A Poignant Moment

Reflections from Executive Director Terry Chadsey

The other night I gathered in the hospital room with family around the bedside of an elderly loved one.  It was a poignant moment. She was hospitalized for a diagnostic procedure. The immediate findings were not good. More will be known when the biopsy results return. Yet, I witnessed that night a convergence of forces that made it a lovely if rare human moment.
 
The relationships: on the spur of a moment, the room was full of loving family, three generations, children and children in laws, grandchildren and their partners. Each individual was dealing with the meaning of this difficult situation in their own way and together.  There was love, humor, sadness, and problem solving in the room and everyone was present.
 
The professional: the surgeon arrived to report the results of the procedure to the patient. I watched a master professional at work. He first of all connected with the patient. There might as well not been anyone else in the room. He was not distracted. He knew for whom he was there in that moment. He was warm, clear and honest. He connected. He described what she needed to know and answered her questions. She listened carefully and thanked the doctor. I could only imagine the work and attention he has done to be there in that way at the end of a harried work day. My mind was brought to Parker Palmer’s essay on “The New Professional”  that challenges us to ensure that this core capacity is an outcome of professional education.
 
The institution: my eyes wandered to a poster on the bulletin board in that hospital room. It said, “We recognize the important role that patients and families play in health care. As we care for patients, we honor the strengths, priorities and preferences of each patient and family and involve them in medical decisions, every step of the way.”  Too often such posters are rendered ridiculous because what’s happening in the room is the opposite of such stated intentions. That evening, that moment, this was not true. It was a wonderful point of alignment between the rich family relationships forged over lifetimes, a professional who knew that all his skill and knowledge was in service of making a human connection, and an institution that publically professes to support such practice.  
 
This is the work of the Center for Courage & Renewal: to nurture personal and professional integrity and the courage to act on it, knowing that when individuals fully claim their full potential, then they call on their families, their communities and their organizations to do so as well.
 
What are your own stories when relationships, professionalism and institutions converge to create such a human moment?

"Stickiness" and the Wisdom Economy

Reflections from Executive Director Terry Chadsey during his first month on the job

I feel like a kid in a candy shop. My days are filled with conversations with an eye opening diversity of interesting people, intriguing ideas and engaging experiences. I know I am richly privileged as I seek to harvest my own experience into giving back.
 
Some of these experiences simply flow over me and move on. Some stick in the way Chip and Dan Heath describe here.

This week a colleague mentioned the concept of “the wisdom economy” as used by Stan Davis, a thoughtful business futurist and author of The Monster Under the Bed.
 
This is an idea that stuck. Simply put, society has evolved mastering different economic challenges and moving onto the next. Although in no way is this universally experienced across the globe, the cutting edge of humanity has taken on and mastered the challenges of agriculture, industry, data and knowledge, etc. Now, Davis’ work suggests, we are entering “the wisdom economy.”
 
Wisdom economy—now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one—but it has a ring of truth to it.  
 
Daily we are overwhelmed with problems that seem unsolvable at every level. We can design and produce engineering and technological marvels at a furious pace from the horrible—drone aircraft with which a technician can identify and kill an enemy in a village in Pakistan from a comfortable office in the US--to the ridiculous—you fill in that blank. Yet we are daily overwhelmed with problems that seem unsolvable.
 
“Wisdom economy” suggests that there is compelling (and I’d say too long ignored and marginalized) value in the non-linear and non-rational. “Wisdom economy” suggests that whiz kids of Wall Street and Silicon Valley may have something to learn from those on Main Street and No Street who cultivate another side of human experience.
 
Although I’d never heard the term before, I realize that the Center is a young start-up in the wisdom economy as we offer resources for professionals and leaders to renew and sustain the inner wisdom that is a necessary foundation for powerful professional work and an undivided life.   
 
What does this term “wisdom economy” mean to you?  Where do you see it appearing in your organization, your community, our world?

Summer Fulfillment

by Circle of Trust Facilitator Paul Michalec

When planning a Circle of Trust ® retreat for teachers, leaders, clergy, or healthcare professionals, I rely on two organizing principles: a theme or paradox that is common to the work life of professionals, and connections to the natural world.  For instance, a productive summer theme is honoring work projects that have to come to fruition after much hard labor, in much the same way that flowers or trees come into the fullness of their being after the dormancy of winter and the frenzied growth of spring.

Another important element of the retreat experience is inviting participants to consider the ways that a carefully selected poem, story, or musical selection (what we call a “third thing” in our work) can open new understandings into the heart of the theme we are exploring.  One poem I find particularly helpful for a summer retreat is Marge Piercy’s “Seven of Pentacles.”  The following line seems particularly rich with images linking the working life of a professional to harvesting the rewards of hard but fulfilling tasks: “for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.”

