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Follow Tutor/MentorInstitute on
Twitter @tutormentorteamFacebook http://www.facebook.com/TutorMentorInstituteTutor/Mentor Institutewww.tutormentorexchange.net
 I wrote this in March 2008. I think it applies to the year end religious holiday season as well.
Every faith has high holidays where people cometogether and celebrate. This is Easter weekend for themillions of people who share the Christian Faith. It's atime for reflection for all of us, not just Christians.What do these religions, and these celebrations meanto us?I think it's all about HOPE.We live in a savage world where there is much suffer-ing. To think that the human animal is superior toother creatures who fight to survive everyday, may beone of the follies that make us different from theseother life forms. Some of us have been more blessed by where we were born, who our parents are, and whatgenes we have. But we all live in the same world, andare affected by the struggles of those who are far dif-ferent, or far distant, from us.I was raised in the Christian faith and every day I say
The Lord's Prayer 
as a way of giving myself hope andenergy to face my day. I think that the middle stanzasof this prayer offer universal hope.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
To me this request is not a "home run" pitch. I'm notexpecting my God to make me rich, or cure my son of a disease, or end hunger or warfare. I'm asking for theability to deal with these struggles. I'm asking for more energy, more wisdom, a better ablility to com-municate, and just enough money to pay the bills, atCabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, andin my own home and family life.
 Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those whotrespass against us.
 I think this is one of the most important parts of this prayer. I can't tell you the number of times I've criti-cized myself for a mistake I've made, or something Idid not do as well as I wanted to. I think in this part of the prayer God is giving us the power to forgive our-selves. In the movie "
The Lion King 
" there is a scenewhen the monkey hits the lion over the head and says"It's in the past. Forget it."We need to learn from our mistakes, but not dwell onthem, which leads to the second part of this stanza. If we spend time getting revenge, or being angry aboutwhat someone else did to offend us, or hurt us, whatgood does that do? There are too few hours in eachday to spend them in this way.
- continued on page 4
 
Seasons of Hope, Faith, A Better Future
Since 2005 I’ve written 34 articles with a faith-based, spiritual message. A few are included in thisissue. Search for “faith based” at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com to read them all.
 
The Restof the Story
•
These are a few of hundreds of articleswritten since 2005 onthe Tutor/Mentor In-stitute, LLC blog.
•
In each article a linkto the original articleis provided. Followthese stories andshare them with yournetwork
•
Most of these articleswere written whileDan Bassill was CEOof Cabrini Connections,Tutor/Mentor Connec-tion (T/MC), formed in1993. In June 2011this organization splitand Dan created Tu-tor/Mentor Institute,LLC to continue the T/MC mission.
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
December 2, 2011Volume 1, Issue 3
The Rest of The Story
Articles from Tutor/Mentor Blog Archive
 
Jesus or Martin Luther King, Jr. As CEO: Think about it.
Read these and follow the links at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
 I wrote this in June 2006 and themessage is as important in 2012.
A few years ago a supporter of theTutor/Mentor Connection sent methe book,
 Jesus as CEO
, written byLaurie Beth Jones.It took me a while to get around toreading the book, but when I did it became an inspiration that con-tinues to support me in my work to this day. It shows how muchimpact a single person can havein this huge world. As I think about all the challenges facingkids living in poverty, I'm prompted to ask, "What wouldJesus do if he were CEO of the business of helping every child bornin poverty be in a job, career, by age25?"I've also been inspired by MartinLuther King, Jr.'s
 I Have a Dream
speech where he said, "I have a dreamthat my four children will one day
- continued on page 10
 
 
On November 3, 2011, the JohnFountain column in the
ChicagoSunTimes
was titled, “
 In time of crisis, where are the good shep-herds
?”He starts out writing "I hear you,man. . . . But the people perish.And yet, the clergy flourish." Heconcludes with "I pray, dear  pastor, that you will be part of the promised wind of change andrestoration. For the people per-ish."Between January 2008 andMarch 2011, I was able to createa set of maps showing the loca-tion of faith groups in the cityand suburbs. I have maps for each different denomination.This one shows them all.Staggering how many there areand we only mapped some of themajor denominations.Our purpose was to provide atool that faith leaders might useto support the growth of mentor-rich non-school tutor/mentor  programs in high povertyneighborhoods.I’ve tried to show how thesemaps could be used. I created aPDFguide for Faith Leaderswith the goal that one or morewould adopt it and set an exam- ple that others would follow. Seethis atwww.tutormentorexchange.net/images/PDF/faith_communities_leadership_strategy.pdf  In 1999 I was invited to write anarticle for the Ecumenical ChildCare Network. I titled it
"Get wisdom!
Get
understanding, ... "- Proverbs
4:
Verse 5.
See this athttp://www.tutormentorexchange.net/images/PDF/ecumenical_child _care_network2001.pdf 
 
