the narrative of our
communities and recognize that we don’t
always have all the answers but that we
can look for people who do and let’s as
best as we can because that will change
the narrative our narrative of our
cities the third thing that we need to
have is we need to discover commonality
and by commonality what I mean is we
shouldn’t look at people for about what
they’re against but we need to look at
them about what they’re for which means
that I can look at someone and recognize
I’m not going to agree with you on
everything right I don’t agree with my
spouse on everything
right I’m not gonna agree with you on
everything but the question becomes what
do we agree on right I might not agree
with you politically but I can recognize
that that our city has issues that we
can agree need to be addressed
I can I can recognize that we’re not
always going to agree religiously but
that we’re going to be able to say hey
you know what we’re better working
together and the sum is better than the
individual parts and that the issues of
our city need to be addressed and when
you practice civility humility and
commonality I can tell you countless
stories we don’t have time tonight of
cities who have addressed homelessness
gang violence teen suicide housing
across the board now some of you might
be sitting here saying okay Eric I get
it that sounds great awesome what about
me
right because let’s be honest this seems
really nebulous how do I change the
narrative you might even just look at
Modesto and say how do I even do
something in Modesto we live in a large
cities over two hundred thousand people
what can I do any idea I’d like to leave
with you tonight as I believe there is
one thing that we can all do
independently and individually but if we
all did this one thing I believe the
narrative of our cities in our nation
would change for the better instantly
that’s a focus on just loving our
neighbors it’s a very simple concept
Sears a little bit of a pop quiz okay so
that thing in the middle that’s your
home okay the red box in the middle
that’s you okay now now this box by the
way was given to us by some friends in
Denver a guy by name of Davy Runyon and
and we’ve used it a lot around here so
you might have seen this before so bear
with me if you have but your house is
the one in the middle okay so the eight
boxes around that are your neighbors
okay picture their homes you might live
in a apartment court block whatever
right you can envision that now here’s a
million dollar question
can you name all of them first and last
name
now okay no hold on now I know you know
what car they drive I know you know what
time they go to work I know you know
what time they come home and how quickly
they can get their door up dark or the
car in the door door down without having
to see anyone we know those things but
do we know their first and last name
thank you now and you’re not alone
because here’s the thing this test
informally has been given over 300,000
times and on average 95% of people can’t
do that okay so here’s the question if
we recognize that we’re unhappy with a
narrative of our nation and that we at
the end of the day are the narrator’s
right how do we expect anything to
change if we can’t provide civility
humility and commonality to those who
literally live closest to us it’s not
gonna happen however I firmly believe
that if we can learn to show humility
civility and commonality to our
neighbors to those who live around us
our neighborhoods will improve our
cities will strengthen and the narrative
of our country will change for the
better thank you
[Applause]
you
little bit of a loaded question so I
apologize in advance but really quickly
show of hands how many of you believe
that our country is headed in a negative
direction
generally speaking show of hands one or
two of you okay
2/3 to 3/4 well congratulations I want
you to know as an audience you’re very
average nationally speaking roughly 2/3
to 3/4 of Americans believe just like
you that our country’s headed in
negative direction what’s more
interesting is that actually your very
average historically speaking and in the
40 years that Gallup has been
administering this survey almost the
entire time roughly 2/3 of Americans
have believed that our country has been
heading in a negative direction
congratulations now there’s been some
blips on the radar there’s been a few
moments of joy and good times but what’s
really really fascinating is in that
40-year period can you guess the time
and period where we as a people the vast
majority of us said that our country was
headed in a positive direction it was
the four months following 9/11 now at
first this doesn’t make a lot of sense
right this was a period of great tragedy
of great loss but yet when we look
through history we see time and time
again that tragedy often brings out the
best in us and it unifies us together as
a people that we come together and we
say you know what there’s bigger things
at hand that we really need to take care
of and Sebastian Junger has coined this
phrase the upside of disaster in his
book he talks about just periods in
history where you see this phenomenon
over and over again and he refers to one
moment in a Savano
Italy where an earthquake killed 95% of
the citizens and he quotes one of those
survivors who says the earthquake gave
us what the law promises but does not in
fact deliver which is the Equality of
all men
and I was having this conversation with
with Fletch RMC a few weeks ago and he
had this great comment he said what
we’re really looking for what you really
want is unity without tragedy if we
could only find something to unify us
with that that wasn’t a tragic event
that would really be the ideal and what
I’ve seen in my context is city
engagement director for love our cities
and working with over 60 cities across
the nation is time and time again we
found that people love where they live
