"Appreciative Inquiry: Become a Positive Force for Change; In Your Parish, In Your Family, and In Your Community"

Excerpts from the Keynote Address Titled
Loving and appreciating our families, youth and communities
as we define our future
by Christopher Anne Easley, Ph.D., RODC

Setting forth the reason why we need a challenge to our existing paradigms

"We are living in challenging times, from a global as well as domestic perspective. But most important, I believe that the African American community is facing the most critical challenge we have had since slavery. We are living in times where there are many people who believe that we have made significant progress. However, there are just as many people who feel, that as a race, we are moving backwards. During the days of the civil rights movement, we at least understood our challenges and the actions that were required to address the injustices society had imposed upon our race. However, now I believe we are being lulled to sleep, yet our rights are constantly being challenged. And, in the midst of being lulled to sleep, our children have lost the sense of our history that people in my age bracket and my parents age bracket had.

However, the most important reason I felt compelled to address these issues at this conference is that we have an opportunity, through the spiritual connections that will ensue this week and the learning that you will walk away with relative to Appreciative Inquiry, to understand how to strategically address the change that is our inherent right. I believe that it is critical that we do not settle for what we use to be, or have been, but that we keep reaching for what we have yet to become. So, bear with me tonight, I hope I can inspire you with some of the learning I have been blessed to walk away with from my own experiences.

The first thing I have learned is that Appreciative Inquiry is a very powerful change intervention strategy. It positions us to draw out the good in people and situations…a perspective that is needed in this country. We have become a society that is very comfortable with the concept of the glass being half empty versus half full. And, I believe that it is time we learn to turn that perspective around, particularly in the African American community because we have lived with the perspective of a half empty glass for far too many years. As a result, I firmly believe that it is critical that we take the concepts of Appreciative Inquiry and use them to address the multiplicity of issues that face our communities that require a new approach for driving change…an approach that teaches us to express hope and love on a consistent basis as part of our daily interactions.