I hear in this selection an acknowledgement (evident even more in the full poem) of the need for professionals to consciously "tend" to the work, in part because that is what professionals do.  And I also hear Piercy’s reminder of the importance of taking time to gather in the rewards and benefits of work well done.  I encourage you to read the poem and ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you hoping to harvest this summer from the long year of your work?
• What kind of garden do you like to plant, tend, and grow in your professional life?
• Is the excess production from your labor a blessing because it enriches the lives of others, or is it a curse because giving it away becomes one more task to accomplish and a distraction from relaxing into summer’s gift of rest?
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"Gardening the Teacher's Heart" in Korea

We have a new "Kindred Organization" to add of our list of friends on our website.  We were happy to see that our friends in South Korea, who have been developing the "Gardening the Teacher's Heart" program over the past several years with our support, are live on the web.  You can visit their website here, or see the translated site here.

The photo to the left was taking during one of their retreats, which the Center's Terry Chadsey helped facilitate.  The photos from their retreat series, and the reports from the participants' experience, bear striking resemblance to those closer to home.

Moving From Advocacy to Inquiry

From Co-Director Terry Chadsey

Last week a friend offered this headline for the conflict work she is doing: "I try to move people from advocacy to inquiry." The phrase captures the deeply human task of negotiating our individuality with the demands of others—in relationships, in families, in workplaces, in neighborhoods and in communities.
 
In May 75 people gathered near Seattle to explore our experiences as citizens in a program called The Politics of the Brokenhearted: a reflective conference on habits of the heart and the future of American democracy. Led by Parker J. Palmer, and using his thought and experience as a starting place, we explored our stories and experiences of civic engagement and holding tensions across lines of difference. Over four days we applied Parker’s keen inquiry to the intersections between our private lives, the public spaces in which we encounter others and the political world.  I was struck again and again by the power of listening to such stories—my own as well as others.
 
I noticed how subtly my story slides from inquiry to advocacy for a particular point of view and leads to judgment and rejection of another perspective.
 
I was struck with how easily I can relegate my citizenship exclusively to the discrete external actions I take—voting, paying taxes, taking action in support of a particular agenda.
 
My life—and that of our democracy—is both more challenging and immeasurably enriched when I engage with others who better represent the full diversity of our communities by class, by race, by age, by culture, by political perspective. I now understand more deeply that my capacity for inquiry depends on the many little ways I engage in public life with those who are different.
 
The conference for me was an experience of moving yet again from comfort to discomfort, from what I know to what I don’t know, from advocacy to inquiry, away from that “place where we are right.”
 
The Place Where We Are Right
 
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.
 
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
 
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
 
                            —Yehuda Amichai
 

Join us in Boston for the second conference, October 21-24, 2010.

Announcing our new Executive Director!

A message from Gayle Williams, Board Chair, and Estrus Tucker, Search Committee Chair:

Following an extensive national search, we are delighted to announce that Terry Chadsey has been selected as our Executive Director.

Terry brings the talent and experience, as well as the continuity and change, we need as we live into the Center’s recently completed strategic direction and transition from Marcy and Rick Jackson’s founding leadership. A strong visionary leader and skilled Circle of Trust facilitator, he embodies the values, principles and practices at the heart of our work. The Center’s board, staff members and Senior Partner Parker Palmer all embrace Terry’s leadership with excitement and deep gratitude. Terry will begin this new role July 1, 2010.
 
Marcy and Rick Jackson will continue working for the Center as Senior Fellows on specific projects and responsibilities that match the needs of the Center and their gifts and capacities for making important contributions.

Our mission to nurture personal and professional integrity and the courage to act on it is needed now more than ever. We are confident that in Terry Chadsey we have found the right leader to help us all write the next chapter of our important work.

From Founder and Senior Partner, Parker Palmer:

I cannot imagine a better choice. I have worked with Terry closely and I know him well. I have deep and abiding respect for his skill, his competence, his compassion and his character. He's one of the finest people I've ever known, and his leadership style is exactly what we need—from within the circle, not above it or outside it.

Terry’s wife, Jane Chadsey, is half the reason I am so happy! While Jane is not directly involved in Courage work, she understands K-12 education well through her own career and is a superb conversation partner for Terry and the rest of us.

In a way, this is a third-generation transition for the Center. In the early 1990s, with the help of my friends and colleagues at the Fetzer Institute, I founded the program that became the organization. In the late 1990’s, I had the great joy of handing the leadership role over to Marcy Jackson and Rick Jackson, who have served our work so wonderfully well over the past decade, taking us farther and deeper than any of us imagined we could go. It means a great deal to all of us that Marcy and Rick will continue at the Center, doing the parts of the work they most love while Terry takes the helm.

As for me, I’ve moved from “father” to “grandfather” to “great-grandfather” in the course of a mere twenty years—a new indoor record—but I’m not yet ready for The Home! I look forward to continuing my work alongside Terry, Marcy, Rick, the Center’s gifted staff, and the other one-hundred fifty members (and growing) of the Courage community.

