Your Thoughts On Parker's New Book

I am working on a new book, and what follows [here, in our current newsletter] are some of the “sketches” I’ve been making as I try to discern its shape. Normally, I don’t share notes like this in public. But since my topic this time is democracy, I thought it would consistent with the topic, and good for me, to open my thinking to discussion. And since the Center is planning to host several large gatherings on this topic at sites around the country, your responses will help us shape those events as well. I’d love to hear what you think, with one proviso—I cannot respond to your comments individually or I will never get the book written! So thank you in advance for whatever you have to say. The topic is of great importance to me and I hope it is to you, too, whether or not you agree with what I have to say about it. That’s the way of democracy! —Parker Palmer

 

Comments

Yolande Grill  - Rumi and the concept of other |10-12-2009
Hi Parker, At this moment, I feel incredibly grateful for the soul that is You. Just this weekend, my husband and I were talking about community and democracy and living here and now... and here you are writing a book on an incredibly timely and necessary subject. I wish you the best of luck.

I will keep this brief.

I just read your call for comment and your initial thoughts on your book. way to go.

I do want to bring up one point. I encourage you to check out some of Rumi's works that will explain his concept of what he means by the phrase "each other". In your writing you take a step to say you want to "part company" when in fact you are so in agreement (in my opinion). There is a rumi poem that was translated in a Sufi magazine - somethig about birds of a feather and if i can find the magazine i will try and post the text for you as it sheds some light on Rumi's "each other". In my recollection of the translated poem, a student says to Rumi (teacher) something about a "mad man" and Rumi points out to the student that there is no mad man - that he (rumi) is in fact the mad man. There is no other... that by virtue of being in the presence of the "mad man" and looking upon him, Rumi takes responsibility that the madness is all his. The lack of other is in taking the responsibility for the separateness and seeing that you contribute to the otherness by virtue of the concept of separateness... In Hawaian the concept is called Ho'oponopono(spelling?) - where you actually are responsible for anything that is in front of you...

I'm sorry i could not be more concrete but hopefully, I have given you something to check into if you feel so inclined.

My blog is www.deepconversations.com and rumi's quote was my inspiration for my way of being in the world. By the way, your book the courage to teach was my inspiration in finding my integrity in everything i do - one of my roles is a homeopath - another is mothering. So thank you. I hope your new book will be a catalyst as i think your "role" has been for many.

namaste

Yolande
Vera Hummel  - Safe Spaces for speaking from the heart |10-12-2009
Thanks for sharing your early thoughts. I, too, am fond of Rumi's poem.

A respected educator once taught me that when and if we create the safe space to talk with one another honestly and from the heart, we are most likely to discover that we agree on far more than we disagree. It takes far more courage to speak openly and kindly with one another than to rage about something from the safety of a talk-show microphone.

I look forward to reading the whole of your book.