right we care about our city we care
about the place that we live and it can
be this unifying force that draws people
together and the idea that I want to
really express and talk about tonight is
if we’re all unhappy with the narrative
of our nation at the end of the day
we’ve got to recognize that we is its
citizens or the narrator’s and then if
we’re upset with the narrative and we’ve
really got to start thinking about what
our role is in changing that narrative
and I’d like to share a little bit about
the love our city’s story where it
started and some of the principles that
we’ve been learning that we think are
critical for changing the narrative of a
city and a nation so in 2008 we had a
pastor here locally in Modesto and he
was he was looking at the narrative of
Modesto right at that time
Modesto was height of the recession kind
of Eric was talking about it was ranked
one of the worst places in America to
live and we had high unemployment high
foreclosure rate right students were
showing up to church literally with
shirts that say Modesto sucks on him
hopefully none of you here were doing
that and he said we’ve got to address
this right and he started looking at the
church and in his church and he asked
this question that I think is is it’s
kind of a question of futility but I
think we all need to ask from time to
time is if the church were to disappear
tomorrow if we were to go away would
anyone notice or care and it wasn’t that
the church wasn’t doing good things it
was but there seemingly was this
disconnect between what was happening in
the church and then what was happening
in the rest of the community so the
pastor said we need to change this
narrative so the first thing he did
almost mockingly to the minutes Modesto
sucks people
he said let’s make sure it’s that say I
love Modesto great starting point then
he turned around and said okay you know
let’s go to all the people all the
stakeholders in the community let’s go
to the city manager’s office to
nonprofits to schools and say hey if we
already get a bunch of people together
to volunteer what could we do and they
came up with eight or nine projects they
expected about a hundred people and over
eleven hundred people showed up at the
event and from that experience a lot
Modesto was born and as it grew over the
years and more people started to show up
they said you know what we know we need
to do is we need to have this rally and
we need to have it at a neutral equation
actually it’s right outside this
building right we shut down two city
blocks this year we had over 3,500
people and we said let’s have an hour
that just shows people you know what
there’s others out here who think like
we do that care about our city I might
not know them they might look a little
bit different with me but that’s okay
the one unifying thing we have going for
us is that we care about where we live
and then after that we push them out the
door and we send them to different
places around town and we have them work
on volunteer projects from fixing up
homes to working on parks to painting
schools and as we did this over time
more and more cities began to say we
like what you’re doing can you help us
so we started providing services for
other cities like I said today we now
work with over 60 cities nationwide that
number continues to grow almost every
month
this year this year we’ve had over
20,000 volunteers go through our program
we’ve had over a hundred eleven thousand
since our inception and the thing that’s
really cool that we get to see is this
beautiful collaboration between the
faith-based sector city government
nonprofits businesses all rallying
around this one unifying idea that’s
changing the narrative of our cities and
I think underlying that there’s there’s
probably three principles that I would
pull out that I would say are really
important if we’re going to think about
changing a narrative the first one is
that we have to demonstrate civility and
by civility that this is a term that’s
almost become outdated in our age sadly
when we talk about civility it’s really
looking at someone not as a bunch of
ideals but seeing them in all of their
humanity and as I love to use our
definition of love our cities to
demonstrate civility because I think
it’s packed with some some interesting
nuggets and I’ll start with love if I’m
going to use a definition of the word
love I’ll use a psychology term or
definition that states that love is a
sacrifice of oneself for the spiritual
growth of another to sacrifice of one’s
self for the growth of another which
means at the end of the day that love
has a cost whether it’s emotional
physical spiritual whether that’s time
or money there’s something that we
actually have to invest in someone else
if we’re really truly gonna love them
we see this in marriages with children
with friends and then we look at the
word cities and sometimes when we think
of cities we think of roads parks
monuments bridges sports teams but if
you really go back and look at the root
word of cities of the Latin word means
citizens so when we talk about loving
our cities we’re not talking about
loving a place but a people and so in
that if we’re gonna change the narrative
of our cities we have to ask the
question do others know that we care
really the first question we have to ask
is do we care right assuming that that’s
a good response though then then it
really becomes do others know that we
care and can we demonstrate civility
the second thing that we need to have is
a need for humility now a couple years
ago a friend of mine invited me to a
meeting I had faith-based leaders with
city government and I promise you was
not Modesto somewhere else promise you
and so we walk into this meeting and it
was all about homelessness and the city
basically the conversation started like
this faith-based sector we love the fact
that you have a heart to help the