By choice and design, I do not sit on the Center’s board, so I can say this with objectivity: the board, led by Gayle Williams, and the committee charged with finding a new Executive Director, led by Estrus Tucker, did a remarkable job holding the process that concluded with Terry’s appointment. Adhering to the same principles and practices that inform our Circles of Trust, they proved once again that the best way to do business is with deep respect for the soul.

I'm very grateful for all this, for the sake of the staff, our facilitators, our supporters, and all those who are well-served by the work we do. As we move into the third decade of Courage work, I say thanks for all that has been and yes to all that lies ahead.
 

Parker Palmer on Vermont Public Radio

Parker was interviewed on Vermont Public Radio in advance of a visit to Vermont last week.  You can listen here.  About 800 people attended the events -- did you?  What did you think?

An Interesting Mention

Krista Tippett of NPR's Speaking of Faith mentions Parker Palmer in this interview in yesterday's Washington Examiner.  Not surprisingly, she says she has been influenced by Parker's ideas about creating "quiet, inviting, trustworthy spaces" for the soul to speak.  She says," I have tried to create a quiet, inviting and trustworthy media space to draw out the insights of the soul -- and that yields a very different result from a contentious media space aimed at drawing out opinion and emotion."

Creating "quiet, inviting, trustworthy spaces" for the soul to speak is exactly what our work in retreats is all about.  To search for a retreat in your area, visit our calendar.

Rachael Kessler 1946-2010

On January 27, Rachael Kessler, the founder of PassageWorks and author of the The Soul of Education died in Boulder, Colorado. Many of you who are educators know of her work in social and emotional learning with young people and her development of the PassageWorks curriculum for use in classrooms and schools.

Rachael’s work with the inner life of students is very kindred to our work in Circles of Trust, and she was always a strong supporter of Courage to Teach and a friend of the Center. If you’d like to learn more about PassageWorks check out this wonderful youtube piece below. Several of our Circle of Trust facilitators have worked closely with Rachael over the years and her bright spirit and strong advocacy on behalf of young people will be sorely missed.

To learn more about PassageWorks, please visit their site, where you'll find an article about grief written by Rachael.

The Wild Winds of Winter

by Circle of Trust Facilitator Paul Michalec

Here in Colorado we are experiencing the fullness of winter conditions and the importance of slowing down and turning inward for warmth and self preservation.  On cold and gray days, with the sun low in the horizon, a person’s identity is obscured under layers of clothing and blurred by passing snow squalls. Wrapped in a cocoon of warmth people look like self-contained universes spinning through the snow and ice as they complete the day’s business.  

Circle of Trust work invites me to consider winter’s metaphorical qualities in my personal and professional life.  I’m mindful of the challenges I face when projects aren’t completed on time or I strongly disagree with a colleague around who should take the lead on a task.  Instead of dwelling on disappointment, doubt, or failure, our principles and practices encourage me to consider the light- and life-giving aspects of winter.  For instance, winter’s isolation, although rarely pleasant, becomes an opportunity to listen attentively to my inner teacher.  It is my experience that the darker and colder my professional or personal winter the greater is my opportunity to hear and name my most precious inner beliefs and gifts.

YES! Magazine Exemplary Essays Project

Parker Palmer's recent interview in YES! Magazine was used as a writing prompt in the YES! Exemplary Essays project.

Students in Professor Victor Nolet and Rosalie Romano's "Introduction to Educational Inquiry" course at Western Washington University's Woodring School of Education read and responded to the YES! Magazine article Know Yourself, Change the World.

Two of the best essays were selected to be published on the YES! website, along with Parker's response.

The essays answered this prompt: Palmer cites a study that found relational trust was the one variable, not money, models of governance, state-of-the-art curriculum, in-service training or technology—that made a difference in improving kids' learning. What do you think goes into relational trust between teacher and student? Teacher and teacher?

The study he cites is published in this book entitled Trust in Schools by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider. What do you think?  Do readers who have been to Courage to Teach series have any stories to share about cultivating trust in schools?

Happy New Year!

As 2009 draws to a close, may you be blessed by what you've learned this year and how your life has offered up glimpses of "What's God, what's world, what's gold."

Warmest wishes to you for the new year!

Deciding

One mine the Indians worked had
gold so good they left it there
for God to keep.

At night sometimes you think
your way that far, that deep,
or almost.

You hold all things or not, depending
not on greed but whether they suit what
life begins to mean.

Like those workers you study what moves,
what stays. You bow, and then, like them,
you know-

What's God, what's world, what's gold.

-William Stafford, An Oregon Message

P.S. Our vision for 2010 includes engaging many new friends in our circle — won’t you join us by making a year-end gift to the Center today?