Peace and gratitude,

Vera Hummel
Scott Correa  - The Duality of Democracy |10-13-2009
Thank you for sharing your notes with us. What struck me while reading them is the dual nature of democracy. It is the tension of competeing ideas that holds together a thriving democracy. Without this competition, you have no democracy. It is when ideas become homogenized that democracy is in danger. I agree with you that we must learn to be more tolerant and accepting of other's ideas, but we must not abandon our own to accomodate others. A democracy can only flourish when the will of the people is accepted by those with opposing views. It is not God that blesses America, but its people acting to advance the cause of democracy that pleases God.
Jerry Westerman  - Democracy & Public Education |10-15-2009
I have read “The Courage To Teach” within the past year and have encouraged colleagues to read it as well. I am looking forward to a time when I can go to an introductory retreat. I am glad to see Parker turn his attention to the subject of democracy. Through my career in teaching I have long felt that our country has slowly been abandoning public education for policies that in the long run tear down our once envied public education system. I believe that, if democracy is to survive in America public education must survive. It is that system that has helped so many move up the ladder of American society to a better life. One only needs to look at the civil rights movement under Dr. King to see how those within that leadership benefited from public education to eventually change the nation. There are many such examples in American history as there are many examples of presidential leadership that lead this country past its division to a place of unity, Lincoln arguably being the best example. America is once again at a place of significant division. My entire career in education has seen countless efforts to improve education by applying market place theory to the public service that is public education. I have said in the past to many colleagues that I don’t understand this approach for the following reason. A market economy is based on the principles of supply and demand. This means those who make the best products while keeping costs low will win in the market place. This also means that someone, somewhere will lose in that market place. Applying this theory to a public service such as public education also ensures that someone, somewhere will also lose. I believe, in the case of public education, we need to ensure that all are winners. Having said that, the task of assuring that all are winners in receiving a quality education in America is by no means easy. However, the trends America has followed to improve education have largely failed because it always leaves someone behind or provides a way to overlook those who fail. American democracy will by strengthened when America unites around real public education once again.
John Sullivan  - Practitioner With Passion |10-16-2009
Where to start...I've read "The Active Life" and "A Hidden Wholeness". I love to engage with the content and carry on a dialogue and debate with Parker that shapes my thinking and practice. I am not a teacher by the conventional definition. I have worked/lived in Hospital Administration/Human Resources for over 25 years and find Parkers's work to be directly applicable to the dynamics of the Healthcare arena.
From the "sketches" provided, my first impressions are as follows. Please keep the sharp practitoner's edge to your writing. There is a risk (in my opinion)of producing a piece of work that is dressed up in social relativism and/or grinds on some of the same 'ol issues of absolutes vs. situations, individual rights vs. group rights, etc., etc.. When you say, "In this book I will explore ways to deepen our capacity...", I would like you to speak also to the fruits of the "explorations" you have already spent considerable time and effort in conducting. If possible, push the real situations to the troublesome fringes where the rubber meets the road, i.e., when my neighbor's absolutist-based behaviors treads on one of my "absolutes", and, physical space separation isn't a feasible option to allow "tolerance" to necessarily prevail, how do I resolve this to best serve the common good.
Thanks for asking, thanks for listening.
Parker J. Palmer  - Thanks From a Grateful Writer |10-18-2009
The first five responses to my notes toward a new book on democracy make me wish I’d done something like this as soon as the internet came on the scene. In fact, I've found myself so energized by the ideas shared here that I herewith break my own “promise” that I would not respond to the folks who write in! I won't be able to respond with great frequency or at great length. But I will do it when I can, because I value responses of this sort very much; I learn from them and want to encourage them.

Among other things, it occurs to me that we have a chance to model the kind of civil discourse that is so badly needed on the web. (Where do some people get the idea that we can speak to people in cyberspace as if they were not human beings, worthy of respect? Probably from the same place we got the notion that “reality” TV shows were a good idea!)

Yolande, I am very grateful for your point about Rumi's concept of “otherness,” and would be glad if you could find and post the reference you mention. I agree completely about the problem that comes when we fail to take responsibility for creating “otherness” or “separateness” by projecting our own fears on individuals and groups. That's why the concept of “life on the Mobius strip” is so important to me: the inner and the outer keep co-creating each other. When we miss that point, we are more likely to do harm than good to ourselves and the world around us.

And thank you, Vera, for the important reminder that when we are able to speak and listen to each other with honesty and mutual respect, we are more likely to find that which we can agree upon -- or at least that which we have in common. I think a lot about the fact that our real connections are found not at the level of our convictions, but at the level of the life experiences, the stories, that brought us to what we believe. For example, I've been very impressed by retreats involving people who disagree vehemently about certain issues (like abortion) where the ground rule is that we spend the first day or two not arguing about our positions on the issues, but telling the stories of the experiences that took us to those positions. Time after time, people who disagree on issues find that very similar experiences took them to different places -- and once they see that, a new and more generative kind of conversation emerges. Differences do not disappear, but there is an emergent sense that maybe we can create the kind of community that can hold our differences.