homeless and that you come into town and
you provide these services and you feed
them and you do these things now you and
I all know when someone leads in like
that right the Hammers about to drop
right it’s like this is the yeah but
conversation right and they say however
we need you to stop and we need you to
stop because what you’re actually doing
is undercutting all the services that
we’re trying to provide and working with
other nonprofits in the community and in
this part and to be honest to say I’m
not sure if they were joking or telling
the truth but literally in this meeting
they say you’re actually creating a
second problem for us just homeless
obesity
and so but the point is is is that
sometimes sometimes I think we look at
an issue and it’s really easy to have
this 30,000 foot view of the problem
right we look at something like
homelessness and we say black and white
issue homeless people must be hungry we
have food we have people that’s rally
the troops let’s go to go downtown let’s
feed them everybody wins but yet we see
time and time again and I think we all
know this inherently that when you
actually get on the frontlines when you
actually get up close to what’s going on
issues are never black and white
they’re always shades of grey that
solutions are complicated for excuse me
problems are complicated solutions need
to be holistic and oftentimes when we
see a problem and this happens in
Modesto too is we’ll see ten groups all
addressing the same issue on islands
separated from each other not talking
and what I would suggest with with this
idea of a need for humilities instead of
doing that why don’t we start looking
around the people in our community and
saying hey who’s already working on the
frontlines
who’s doing the hard work day in and day
out that have invested their whole life
doing this and then ask them my favorite
question in the job that I do how can we
help no strings attached because if you
go and you do that to someone who’s
literally too invested their whole life
meeting the needs of your community and
they give you a request and you actually
fulfill that nothing puts wind in their
sails more so we need to have a need for
you have a need for humility if we’re
going to change the narrative of our
communities and recognize that we don’t
always have all the answers but that we
can look for people who do and let’s as
best as we can because that will change
the narrative our narrative of our
cities the third thing that we need to
have is we need to discover commonality
and by commonality what I mean is we
shouldn’t look at people for about what
they’re against but we need to look at
them about what they’re for which means
that I can look at someone and recognize
I’m not going to agree with you on
everything right I don’t agree with my
spouse on everything
right I’m not gonna agree with you on
everything but the question becomes what
do we agree on right I might not agree
with you politically but I can recognize
that that our city has issues that we
can agree need to be addressed
I can I can recognize that we’re not
always going to agree religiously but
that we’re going to be able to say hey
you know what we’re better working
together and the sum is better than the
individual parts and that the issues of
our city need to be addressed and when
you practice civility humility and
commonality I can tell you countless
stories we don’t have time tonight of
cities who have addressed homelessness
gang violence teen suicide housing
across the board now some of you might
be sitting here saying okay Eric I get
it that sounds great awesome what about
me
right because let’s be honest this seems
really nebulous how do I change the
narrative you might even just look at
Modesto and say how do I even do
something in Modesto we live in a large
cities over two hundred thousand people
what can I do any idea I’d like to leave
with you tonight as I believe there is
one thing that we can all do
independently and individually but if we
all did this one thing I believe the
narrative of our cities in our nation
would change for the better instantly
that’s a focus on just loving our
neighbors it’s a very simple concept
Sears a little bit of a pop quiz okay so
that thing in the middle that’s your
home okay the red box in the middle
that’s you okay now now this box by the
way was given to us by some friends in
Denver a guy by name of Davy Runyon and
and we’ve used it a lot around here so
you might have seen this before so bear
with me if you have but your house is
the one in the middle okay so the eight
boxes around that are your neighbors
okay picture their homes you might live
in a apartment court block whatever
right you can envision that now here’s a
million dollar question
can you name all of them first and last
name
now okay no hold on now I know you know
what car they drive I know you know what
time they go to work I know you know
what time they come home and how quickly
they can get their door up dark or the
car in the door door down without having
to see anyone we know those things but
do we know their first and last name
thank you now and you’re not alone
because here’s the thing this test
informally has been given over 300,000
times and on average 95% of people can’t
do that okay so here’s the question if
we recognize that we’re unhappy with a
narrative of our nation and that we at
the end of the day are the narrator’s
right how do we expect anything to
change if we can’t provide civility
humility and commonality to those who
literally live closest to us it’s not
gonna happen however I firmly believe
that if we can learn to show humility
civility and commonality to our
neighbors to those who live around us
our neighborhoods will improve our
cities will strengthen and the narrative
of our country will change for the
better thank you
[Applause]
you
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