Democracy

I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. —bell hooks

Our fears, fueled by stories that—advertently or inadvertently—demonize people based on religion, culture, national origin, or other differences, can easily dominate our attention. At the same time, there are redemptive stories that inspire hope and possibility for reaching across differences and working together for a higher good.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make sense.
—Rumi

"It is precisely in a period of great spiritual and societal hunger like our own that we most need to open minds, hearts, and memories to those times when women and men actually dreamed of new possibilities for our nation, for our world, and for their own lives. It is now that we may be able to convey the stunning idea that dreams, imagination, vision, and hope are actually powerful mechanisms in the creation of new realities—especially when the dreams go beyond speeches and songs to become embodied; to take on flesh, in real, hard places."

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.
―Gwendolyn Brooks from “Paul Robeson”

Unity and interconnection may seem obvious, simple to some, but barriers stemming from our fears, images we see in the media, or our experiences, can keep us insulated, afraid to step in to, build, or nurture community—unity. Anger, misunderstanding, and prejudice can further imprison and limit us.

So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.
—John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

We're experiencing a time when divisions between and among people are deep and raw. During contentious times as these, we often hold even tighter to our views; we lose patience and our ability to listen.

We have a lot of things to answer for…. We need to make peace with the indigenous peoples that were here before we came. We need to make peace with the black community, slavery. We need to make peace with the earth…with all our creatures, with all the plant life. —Marianne Marstrand, executive director of the Global Peace Initiative of Women

It’s easy to react to each day’s news and events (personal and public) with raw emotion, adding to waves of anger, grief, and even calls for retribution well before the facts are in. Social media can make this even more intense.

If we mean to cultivate nonviolence and peace, we need to practice another way, says author Parker Palmer. Instead of responding with corrosive cynicism or irrelevant idealism, Palmer says we need to stand in the “tragic gap” between these two poles.

Practice democracy with this exercise designed to focus on our commonality, our unity, which is foundational to finding ways to reach across real and imagined divides.