The real issue for us is not whether we will agree on all the vital issues of our day: we never will. The issue is whether we can find ways to keep touching in with that which we have in common, which lies at a much deeper level than our ideas. As I like to say, the soul has no race, nationality, gender, theology or partisan convictions. If we can meet at that level, or anywhere near it, we can keep confronting our differences in the great experiment called democracy without blowing up the lab!

Which leads me to thank Scott for his notion of “the duality of democracy.” Yes, there are very real differences between us that we cannot afford to gloss over, differences in beliefs and values and behaviors. I altogether agree that “it is the tension of competing ideas that holds together a thriving democracy,” and am trying hard to make that point as strongly as I know how as this book unfolds. My “brokenhearted” theme is about refusing to conflate our differences, which creates illusions that lead to dangerous places. The broken-open heart is a place within ourselves where we can hold those tensions in a life-giving way.

When we hold tension in that place -- and we all know people who do it -- we find our minds and hearts stretched open to new ways of thinking and acting, to “third possibilities” that lie beyond the “either-or” we started with, discoveries and inventions that keep individuals and societies alive and growing. Even more important, we sustain the civic community on which democracy depends, without which we cannot seek or advance “the common good” or hold our leaders and ourselves responsible for it. In the book, I make the point that if you want homogenized ideas, a totalitarian society is what you are looking for. But in such a society, homogenization is enforced by violence. Meanwhile, the diversity that comes with being human is driven underground, where it eventually manifests itself along a continuum that runs from profound pathologies in individuals and societies to popular and often violent revolutions. The design of American democracy, rightly understood, offers an alternative to the evil of “the final solution.”

Thanks to you, John, for urging me to “keep the sharp practitioner's edge” to my writing about this topic. I am eager to do exactly that, and to avoid the cheap relativism and same-old-same-old that you rightly caution against -- and to do so by focusing on “where the rubber meets the road.” That metaphor really works for me because for years I've talked about the importance of “putting wheels on ideas” -- which forces me to ask whether my ideas have any traction! Believe me, I will take your words to heart when I get to working on the last three chapters of the book, which are devoted to practical proposals for what we can do about “habits of the heart” in places like the family, the neighborhood, public schools, colleges and universities, the workplace, religious communities, various venues of public life and, of course, “created spaces” such as those offered by the Center for Courage & Renewal. I will indeed write about the fruits of my own exploration, as you encourage me to do, while at the same time emphasizing that I value the many people who are exploring these things from different angles, and want to encourage more folks to join the contemporary “voyage of discovery” that might open new frontiers of democracy.

Finally, thanks to you, Jerry, for your important words about the mission of public education, written from the heart of that vital enterprise. You are right: the ”win-lose“ consequences of the marketplace logic are pernicious when applied to public education. Ironically, the current economic plight of America makes it clear that they are pernicious for the marketplace itself! We need to make all children winners in public education. That’s easier said than done, I know, but it is a sad day when cruelty to animals gets more public attention than cruelty to children. We also need to take Alexis de Tocqueville seriously when it comes to teaching children about American democracy and citizenship. In a nutshell, let’s spend fewer hours on the names and dates of famous people, places, documents and events in American history, and deal with what all of that means in terms of ”habits of the heart.“

Thanks again to all of you -- and to those who may follow on this blog -- for offering up these important thoughts in ways that will, I am sure, help shape the book as I write it over the next fifteen months. Now, to make sure that I can keep that promise, I better get back to the writing!
Sandie Merriam  - Teacher |10-18-2009
You continue to give words to my heart breaking open. For many years I have lived in a sort of self-imposed isolation. My participation in a Courage to Teach 2-year seasonal retreat 1996-1998 had sustained me and allow me to be deeply committed to my students but unyeilding in my resolve never again to trust institutions.

