June Practice: Bring Love to What We Do
It’s easy to forget how impactful the daily, ordinary moments of our lives can be. Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, Zen teacher, psychotherapist, and president of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care shares what a door person in his building said that moved and reminded him of the impact our most ordinary activities have on others.
StoryCorps Conversations Celebrate Longtime Fetzer Staff
From those who tend Fetzer's physical workplace, library, and mission, we learn of the importance of love, humor, and humility in the work we do together. We found these short clips from some of our longest-serving staff to be delightful and hope you do too! Many thanks to our friends at StoryCorps for this special opportunity.
May Practice: Through Dying We Learn to Live
Dying is a universal experience, yet we have such trouble talking about it, allowing for our own and others’ grief, and learning from this profound and mysterious passage. In the video below, Carla Fernandez, co-founder of The Dinner Party considers what we miss when we avoid the topic and the precious lessons it offers us.
The QUESTion Project Empowers High School Students to Pursue a Life of Purpose
The QUESTion Project is significant because it gives people the opportunity to talk about life questions that are typically internalized, and the chance to interconnect with others. It is also significant because it widens perspectives … it inspired me to expand my wisdom, learn about the ideas and thoughts of people [who] live in my world, and serve … my community in … an extraordinary way. —Karla, QUESTion Project alumnus
April Practice: Community as a Verb
This month, we look to Scherto Gill, a research fellow at the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace to help us reframe our cultural assumption of community, moving it from something outside ourselves to an active process we live into. Watch Scherto in the video below!
Join us as we experiment with the practice of “we-ness” that Scherto speaks of. How might you live as if community is an action, a verb? Share your observations and experiences below.
March Practice: Myth of the Separate Self
“We are in trouble to the degree that we adhere to the myth of the separate self,” warns Rev. Ed Bacon, rector emeritus of All Saints Church in Pasadena. In the video below, Rev. Bacon shares a poignant example from nature that illustrates how we are not only inextricably linked, we are part of a larger whole. Watch.
This month, we invite you to consciously live as part of a larger whole. How does this affect how you move through the world? Your daily activities? Your interactions with others and nature? Your purchases? Or even your time alone?
Love in Action: Standing with the LGBTQ Community
What does a loving world look like, and what is our part in creating the conditions for that world as it comes into being? This is a living question in our organization. Most recently, it has been tested in our discernment about the Fetzer Institute’s relationship with Southwest Michigan First.
February Practice: Moral Questions and Democracy
This month we turn to the wisdom of Oren Lyons, Indigenous rights advocate, for inspiration. Lyons' quote is featured in our Conversation Cards on Democracy, Freedom, Equality, and Common Good.
January Practice: Stillness, Silence, and the Divine
Stillness is the altar of Spirit. Where motion ceases, Spirit begins to manifest. —Paramahansa Yogananda
Whether transitioning from a noisy and difficult year or traversing an ordinary day, finding moments of silence provide a way to dip below the cacophony within and around us into something more enduring, divine even. As we begin 2021, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the importance and power of stepping away from our screens, our to-do lists, the news, and other attention grabbers.
December Practice: Make a Comfort Basket
As we close out a year that has cracked many of us open, we offer a lovely practice designed by Kay Klinkenborg, spiritual director, retired RN, and LMFT: making a comfort basket. By harvesting items and memories that provide refuge in difficult times, this is a gift we can give ourselves.