Transformative Friendships Build Bridges
In the early 2000s, I ran ballot measure campaigns across the country to ensure that LGBTQ people couldn’t be fired or kicked out of their homes for being gay. In these campaigns, hundreds of us went door to door, telling neighbors and strangers our stories in hopes that they’d see us as human. These were hard conversations. Many of us had to confront our biggest fear: that we would be rejected because of who we knew ourselves to be.
Can you love a Democrat? How about a Republican? Here's how we can bridge our divisions.
Originally published in USA Today April 9, 2022
Think about how our conversations across political, racial and other divides would be transformed if they were grounded in love.
Odds are you agree that our country’s deep divides are bad for our democracy and that we need to learn how to bridge them. Poll after poll confirms this is how most Americans feel.
Strengthening the Social Fabric of the United States
Recently we met with Senior Program Officer Sharif Azami to talk about his work leading the Fetzer Institute’s democracy initiative, about its progress over the past five years and the fruit it is beginning to bear.
The Paradox of Fall: A Sacred Meditation
In the northern hemisphere, it is the autumnal equinox, a perfect time to share a reflection on the season by Parker Palmer. In 1995, Parker wrote a welcoming seasons booklet for the Fetzer Institute's newly built retreat center, Seasons, which included his musings on each of the four seasons. Here, we excerpt his reflection on autumn in the Upper Midwest, where he lives and where the Fetzer Institute is located.
Goodbye to Sweet Minna
Last night we bade an unexpected farewell to Minna, the gentle pony who shared the barn and paddock near Tree of Life with Puck, the goat.
After working at a local YMCA camp as a trail pony, she spent her retirement years at GilChrist, greeting guests and graciously accepting treats offered over the fence. Her sweet presence dwelled on the grounds and overlooked the labyrinth as guests walked their prayers. She will be deeply missed by our staff who cared for her, by guests who savored the creaturely interaction, and surely by Puck, who pestered her amiably and tirelessly.
Enter Spring, Parker Palmer Muses on the Season
I’m about to wax romantic about spring and all of its splendors, but before I do, I must first tell a hard truth: before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. I have walked in the early spring through fields that will suck your boots off, a world so wet and woeful it makes you yearn for the return of ice. But in that mud, it's creating the conditions for rebirth.
Fragile Recordings: Reflecting on Social Media and Other Communication Marvels
The world is already split open, and it is in our destiny to heal it, each in our own way, each in our own time, with the gifts that are ours. —Terry Tempest Williams in When Women Were Birds
Deep Rest Retreat Update
Dear friends of GilChrist,
My Grandmother’s Gift: An Ethic of Sacred and Transformational Love
My grandmother cried when I told her that I was going to be a political organizer. I remember her smile, the one I counted on for affirmation and love in a world that often felt challenging, quickly disappeared. I couldn’t imagine what I had said wrong; I was doing the very thing I thought she wanted me to do: transform the world. My grandmother, rocking back in forth on her porch, sitting on her favorite green metallic chair would speak deep into the hearts of her twenty-something grandchildren.
Moving Toward Sacredness as a Cultural Operating System
We are on the move, even when we are sitting perfectly still.