Candid Conversations: New Beginnings — When Grace Meets Urgency

I met Carlos, an Uber driver, after my midweek meetup with my youngest.
I asked him to wait a bit while I walked her across the street and collected something from her.
Girl Scout Cookies. Trefoils Shortbread, if you know, you know.

When I got back in, we drove off quietly.
Then Carlos, in this low, raspy voice, said, “That must be difficult, huh?”

It was one of those open-ended questions where both people already know the answer,
just from different places, but somehow feeling the same thing underneath.

“Sorry?” I asked.
“To stand on the sidewalk and watch your kid go inside,” he said.
“Mmm. It’s very difficult,” I replied.

He paused, then asked, “Why?”
“Because things didn’t start out this way. They became this way in spite of my efforts. This is what it is,” I said.
“I know,” he whispered.

And just like that, we started talking. About life. About seasons and change.
About how there’s a time for everything, a time to sow and a time to reap.
How time can stretch and fold, but still only moves in one direction.

Carlos told me about his ex who had left him after a bad accident,
how she fell for her physical therapist.
How he quit his job as an investment banker and left the city.
He started driving Uber after a random Uber Pool ride reminded him what it felt like to be alive again.

Then he told me about a high school friend he reconnected with years later.
They fell in love, got married, and on their honeymoon, she found a lump in her breast.
When they came home, she was diagnosed with stage-four cancer that had metastasized throughout her organs.
The doctors gave her twelve months.

They decided to travel instead, to live, to really live.
She made it two years.

“We got a whole year from what they said,” he said softly.
“How do you continue after that?” I asked.
“Hope,” he said.

Before I got out, he asked if he could pray with me.
We held hands, and he prayed.

When I stepped out, I felt both heavy and light.
Moved by the moment, but also relieved by the moment’s awe.
Something in it reminded me that grace doesn’t always come loud or clear.
Sometimes it just shows up quietly, when you least expect it.

When Grace Meets Urgency 🏃🏽‍➡️🏃🏽‍➡️

Last week we spoke about Hurricane Melissa and how badly it hit Jamaica.
The world has shown up, aid is coming in,
but a lot of people are still waiting for help.
Not because folks aren’t trying, but because the system is stretched thin.

The death toll keeps rising. Roads are gone, whole communities cut off.
And somehow, in the middle of all that pain,
some people still find time to politicize it instead of helping to heal it.

How do we begin?

We start by admitting this is new.
None of us have been here before.
Because of that, we have to move with both grace and urgency,
holding compassion close while getting the work done.
We have to find a way to restore order through hope, not just structure.

This is a time to reassure each other.
To say out loud that we can rebuild, and we will.
The details will come. The work will take time.

When I asked Carlos how he keeps hope alive, he smiled.
“Hope,” he said again. “I have hope that it will be better.”

Then, almost shyly, he said he had met someone new.
“I believe,” he said.
“I believe there’s something greater that exists, and that source knows my essence.”

There was a calm that followed.
The kind of silence  that settles after something true has been spoken.

Now I look back at that conversation, and it made me think of Michelangelo,
who, when asked how he created David, said,
“I just chip away the parts that are not David.”

I come back to that thought often.
Because maybe that’s what life keeps trying to do,
chip away the parts that aren’t us,
until what’s left is something closer to truth.

It reminds me of the same principle we hear in scripture,
the Father as the vine dresser, cutting away what doesn’t bear fruit and pruning what does.

That’s what rebuilding feels like, a kind of pruning,
a pulling from source, our humanity.

A people without vision perish.
Jamaica’s anthem says it best:
“Give us vision, lest we perish.”

Leadership and Vision🔍

Leadership isn’t about a crown or a title.
It’s about how we show up for each other.

So who will be the philosopher king?
A leader who rules with wisdom and clarity?

Maybe the truth is, leadership can’t live in one person’s hands.
It has to live in all of us, in how we care, how we listen, how we rebuild.

It’s not hierarchy, it’s harmony.
It’s the quiet strength to see the whole, not just the part.
To pause before acting. To restore before ruling.

Vision becomes the compass.
It’s what keeps the farmer planting after the storm.
What keeps the parent believing after loss.
What keeps a tired nation still trying.

And as our anthem reminds us,
“Give us vision, lest we perish.”

To lead is to serve.
To serve is to keep hope alive, even when you feel like you’ve got none left to give.

Reflections from the Ground 🌎

Holding on to hope right now will feel hard,
especially when you look around and see how deep the damage runs.

Hurricane Melissa wasn’t just an emotional hit, it was structural.
Devastating would be an understatement.

Over a hundred thousand homes lost roofs.
Whole communities are still isolated.
Basic infrastructure, gone. Entire communities submerged under water.

Families are trying to figure out what’s next while grieving what’s gone.

Leadership here isn’t about authority. It’s about stewardship.
It’s understanding that rebuilding isn’t just about galvanized zinc, concrete, steel, or plywood.
It’s about restoring dignity and belonging.

It’s about looking past the headlines to acts of compassion
keeping the country’s heart beating when systems falter.

“Are you okay?”
That question, simple but disarming, is where real leadership begins.

It’s about presence.
It’s the willingness to pause in the middle of chaos
and see the human behind the headline,
the person behind the policy,
the heartbeat behind the numbers.

Hope isn’t naïve. It’s resistance.
It’s believing when everything around you says not to.
It’s choosing to stay soft in a world that keeps trying to harden you.

And as Carlos reminded me, belief is where it starts.
Belief that something greater exists,
and that we’re part of that greatness by how we show up for each other.

Because what man has done, man can do again.
And from the ruins of what was, we can begin again, together.

In Short 🩳

This is not a criticism of the power structures that exist.
It’s a call to employ empathy, to move with urgency,
and to lead with compassion for our shared human experience.

In these current times, political partisanship must give way to grace,
and grace must meet with urgency,
where leadership becomes stewardship,
and believing becomes the first act of rebuilding.

How can I help?

We start by giving what we can to help those rebuilding.

And if nothing else, by sharing this post with as many people as we possibly can.

👉 Support Jamaica’s Recovery