My choice was to "be of use" but quietly and well below the radar.

It was seeing your words deeply touch young teachers who were present at a 10th anniversary of "Courage to Teach" in Columbia, SC that put the first crack in my armor. I live in a world where isolation is a code word for safety, and where young professionals learn early that systems don't listen.

My hope is that learning to listen to each other will have the result that John Fox talks about in his poem "Deeply Listening" when he says:

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and the beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

Democracy is too precious to leave anyone on the magin.
Paul Batalden  - The conversation about health care reform |10-19-2009
A concrete example of a conversation in our democracy is to be found in the current conversations about health care reform. I believe we are having a conversation that is substantially below what we--and our democracy could have.

The questions I use to test the proposals and the conversation about the proposals:

1.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies and specific actions that have the common aim of reducing the impact and burden of illness in peoples lives?

•arising from unnecessary and preventable illness, injury and/or death

•manifested by unnecessary and preventable direct and indirect costs, including those arising from inappropriate use of services

•measurable at the individual, family, employer and community levels in society

This point is at the heart of it all. Basically, it invites a focus on aim. This question invites framing the aim of change in the context of the underlying social need.


2.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies and specific actions that evoke widespread cooperation?

•among parts of the system necessary for the production, improvement and redesign of care
•for the elimination of actions that do not contribute to good value delivery of service to patients and families--including waste, ineffective services, unnecessary or additional layers of inspection

This seems particularly important for the "met" need. Real innovation in what we already know how to do is unlikely if the leadership energies are focused on accelerating competitive strategies to serve those already served in one way or another. Figuring out new ways to cooperate in serving those already served seems more likely to elicit innovation.


3.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies and specific actions that encourage innovation and competition against the unmet health need?

•defined as the gap between the present and a future which makes good value health care available for all citizens

•discourages competition among the parts of the system which must work together to meet that currently unmet need

•as opposed to encouraging further capacity-building for the "met" need

The focus is on competing against the need--not one another. We need new strategies and approaches where no one currently serves the unserved.


4.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies that enable local action?

•based on the unique resources always available

•consistent with national policy

•while recognizing the capacity and diversity of local resources needed to sustain change

•by reducing the effect of current progress-limiting laws, regulations, policies and practices

There is a feeling of widespread "disenfranchisement" amongst local providers and employers in the country. No legislative act alone will be able to change the delivery system in local communities--only the providers and community members working and living there can. Legislation can help provide a context that encourages them to act.


5.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies and specific actions that operate from the assumption of abundance as well as scarcity?

•abundant personal, social, technical, educational and knowledge resources available for promoting health

•scarce financial resources available for any action, service or policy which adds cost more than value to the societal pursuit of illness burden reduction

In our focus on financial limits today, we inadvertently contribute to the feeling of helplessness and victimization which has the effect of paralyzing folks. We must try to avoid that if we are serious about action and change. Further there seems to be a minimal awareness of the additive effect of new partial solutions and the rules necessary to implement them.


6.Does the proposed policy improvement foster strategies and actions that treat the improvement of health care as a dynamic process?

•accepting present understandings of preferred practices as an initial knowledge base

•encouraging an increasing rate of improvement and innovation that build on that base rather than seek conformance to it

•requiring the preservation and continued development of precious human resources and competencies for ongoing improvement and innovation

Too long, Parker, but as I reflect on the current conversations, I deeply realize how much we need open, thoughtful conversations--not sound bytes. Go for it.
Paul
Carol Kortsch  - Communal Grief Rituals to Process our Inner Suffer |10-20-2009
"What we need to do ... is to create safe spaces where Americans can meet and grow as human beings, at the level of the heart.”

Yes, yes yes! These words of yours Parker remind me of a group retreat I was in this past weekend where we had an opportunity in a bounded, safe space to connect with our personal emotional response to specific issues of social injustice, results of climate change and the human violence that so often erupts out of suffering in the many tragic gaps of the world.

