- [Announcer] Generous support for the following program provided by the Bible Family Fund of the Denver Foundation, and the O'Bannon Foundation, a fund of the Indianapolis Foundation.

(bright music) - [Judy] As an 88 year resident of planet Earth, I'm constantly amazed by the infinite variety of activity I see going on around me.

The complexity of it all, the way it all works together.

Every animal, every vegetable, every mineral, every solid, liquid, and gas, each its own unique contribution just like us, to the bigger picture, the vast, infinite, interdependent, interconnected web of all creation.

(bright music continues) I admit it's a lot for me to process, more than I can handle on my own, which is why I reached out to these people.

- I exist because you exist.

- [Judy] Some of my most thoughtful and most thought provoking fellow Hoosiers to help me sort it all out.

- I see this connectedness in my community where pieces fit together.

- You know, if we kind of allow science to inform our social understanding and whatnot, it's that we really are connected.

- [Judy] If there really is a true back and forth connection between everything and everyone, what does it mean?

How does it affect, or maybe how should it affect the way we live our lives?

How we think and feel, and believe, and behave?

(bright music continues) Good questions in search of good answers, which I hope we can get a little closer to as we explore the connections that exist between you and me, everyone and everything everywhere.

(bright music continues) (gentle piano music) We begin today by talking with someone you probably recognize.

(gentle piano music continues) Randall Shepard served as Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court from 1987 to 2012.

(gentle piano music continues) But before we get around to talking about what you'd expect a Supreme Court Justice to talk about, our connection to government and the law, I wanted to ask him about the connective power of one of his passions, personal history in the form of ancestry.

Why do you think it's so important to know about ancestry, yours and what is perceived as other people's ancestry?

Why do we care?

- One thing I think it does is make us feel connected in a world where we seem to be moved around all the time, or we seem to, the world just changes all the time.

It's never the same this week as it was last week.

And there's something about that connection that tells you, tells me, you're, you know, you're part of a long trail of people who've worked on all sorts of different things.

- [Judy] Now about Randall Shepard's career in government and the law... - It's the summer of '72, I arrived in Washington a few weeks after the Watergate burglary.

I think that particular experience did two things.

It gave me a chance to see the government from the inside almost all the way to the top.

I got to see how the government functions in its largest sense.

I would see what the government was doing from a wide variety of perspectives.

Before I went to work in the secretary's office, the under secretary's office, I had spent time at the Federal Aviation Administration as a brand new lawyer.

They were sort of training you to understand all the things that the department did.

So I remember going to some early meetings when the Clean Air Act, or the, yes, the Clean Air and the Noise Act were being first implemented.

And what does that mean for an airport in Boston?

What does it mean about how, what they can do to the runway or what they can't do to the runway?

And if you have to have a longer runway, what does that do to the ocean that's adjoining the Boston runways?

So you did get the experience of seeing how much interconnectedness there was, 'cause you'd end up having to help people answer questions about what they could accomplish.

And in an agency that did all sorts of things like, you know, the safety of aircraft, but it also has to do with the ocean.

(chuckles) So there were people at work, and of course their lawyers were always involved in helping them work their way through the statutes and the regulations.

- [Judy] Does having a sense of history help you live through and do positive things after that give and take that's tough?

- I think in order to, certainly, in order to be a part of the legal system, to be a part of the government, you have to understand how people lived and have lived and how they organized their lives.

And what does it mean that the government is gonna make this or that happen?

What does it in a given subdivision or a city?

And you're better off if you pay attention to how people have organized their lives and what expectations they have, and what possibilities they might be interested in.

- What I've tried to do is provide the resources, but stay out of the way.

- [Judy] When Robin Winston, Principal of the Winston-Terrell Group, talks about providing resources, what he means is connecting resources with the worthy causes that need them.

We spoke to him while seated among the dinosaurs at the Indiana State Museum, where Robin serves as both a director, and of course, a connector.

But the causes that have benefited from Robin's efforts are many and varied.

- Let's take an example of Carthage, Rush County.

