What a Community Looks Like When We Are All In This Together
Parker Palmer describes how a community interacts and how the 'grace of great things' informs us. To find common ground seems more important than ever, especially during the COVID19 pandemic.
"In the community of truth, we interact with non human forms of being that are as important and powerful as the human and sometimes even more so. This is a community held together not only by our personal powers of thought and feeling, but also by the power of "the grace of great things." (From an essay by Rainer Maria Rilke)
By great things I mean the subjects around which the circle of seekers has always gathered. I mean the genes and ecosystems of biology the symbols and referents of philosophy (and mathematics), the archetypes of betrayal and forgiveness and loving and loss that are the stuff of literature. I mean the shapes and colors of music and art, the novelties and patterns of history. It is in the act of gathering around (great things) and trying to understand them, as the first humans must have gathered around fire, that we become who we are as knowers, teachers, and learners. When we are at our best, it is because the grace of great things has evoked from us the virtues that give educational community its finest form.
- We invite diversity into our community not because it is politically correct but because diverse viewpoints are demanded by the manifold mysteries of great things.
- We embrace ambiguity not because we are confused or indecisive but because we understand the inadequacy of our concepts to embrace the vastness of great things.
- We welcome creative conflict not because we are angry or hostile but because conflict is required to correct our biases and prejudices about the nature of great things.
- We practice honesty not only because we owe it to one another but because to lie about what we have seen would be to betray the truth of great things.
- We experience humility not because we have fought and lost but because humility is the only lens through which great things can be seen-and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible.
- We become free men and women through education not because we have privileged information but because tyranny in any form can be overcome only by invoking the grace of great things. "
from Parker Palmer’s book The Courage to Teach