I won't go into the detail here, but it was a ritual for grieving - the empty bowl of loss, the heavy boulder of fear, the stuckness of inner pain, the large bully stick of anger and the sheaf of dried grasses for our tears. We spoke and grieved from the deepest places of our hearts holding these symbols and speaking particularly in connection to a personally selected photo and recent story in the news - specific issues of human and planetary suffering. After each person was finished in the circle, the group responded together lovingly with the words, "we hear you".

It was a powerful opportunity to speak out of personal depths, without being maudlin, being coerced or drowned in hyper-emotional group contagion. It was both personal and communal; even though we hardly knew each other, we found remarkable words and much hidden emotional depths in this safe space and came into a new level of peace within our private selves and eventually moved with another ritual into a creative hope for the future.

If we as a nation had regular communal opportunities to ritualize our grief, we would be able to purge our vitriol and the resulting blaming and shaming. Maybe we could begin to lance the inner plague boils of private depression and put voice to our guilty fear-filled silence of helplessness, forging new communal ties to bring active change. Change that starts from the inside and moves outward with the gentle strength of "doing something" to resolve this often untenable weight of genuine human suffering.

This public forum for witnessing, and sharing private grief is a desperately needed national therapy! As a psychotherapist, I work all the time with the tendency we have as basically "fix-it" people to rush into our heads with premature planning and action, we avoid the complicated and convoluted process of mourning our life's losses. Is it possible that the same principle is at work in the national voice for democracy - before authentic discourse can take place we might consider first mourning our losses together?

Thank you Parker for being a voice of a public mourner and continuing to lead us into these deeper conversations of heart.
Rachel Boechler |10-22-2009
I believe the capacity to open our hearts to the level of discourse that is so foundational to a healthy democracy is often diminished by the fast pace of our society, particularly in the western world. We are bombarded by information overload via 24/7 news media, (inclusive of entertainment and opinion pages disguised as news), political punditry, email, Internet, youtube, and the list goes on. The shear exhaustion of sorting through all of the inputs in hopes of discerning what is worthy of listening to and/or responding to leaves us numb. As a result our willingness as citizens to engage independently on issues of substance within our circles and within the community at large is diminished. Face to face, heart to heart communication requires an openness to other rather than a stance of "keeping our distance" in order to protect our own rare moments of solitude. Our democracy can only be served by our willingness to share our mental models (as noted in one of the earlier blog responses) -- but only if we can create the time and space in our lives to reconnect with our own inner wisdom, values, and beliefs so that we can come from a place of depth and understanding in our shared conversations. Our democracy would be well served by a willingness to let us think into issues, ponder possibilities, engage in dialogue without an insistence that we must come to one belief (one side, one stance) or the other based on the media blitz of divisiveness we are fed regularly. I do not mean to demonize the media here, only to point out that we as a society seem to have lost the value for the time and space to be reflective -- which impinges on our ability to once again treasure deep dialogue and engagement with others. The foundation of our democracy depends on the latter -- but we must also create a culture that values time to simply be with our own thoughts and have the ability to "tune out" the noise that gets in the way of being true to our own collective wisdom.
Cat Greenstreet  - My thoughts on your thoughts |10-23-2009
Hi, Parker,
I am so glad you are writing this book and exploring these urgent issues. A few things come to mind. This is hard work. Who is up for it? Who is motivated to reach out beyond self or immediate family to the other? What motivates that urgency that you and I feel? How many of us makes a difference? What I love is how this discourse has been changing since the 30s, say: how the central task of growing our hearts (as you speak of it) - our compassion, our understanding, our ability to hear the other without freaking out - is taking center stage. I see it in the eyes of those I meet in New York City. I can see who is on this path by how I am greeted as in Ancient Greece, people could tell immediately who had been initiated into the mysteries. Some of us have been and are being initiated by the Spirit of Humanity, Who we want to inform the way we live together in this country and on this planet. (See the film 12, a Russian film, based on 12 Angry Men, about a Chechnyan teenager accused of murdering his step-father.)