Church sitting in the woods all by itself, walls falling in, bats inside the church.

These folks had done bake sales, which I questioned, it was like, "They made $50,000 on a bake sale?"

- No!

- Heck of a bake sale!

But they did their own bake sales.

But then they didn't have any money from landmarks.

They didn't know that landmarks even had a program through a fund designated by Mr. Cox that would give money to historical sites.

But I knew that.

They didn't know how to apply for it, but we talked about applying for it.

So they ended up getting money from landmarks, from Rush County Community Foundation, their money raised, and now that place has been stabilized.

- Why does it matter?

- I'd like to see the synergy of people that are disparate having to work together.

I think that's real important and I think it knocks down walls.

So what I'm trying to do is try to be a conduit for all these programs that exist to benefit people that are doing great things.

Let's think about Booker T Washington School in Rushville, historically African American school in Rushville, only 5,000 people in the town.

Only 100 African Americans, but still there was their Booker T Washington school.

That's where they had to go.

It was in bad shape.

Then local resources put a daycare center in it, an elevator in a building that ordinarily wouldn't have had an elevator, city council started meeting upstairs.

So it is going to that small community that maybe didn't have an advocate before, and maturing that to the point was that it was an advocate.

We've tried to do that all over the state, whether it's been in Delphi, Indiana, where there is a large population of Hispanic residents.

We were able to get a community center done for them.

I still believe, as I said at the very onset, if we lead people to their own volition and their own creativity and give them the opportunity, they will on their own, knock some of these walls down.

I think why it matters, 'cause it makes us a better society.

- My conviction is that everything's connected.

Please try, please try.

It's a little bit spicy, okay.

- [Judy] Elaisa Vahne is a living, breathing example of the good that can be accomplished when two cultures connect.

In Elaisa Vahne's case, the culture of his native Burma and that of his adopted home, central Indiana.

You're the director of BACI.

What does BACI stand for?

- Burmese American Community Institute.

- And you're here in Indianapolis?

- Yes, correct.

- And I understand it's the largest settlement of Burmese in the country.

- That is correct.

About 27,000 Burmese are calling Indianapolis their new home.

- Oh my goodness, 27,000!

- Yes, 27,000 strong.

- That's amazing and that's wonderful.

It's wonderful because you're bringing new ideas, new traditions, new people to our community, and we're just so happy to have you here.

Now, when someone is leaving, do they still have tentacles back there?

Do they leave family?

How do they stay connected?

Is it important to stay connected to both new home and old?

- I would say in many ways, yes.

They are connected, especially in the Burmese case, they still have their grandparents, their parents, their siblings, their relatives.

And now after the coup our community here, Burmese community, individuals, families, the community as a whole, wake up every morning and check whether their families are still safe.

- What do you think are some of the forces that pull us apart and keep these connections from happening?

- We are seeing a lot of issues in our own country, here in America, where you spread force.

When you express disinformation that promote misunderstanding, distrust, hate, and sometimes violent and individually result in war.

So it is a responsibility by promoting equality, respect, regardless of one's nationality, race, gender, small, big, and to really safeguard and protect democratic principles and our democratic institutions, that I believe in my opinion, is the best way to achieve sustained development and peace.

Now, another area of services that we have with delivery to our community is civic education.

Making sure that this adult learners are learning English, prepared themself to become naturalized citizens so that they can exercise their rights, their democratic rights fully and more meaningfully become active and engaged citizens of the community as well.

And also understanding that one of the greatest American values is giving back participation, contributions.

And we also have been try to really engage in voter registration, civic participation.

Think about this myself, I have never been given the opportunity to vote in Burma my whole life.

And here it's completely new thing.

And we want our community members to be able to exercise that democratic rights.

Some of us stay in neighboring countries for 10 years, 20 years, we join here and we can education.

We develop ourself, we invest ourself in our community and our people, and contribute back to the community wherever you can.

But also that gives a better chance that you might be able to contribute back to your home as well.

