Harvest Time

Co-Director A word from Co-Director Marcy Jackson

Fall 2007 has been an auspicious time of remembrance and celebration of a decade of good work. The publication of the beautiful 10th Anniversary edition of Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, the release of the new poetry book, Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead, and the terrific book launch events to celebrate and bring greater visibility to our work have had us spinning and grinning this fall! And, we are celebrating a quieter event that took place ten years ago this month—the establishment of the Center for Courage & Renewal (previously known as the Center for Teacher Formation). My, time does fly when you’re having fun!

Sometimes in life and work we have a chance to look around, to stand at the edge of our own garden and, as the poet Marge Piercy says, “look at [our] work growing away there/ actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans/ as things grow in the real world, slowly enough" (from the poem Seven of Pentacles). This has been one of those times for us at the Center. I’d like to share with you how the breadth and depth of our collective garden has grown over the past ten years through the work of the Center and the hard and dedicated work of our facilitators.

• Between 1997 and 2007, Courage & Renewal facilitators led 160 long-term retreat programs.

All of these were retreat series of 4, 5, or 8 retreats with an ongoing cohort.

• Between 1997 and 2007, Courage & Renewal facilitators led 700 introductory retreats and related programs.

These were stand-alone events (ranging from 1-3 days) for people who wanted to learn more about the long-term programs. Others were “custom” offerings; e.g., to introduce our principles and practices to an organization.

• Between 1997 and 2007, Courage & Renewal programs directly touched the lives of 25,000 professionals—who in turn touch countless students, patients, clients, parishioners, colleagues, family members and friends.

• Between 1997 and 2007, Parker Palmer, Sam Intrator, Megan Scribner, and CCR—in partnership with Jossey-Bass Publishers—have published eight books (750,000 sold to date) that have contributed to the vital and expanding national conversation about reclaiming integrity and courage in professional and public life.

~ A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (Parker J. Palmer)
~ Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead (Sam Intrator & Megan Scribner, eds.)
~ Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Parker J. Palmer)
~ Living the Questions: Essay Inspired by the Work & Life of Parker J. Palmer (Sam Intrator, ed.)
~ Stories of the Courage to Teach: Honoring the Teacher’s Heart (Sam Intrator, ed.)
~ Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach (Sam Intrator & Megan Scribner, eds.)
~ The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal (Parker J. Palmer & Megan Scribner)
~ The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life (Parker J. Palmer)

In addition to programs, hundreds of thousands of people have been touched and impacted by reading the many books, journal articles and doctoral dissertations that have come from our work (many of these are downloadable on our website).

This kind of impact and reach doesn’t happen overnight. It happens with prodigious seeding, faithful tending, persistence, patience, and a modicum of synergy and serendipity. In her poem, Marge Piercy speaks of all the “ifs” that come into play when one is tending a garden and hoping for a rich harvest:

If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

In this kind of work of the heart—just as in a garden—there are “ifs” that are within our control and many “ifs” that are not. The kinds of spaces we are trying to create—spaces where the soul can show up—are in many ways antithetical to the volume and velocity that is becoming the cultural norm, not to mention the unrelenting pressures and demands experienced by our primary constituency, people in serving professions. And yet, the slow work of tending the soul—of stopping long enough to renew ourselves and find sustenance and support for courageous action—is needed now more than ever! Ten years on, I’m proud to say that this collective garden that has been planted and tended by many hands continues to thrive and spread, to flower and bear fruit.

The final lines of Piercy’s poem say it all:

…every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.