I am struck with the reality that no one has the answers. We may each have a piece of the puzzle, and we may share what we think would be a better or the best approach. However, those thoughts barely skim the reality of real cultural-political-economic change and what that will demand of each of us. From what you have generously shared, your book hopefully will be able to offer us the tools to work together toward the ideal picture of life together that we hold in our hearts.

One thing that caught me - and I am not sure if I was reading it as you meant it - was that in two places, once early in the piece, where you talked about different points of view but only represented the liberal one, and another later where you talk about "the Rapture" that I invite you to try to walk in the shoes of those people we feel are "on the other side." It felt like you were addressing us, your audience. I hope that your book will have wide, wide appeal; that Sarah Palin might learn something from it. Wow, that's scary. Anyway, I'm clearly not where I'm hoping you can be!

There is also an underlying, unstated assumption: if we can grow our hearts and reach out to each other, that the special interests and violent power-mongers still dominating our world will not stand a chance. A part of me believes that too, and history has given us examples of that. I guess part of my heartbreak is knowing how much suffering does and will continue to exist for billions of living beings between now and the realization of that New Jerusalem.

One last thing from the mouth of my favorite "babe," now 22. When he was a boy Morgan really thought that "each other" was "our chuthers." I like that.

Lots of love and productive writing,
Cat
Caroline  - The misuse of democracy |10-23-2009
I'm so happy you're writing about democracy. We do need such an outlook.
Are you going to tackle the misuse of democracy as well?
I mean that some people use democracy strategically as a mean to reach their own goals on the expense of others' good and interest.
Tim Krell  - Compassion, a habit of the heart |10-24-2009
Parker you may remember your visit to Bellevue, Washington and Bellevue Christian School some dozen years ago. I still remember it and have watched and read your work ever since.

Here's my 2 cents: Our rugged individualism has driven out our sense of e pluribus unum. In the urban sprawl in which we live we have no gates in the fences that surround our homes. It wasn’t like that in the small country farm town in which I grew up. I remember vividly one summer in which the wife of one of the farmers died very suddenly. It was the middle of wheat harvest, a tense time for farmers. A day of rain can shut down the fleet of combines that crawl over the rolling hills scooping up the crop. Hail is worse as it can pummel the bearded heads of wheat causing them to spill their kernels to the ground. Time is precious and work goes sun up to sun down and then some. Yet in a show of compassion for this farmer and his “broke-open” heart, every farmer drove his harvester across town to this widower’s field and brought in his crop first. There were a couple dozen machines so it didn’t even take the whole day as truckload after truckload took the golden crop to the warehouse.

I’m sure there are other stories like this one. I think of the many volunteers that have spent years in the south cleaning up Katrina’s mess. We can rally around crisis, but we have a hard time reacting with compassion the rest of the time. When great differences divide us, we think only of tolerance. If we can just tolerate “each other” we’ll get along. I beg to differ, as we must develop the habit of hearts of compassion. Tolerance is to shallow; the roots don’t go down deep. Hearts of compassion developed in true communities like the one I grew up in send roots down deep. Compassion outlasts and out does tolerance every time.
Parker J. Palmer  - More Thanks... |10-25-2009
Once again, I'm very glad I decided to do this, because I'm learning so much from the folks who write in. Here are a few responses to the latest entries:

Sandie, many thanks for your affirmation of the core idea of heartbreak and of the power of the Courage to Teach program to help ”crack our armor.” For me, two very important statements in your entry -- real keepers! -- are these: “I live in a world where isolation is a code word for safety…” and “Democracy is too precious to leave anyone on the margin.” If small groups of folks can come together in the workplace and other daily venues of our common life and learn to break through our isolation, that “habit of the heart” can carry over into the body politic and help reduce the marginalization that undermines the vision of a government of, by and for the people. It's slow, painstaking work, infrastructural work, but I've seen it happen, I've seen it spread, and we need lots more of it. One of the big lessons of our current economic crisis is that ignoring infrastructure over the past forty years, and grabbing for the “quick fix” instead, helps pave the road to ruin. So thanks for the reminder of these critical root-system issues, and of the fact that there are ways to do something about it -- including the Circle of Trust model that the Center has to offer.