The fact that you have your grandpa, your grandma, even some of us still have our parents there.

And to be able to do that, that's what I call a win-win.

- [Judy] Next, let's talk to Larry Smith.

Larry's what happens or what can happen when humble beginnings get a chance to connect with a healthy dose of ambition, dedication, and a lot of hard work.

- I'm a fifth generation Hoosier, and I grew up not too far from where we are.

I'm the offices of the "Indianapolis Recorder".

I grew up at 34th and Emerson, specifically on Riley.

A couple streets west of Emerson.

Grew up, I'd say on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.

My parents were divorced when I was very, very young, and my father was not really involved in my life, but I did inherit from him a pretty calm demeanor and from my mother and grandmother, a pretty good brain.

And it's been quite a journey.

I went from walking to school in fifth grade to taking a bus ride.

On a good day it took 50 minutes down to Perry Township and this, you know, Judge Dillin's order-- - That busing.

- Took effect.

Busing order, deseg order.

And it was truly a transformative experience in my life.

This was 1982.

Not everyone in Perry Township was welcoming of the African American students down there, but many people were.

And I was very fortunate to have done well academically.

And by the time I got through middle school, I had added sports, specifically track and wrestling and cross country.

And later football, once I got to high school.

I ended up at my current job at the Hamilton County Community Foundation, which is an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation or CICF.

- [Judy] Actually, since our conversation, Larry has moved on to become the president and CEO of Fathers and Family Center, a move inspired according to Larry by his own experience as a teenage father.

- I'm also an ordained minister, and I believe strongly in giving back, as TD Jake said, "Breathing out everything that God has breathed into me."

So that's incredibly important.

I started, like I said, in corporate America, accepted the call to the ministry and decided to go to the nonprofit sector.

Interestingly enough, I'm a second generation writer for the "Indianapolis Recorder".

My mother, several years ago, reported on crime and business, and she did ride-alongs with what was then IPD, used to drive my grandmother crazy.

And so now I'm very honored today to be a columnist, a weekly columnist.

I've been writing a column for a little bit more than four years and just love doing that sort of expressing my ideas.

It's hard for me to imagine looking around at other people and not feeling a connection to them.

It's hard to kind of put in words.

You have, you know, neuroscientists feel they have part of the answer.

Theologians feel they have part of the answer.

You know, I think about, you know, ontology, sort of the study of being and so on.

But at the end of the day, for me, it's looking at another person and seeing myself.

Understanding that there's a connection that I can't explain.

I believe that it's divinely ordered.

And so all I do is try to listen to and follow that voice.

I think about it this way.

I've read a lot of job descriptions.

I've written a lot of job descriptions, and on the description, there invariably will be something that says, "communication skills, oral and written".

I think the most important communication skill is listening, not speaking, listening to other people.

And if you listen to other people, first of all, you can learn a great deal about them.

You can also learn a great deal about yourself.

But I think there's something that sort of sparks compassion inside you to wanna reach out to wanna help other people.

And so there are many ways that we can and do separate ourselves from each other.

But I believe that God is calling us to be one with each other.

And you know, if we can achieve that at some point, the world would be a much better place.

- [Judy] Ain't it so?

Finally, today we sit down for a chat with a gentleman I've known since he was a Cub Scout, which was several years ago.

Greg Silver, I've known you a long time.

In fact, you were my mom's Cub Scout troop, right?

- Yes, yes, your mom, I believe is a factor in my life.

I believe she may have been the one that taught me to appreciate birding.

- Why, how would that be?

- Well, I believe she had some binoculars and in the Cub Scouts that long time ago, we used to, well, it was connected, saying that the world was connected to the environment even then.

And that's your mom telling me that.

Can you believe that?

- No, I can't believe that.

Well, then I picked up on knowing you birdwatching with Bud Starling.

- Yes, I used to see you and your Frank when our birding group from Audubon was walking around Eagle Creek Park many, many years ago.

- And you ran for the Senate?