If you're interested in becomingan apostle who helps carry thismessage to the faith leaders, please forward these articles andattend the conference we hostevery May and November inChicago. Find details atwww.tutormentorconfernce.org The faith community has one of the most powerful communica-tions networks in existence. If we can encourage and nurturethe growth of learning circlesand study groups at differentchurches, synagogues andmosques those groups can takeownership of the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy and carry itto new levels of impact in futureyears.I would love to enlist Mr. Foun-tain to help me evangelize thismessage so leaders in differentfaith groups adopt it. Perhaps infuture Tutor/Mentor Conferenceshe could give awards and recog-nition to faith leaders who beginto adopt this strategy. I'd alsolove to enlist the Cardinal andother faith leaders.There is a 'promised land' andwith the help of a few prophetswe can show others a path to getthere.
Read this article at
http://tutormentor. blogspot.com/2011/11/where-are-good-shepherds.html
 
Where are the Good Shepherds?
 
Page 2
 Volume 1, Issue 3
Read these articles at http://tutormentor. blogspot.com
Every dot represents a faith based organization in the Chicago region.See more maps like this at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com
Did St. Paul Have aMap of the Road toDamascus?
Read article attutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/12/did-stpaul-have-map-of-road-to-damascus.html
"blogevangelism"
I searched Google on August 19,2008 to see if any results werefound using the word"blogevangelism".I found 78 listings. Thus, am I partof a new trend?I'm not sure that these folks areusing the term the way I am, tocreate attention for a social cause. Ifirst used this term today, in a poston theT/MC forum, where I en-couraged others to borrow fromideas that I and others post on T/MC blogs, to create their own out-reach and "blog-evangelism" thatreaches people in their own net-works. Thus, if you look at thegraphic I’ve created (see page 5),imagine yourself as the red ball onthe world's largest Ping Pong ta- ble. Every time you write abouttutoring/mentoring, and point to aT/MC blog, you are encouragingthe people you know to spread themessage you are writing about. If they pass this message on via their own blogs and networking, it canquickly reach around the world.
- continued on page 5
 
From blog article written Nov. 3, 2011
 
This article was written on January 29, 2011
With the Internet we are nowconnected to people living in all parts of the world. With lan-guage translators available onGoogle and other places we cannow interpret and understandeach others words.Will this lead to future jointefforts to solve world problems?Is this possible?I've been doing a lot of thinkingabout the Biblical story of the
Tower of Babel 
. I'm not a Bibli-cal scholar, so today I did somesearching and came up withaweb site that provides a number of articles worth reading. Seehttp://ldolphin.org/babel.html 
This is the text from
Genesis 11:1-9
 
"Now the whole earth had onelanguage and few words. And asmen migrated from the east, theyfound a plain in the land of Shi-nar and settled there. And theysaid to one another, 'Come, let usmake bricks, and burn themthoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mor-tar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and atower with its top in the heavens,and let us make a name for our-selves, lest we be scatteredabroad upon the face of thewhole earth.' And the LORDcame down to see the city andthe tower, which the sons of menhad built. And the LORD said,'Behold, they are one people, andthey have all one language; andthis is only the beginning of what they will do; and
nothingthat they propose to do willnow be impossible for them
.Come, let us go down, and thereconfuse their language, that theymay not understand one an-other's speech.' So the LORD
 
scattered them abroad from thereover the face of all the earth, andthey left off building the city.'Therefore its name was calledBabel, because there the LORDconfused the language of all theearth; and from there the LORDscattered them abroad over theface of all the earth."I highlighted
nothing that theypropose to do will now be im-possible for them
because thisis where I struggle in my think-ing.Everything I've been trying to dothrough theTutor/Mentor Con-nectionandCabrini Connections  is get people to learn from acommon body of aggregatedinformation and apply that un-derstanding in efforts to make programs and services availablethat help poor kids grow up bet-ter prepared for lives out of pov-erty.Yet while the Internet gives usaccess to each other and anunlimited range of ideas, it alsocreates a proliferation of placeswith their own gravitational pull,making it more and more diffi-cult to build the critical mass of  people involved in any single place.
Is this just a continuation, or21st Century version, of The
Tower of Babel 
Story
?I've much more learning andthinking to do on this topic.What are your thoughts? Haveyou tried to bring people to-gether to solve a problem butyou seem to meet with resistancein many different ways?
Read this article at
http://tutormentor. blogspot.com/2011/01/collaboration-tower-of-babel-deep.html
Collaboration & Tower of Babel. Deep thinking.
 
Page 3
 Volume 1, Issue 3
The role of network builder is onewith many challenges and littleconsistent support. Is it possible?We can build systems of support that con-nect with youth when they are in elemen-tary school and stay connected to themuntil they are in adult careers.
“Let’s create an adult learning system and test them on what theyknow about theseissues”
Mrs. George Ryan, First Lady of Illinois and Paul Vallas, CEO ofChicago Public Schools helped with Chicagoland VolunteerRecruitment Campaigns between 1999 and 2002.
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