Paul, as usual, I find you right on target with specifics. And, as always, I am grateful. As I read your list of six questions, each with well-defined dimensions, I thought you were quite gentlemanly to call our current conversation about health care “substantially below what we and our democracy could have.” The “death panel” debate looks downright debased, even demonic alongside your grounded and thoughtful approach to this critical issue. In this book, I want to address the question of how to reopen “the public square” to many voices, including the voices of people like you who have immense credibility in various work arenas, credibility based on long experience of the sort you have in medical education and health care reform. How do we get your voice more clearly into the health care debate? How do we get the voices of seasoned public school educators into the school reform debate? More and more, it seems, the people who know the least about a field have the most power over forming public policy for that field. How do we give people like you more leverage on these things? No easy answers, but your blog entry reminds me of how important the question is.

Carol, many thanks for lifting up the critical role of grief and mourning in “the politics of the brokenhearted” via your vivid example and very helpful thoughts. I am reminded of the “despair work” Joanna Macy has been doing with people for many years -- to clear the ground for the work of hope. I think you are right-on when you speak about our need as individuals to mourn our losses deeply and well before we can start to heal, a hard thing to do in a culture where the answer is always “Fine!” when you ask people how they are. And my answer to your great question “Is it possible that the same principle is at work in the national voice for democracy - before authentic discourse can take place we might consider first mourning our losses together?” is a resounding YES!

Rachel, thank you for stating so vividly and concisely why it is that we need to create social spaces that allow for genuine reflection and soulful human encounters in the midst of all the madness. While I agree with you that we don't want to demonize the media, we also know that one of the classic methods of social control is to keep people so busy and so continually distracted that they cannot get together to think through the deeper issues and, perhaps, generate some form of collective power to create positive change. I know more than a few people (and I know that you do, too) who feel that the bureaucracy they work in harasses them with paperwork not for the sake of good data but to keep them from agitating for change -- “pecked to death by ducks” is one way to describe it! And what you and I both know is that the Center's Circles of Trust offer one model of the kind of space we need, a space that has allowed many hard-pressed people to return to booming, buzzing confusion of the workaday world with new focus and clarity about what's important. When I think about the way conventional “news” tends less to inform us than to drive us out of our minds, I think of the deeper kind of news we can get from spaces of this sort, the kind of news the poet William Carlos Williams names in these lines:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

Cat, thank you for your good questions, astute observations, and encouragement. I like the notion that our national discourse has changed since the 1930's, at least in some sectors of the society, toward more generous kinds of questions, such as those about compassion and mutual “hearing.” Your observation about the way genuine suffering exists and will continue to exist is one of the themes at the heart of this book; I'm going to be writing in more detail about how we can stand and act in “the tragic gap,” the gap between what is and what we know to be possible, without flipping out into irrelevant idealism or corrosive cynicism. And I really appreciate the way you pointed to a couple of places where I may have been more smart-aleck than smart! Your counsel to walk in other people's shoes is something I need to keep hearing, though I am not sure I can write a book Sarah Palin would read; I understand she keeps very busy reading all the magazines and newspapers that cross her desk. But I will do my best!

Caroline and Tim, I just found your good entries when I got online to submit these responses -- I will try to respond to what you said the next time around. And Tim, I have warm memories of my visit to your school; I especially recall a great open conversation with a room full of marvelous teachers. Please greet them for me.
Terry Chadsey |11-04-2009
I, too, am excited by the focus of your writing, Parker, and by the depth and breadth of this growing collection of comments.

