Reports on Practice: An Introdcution

In October 2025, I joined a year-long leadership and spiritual development program called the New Story Stewards, led by Bill Grace. The program meets monthly and asks participants to maintain a daily contemplative practice while reflecting on questions about how to live and lead well during times of profound transition and complexity.

I came to this work for reasons that have been building for years. My life exists at several intersections: public service and inner work, organizational consulting and spiritual practice, the demands of showing up for my community and the quiet necessary to stay grounded in myself. For a long time, I've been looking for a structure that could help me integrate these dimensions rather than toggle between them. I've also been seeking a community of people engaged in similar questions—not just intellectually, but as a lived practice.

The program has given me both: a container for sustained contemplation and a group of fellow travelers who take the interior work of leadership seriously.

Why Make This Public?

Each month, participants are asked to write a brief "Report on Practice"—a summary of how our daily spiritual practice has unfolded, what insights have emerged, what we've struggled with. I've found myself writing much longer reflections than required. What started as a program assignment has become something closer to field notes from an ongoing experiment in paying attention.

I've decided to share these reports publicly for a few reasons.

First, accountability. There's something clarifying about writing for an audience beyond myself and the small circle of program participants. It sharpens my attention and makes me more honest about what I'm actually experiencing versus what I think I should be experiencing.

Second, connection. I suspect others are navigating similar territory—trying to show up with integrity in their work and communities while also doing the quieter inner work of becoming more whole. If these reflections resonate with even a few people, that feels worthwhile.

Third, offering. For years I've benefited from others who've been willing to document their own practice and process publicly. This is part of that larger gift economy—making visible some of what usually remains private, in case it's useful to someone else.

And finally, integration. I'm building this site as a place to bring together different threads of my life: reflections on civic leadership, notes from books I'm reading, examinations of ideas I'm working with. These Reports on Practice belong here. They're part of the same orientation—toward learning how to be more present, more useful, more aligned with what matters.

What to Expect

These reports are personal and incomplete. They are written from within the process, not from some position of having arrived. They document what one person is noticing, practicing, and becoming as I try to show up more consciously in my life and work.

You'll find reflections on contemplative practice—meditation, walking in nature, working with mantras and silence. You'll find thoughts about community, about disconnecting from old patterns and orienting toward new ones, about grief and gratitude. You'll find stories from daily life: conversations that shifted something, music that opened a door, small experiments in living differently.

The writing will vary. Sometimes more structured, sometimes more stream-of-consciousness. Sometimes focused on a single insight, sometimes ranging across multiple threads. These are field notes, not polished essays. I'm keeping them that way intentionally—the roughness feels truer to the work itself.

I won't be explaining the program's framework or curriculum in detail. That's not my story to tell, and it's not the point. What I'm offering here is simply my own experience of engaging with questions about how to live well during complex times, how to cultivate an interior life that can sustain outer work, and how to stay grounded and useful when the world feels increasingly ungovernable.

An Invitation

If you find yourself drawn to these questions—how to live with integrity during times of transition, how to balance action with contemplation, how to stay connected to what's real and human amid so much noise—then perhaps these reports will resonate.

You don't need to be in a formal program or have a developed spiritual practice to engage with this material. You just need to be curious about the relationship between your inner life and your outer work, between who you're becoming and what you're able to offer.

I'm sharing these reflections in the spirit of companionship for anyone walking a similar path. We're all figuring this out together, and sometimes it helps to know what someone else is noticing along the way.

New Reports on Practice will be posted monthly as the program unfolds. Shared with the program founder's blessing, to ensure these reflections represent only my personal experience.Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

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