- I ran for state senate and city council trying to blend the environment with economic development, which I still believe in, and which I think we're coming more and more to over these years.

I did a lot of environmental work as an attorney.

I was recently, I've been also an appointee of the Justice Department.

But the bottom line is things kind of blend together, you know, and while I was doing my work with the Justice Department, I was also appreciating the fact that I was very fortunate to know about the importance of the environment.

- Well, you certainly have showed that the legal work and the naturalist work have to work together.

- Have to work together, and you can't forget one development without the environment.

So I can think of 100, maybe 100, zoning cases I've been involved with where I convinced one way or the other the developer or the zoning and planning department to protect the land, to protect the water, to protect the trees, and to leave space for the community.

We would set up a nature preserve as part of a development, or we would get a developer who might not have been aware of the importance of that stream or that tree or whatever to protect it.

So my law practice taught me how to negotiate and how to back off or how to go forward.

And sometimes you'd go forward in these cases and you'd lose, but you might win the next day.

So nothing is final.

That's what I learned.

You can't just live in a concrete forest.

You have to live in a forest that's alive, have to live in an environment that's alive because we are alive and everything that we do relates to the nature around us.

And we're, it's easy to forget that with all the headlines and all the crazy things that go on.

But we are a part of a bigger picture than just the front page of a newspaper.

- How do I learn about opportunities by watching a leaf cutter eat a leaf, or a monkey howl, or you go feed the pelicans in Florida?

How does that help me see how I relate to life and people?

- Because we're all in this together and I don't care whether we're human beings or we're leaf cutter ants.

The bottom line is that we all are in this, in relationship of existence.

- Well, your house is so unique.

I have to say, in many ways it resembles my farm.

We got a lot of stuff, don't we?

Well, I like living with stuff.

You've also got bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling.

How do books, so many books, and so many artifacts sitting from all over the world, what do they do to you?

- They remind me of history.

And history is so important to keep in mind so we don't repeat its mistakes if we can.

We're always doing some mistakes based upon not remembering history.

But they are reminders of special events that we incurred together so that we experienced together.

For example, there's a couple of books on a place in, again in Guatemala, called El Mirador.

And El Mirador is another amazing center of the Mayan culture from a couple thousand years ago.

So that particular site also was important to me because it had been, and is still threatened by loggers and those who would destroy the Mayan culture and the animals in this area that's on the Mexican border.

So when I came back, I started working in Washington to protect that with funds from the Department of Interior.

Now, why the Department of Interior would care about Guatemala?

Well, the connection was that the burning of the forest goes right up into the United States.

So I was able to get those who were maybe not so pro-environment, but didn't want to have air like that in their western state to support it and we got that funding continued to today.

So that all happened because of the connection to the US government, okay?

That help protect it so the air does not, the burning of the forest, which will not occur as much, doesn't go into the western states where some of these anti, well not so much pro-government, pro-environment senators exist, but wanted to support this.

I think it was Lee Hamilton who said, you know, "All compromise and all work together comes from truth and trust, and we need more of that truth and trust."

(gentle piano music) - The five folks we visited today certainly represent folks who work within our system of institutions, customs, and civic activities.

But they find they're calling in such a variety of ways.

A retired state supreme court judge, a refugee settlement director, an attorney and environmental activist, a community development consultant, and the director of a family oriented, not-for-profit.

All of them are challenging us to seek out our own interconnectedness with the ever expanding cosmos around and within us.

After a lifetime of questioning and wondering, after the last seven weeks of talking all about it, I've come to this conclusion.

I'm not just some tiny dot sitting out here in a threatening void.

I'm part of a complex system that interacts with my body, my brain, and my soul.

We are intertwined with all other elements of life and held together by some mysterious glue we call love.

Life is good and the beat goes on.

There is no limit to where we can go when we go together.

I'm Judy O'Bannon.

Thanks for watching.

(gentle piano music continues) - [Announcer] Generous support provided by the Bible Family Fund of the Denver Foundation, and the O'Bannon Foundation, a fund of the Indianapolis Foundation.