Several years ago I was asked to facilitate a public meeting of a County Land Use Task Force. Their previous public meeting had ended in a brawl and the Task Force of well intended citizens were a bit tentative about the next public meeting.

Having been a public school teacher and student of American history long before becoming a facilitator of unruly groups, I decided to begin the session with a mini lecture on democracy. What I tried to convey briefly were two thoughts: 1) that our democracy was first about what occurs in ten of thousands of local meetings such as this NOT about what we see on TV occurring in Washington DC and 2) that, although we often think democracy means that we get to speak our minds freely, I believed that the real essence of our democracy is that we allow others to speak their minds even when we whole-heartedly disagree. I challenged the group to hold that thought as we practiced democracy together that evening. I have no idea if that comment made the difference, but there was a whole lot of good listening... and no punches thrown.

I'm eager for such experiences today. I'm intrigued by a suggestion I read into Cat's comment: that the important thing is dialogue across lines of difference. That feels to be so rare these days.

With that in mind, I'm wondering if anyone is aware of organizations that promote and support civil dialogue across the lines of political polarization. I know there are some on both extremes who have no interest in dialogue, but it is never the extremes that determine policy in a democracy. Rather, it is that 20% that span the center of the political spectrum and it is among that group that civil dialogue across difference is so needed.
Russ Moxley  - Question |11-25-2009
Like so many others, Parker, I have enjoyed reading these early sketches. Thanks so much for sharing them. And, like others, I am eager to read the last three chapters where, in your words, you will put "wheels on the ideas". For sure, I need these chapters-I utterly failed in an attempt at civil discourse with a far right friend earlier this week. I need "hopeful possibilities" right now.

I want to share with you the the question I have been puzzling about, the one that keeps me scratching my head. Starting way before reading your sketch, I have wondered about the relationship of individual growth or formation and organizational renewal or transformation. When I joined the staff of a major corporation in the early 80's I was struck at the clean clear delinination made there between management development and organization development. I developed a sense in those years that we could not effectively do one without the other. Fast forward thirty years and my question is can we transform democracy, even hold it together, without also working at the systems level where we would change, for example, the way big-money special interests are subverting our democracy (several tears ago I heard Bill Moyers talk about this and it was scary).

I love the movement model that you have so clearly articulated, but still I wonder, is it enough or do we also need focused attention on systems change right from the git go?

Thanks for inviting us to share our reactions and viewpoints. I like having these conversations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Russ
Wiley  - The Politics of the Broken Hearted |01-11-2010
I have not read a lot of you blog so I don't know whether or not my comment has been covered. In case it hasn't here goes.

In your article about the book you said "I am an American who despairs of our murderous misadventures abroad and the deepening economic injustice here at home." I fully agree with those concerns, but, would like to add, a despair over this countries support of sweatshops in third world countries. I find it despicable we rush to by things at WalMart knowing much of it was produced by adults and children existing in conditions of extreme poverty and/or as slaves. Am I a cynic about America? Am I angry? Do I hate? You bet. and you am I angry with? The American People. Especially the Christians.
David Henderson |02-04-2010
Parker,

I just took a few moments to read these sketches and it occurs to me that so much of where you have been in your pilgrimage is coming to focus in this love letter to America so good for you.

But I also wanted to suggest that the four criteria that Bryk and Schneider discovered in their research about relational trust in schools seems particularly appropos for your discussion of America which is struggling, as I suppose all democracies do, with a lack of fundamental trust amongst the participants. Their research surfaced four criteria that seemed to be core to the possibility of trust existing in these microcosmic democracies we call schools: personal intergrity, personal regard (a fundamental belief in our connection to each other I think), respect and competence - I would suggest these four realities so critical to relational trust existing in the training grounds for citizenship are completely interdependent and just as critical to the trust our national democracy demands.

Blessings,
David
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