Thank you to everyone who joined us for a conversation with Parker J. Palmer! You can listen to a recording of the September 28, 2016 call.
Palmer speaks of the difference between the heart breaking apart and the heart breaking open. In his book Healing the Heart of Democracy, Palmer states that, while our hearts at times will be “broken by loss, failure, defeat, betrayal, or death,” if our hearts break open rather than apart, we will have “greater capacity to hold the complexities and contradictions of human experience,” resulting in new opportunities and the ability to hold our differences creatively.
When we take into our hearts the “troubles of this world,” we may still feel discouraged, but we may also the clarity and drive to use our voices — not to add to the cacophony but to speak from the truth we know. Our hearts break open to the possibilities as we consider what it means to love our neighbors now.
Read Parker Palmer’s recent piece Courage to Speak, Humility to Listen.
We apologize to those who were unable to join the call for technical reasons. So many people wanted to be with us that our conference call service couldn’t keep up. We’re working to correct the problem for future calls.