Returning to the Why

Lately, I’ve been sitting with questions of purpose. Maybe it’s because August is a month that holds both ripening fruit and fading summer light. I find myself remembering that organizations, like people, have seasons where they must ask: why do we exist?

Not the tidy sentence on the website. Not the tagline someone wrote a decade ago. But the living “why” that pulses underneath—the reason we keep showing up when things get hard.

I know this work because I’ve lived it. As a Black queer leader, I’ve carried seasons where I had to pause and ask myself, “Why am I here? What still feels alive in me?” And every time, I found my way back by listening—listening to my own breath, listening to community, listening to the ancestors whose survival made me possible.

Mystic and theologian Howard Thurman teaches us: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” (Bailie, 1996, p. xv). I believe the same is true for organizations. A mission statement without aliveness is an empty frame. Returning to the “why” is about choosing life.

At ashlove, LLC, I walk with organizations through this work of discernment. It is not quick work. It is tender, careful, listening work. We listen to the boardroom voices, yes—but also to the whispers of community, to the ache of staff who have labored long, and to the stories of why the work was born in the first place.

If your organization is in this season, I invite you to ask:

• Who are we becoming in this moment?

• Who do we serve, and how do they say they want to be served?

• What is still alive in our founding story—and what must be released?

• What practices sustain our “why” even when resources feel thin?

I ask myself versions of these same questions in my own work. They help me stay tethered, alive, and whole.

So if you are wrestling with your “why” right now, you are not alone. You are in the sacred work of becoming alive again. And together, we will harvest what still beats true.

References

• Bailie, G. (1996). Violence unveiled: Humanity at the crossroads. Crossroad Publishing Company.