The Growing Edge Newsletter
June, 2023
In this Newsletter…
• Notes from the Edge
• The Growing Edge Podcast—“All Real Living Is Meeting: Is Community Possible?”
• Online & In-Person Events
• Question of the Month
Notes from the Edge
A Note from Carrie…
I’m grateful for this month’s podcast and conversation. It helped me articulate a longing for a community that’s aligned with my hopes and deepest yearnings. Many of us have returned from COVID isolation with a greater awareness of the importance of connection, but we can no longer settle for shallow connections. We wonder about the odds of finding places where real community is possible.
As a “civic community,” we’re bombarded 24/7 with fear-inducing images of people and systems lost in conflict. Tragic mass shootings happen so frequently they barely register above the fold. There’s a political movement in our country that promotes authoritarian policies in the name of “freedom”, while removing books from library shelves, weakening access to voting, and making fundamental personal, medical and parental rights illegal. It’s easy for me to say, “If this is community, I’m staying out in the woods.”
But I know in my heart that a meaningful life happens only through being in relationship. So I appreciated the opportunity to speak with Parker about ways that “meeting” can still happen. It was good to find a language for our yearning, and name the hallmarks of spaces where the true and authentic self can show up.
For the past 25 years, Parker’s Center for Courage & Renewal has been offering opportunities for this kind of generative meeting. In my work in the arts, I’ve experienced the transformation that can happen when we recognize one another at the heart of a good song, poem, workshop, poetry or book reading. I also see spiritual communities re-envisioning what a life of radical love looks like in today’s world; e.g. ServiceSpace.
Naming what true community looks like for us can help with the envisioning process—and help us take on our own part of creating the generative spaces we need. I hope you’ll find time to listen to our most recent podcast and join the conversation here!
A Note from Parker…
“All real living is meeting” said Martin Buber. Toward the end of this month’s podcast, Carrie and I discuss three things we believe people are looking for when it comes to meeting in “community.” We’d love to know what your list looks like…
• People need to feel seen and heard for who they are—and for what they are becoming—as they seek purpose, meaning, and a sense of vocation. That’s a hard need to meet in a mass society that leaves so many folks feeling anonymous and ignored.
• People are looking for a form of community that offers mutual responsibility without suppressing the individual’s uniqueness and inner journey. That’s hard to find in a culture where “community” often means conforming to a group norm in order to be accepted.
• People want to know that it’s possible to meet and build trust across lines of difference in our conflicted time. They want an experience of diversity that leads to personal, cultural, and political enrichment and creativity, not the suspicion, resentment and anger we live with right now.
We invite you to reflect on this list, and let us know what rings bells with you and what you find missing. Let’s build communities that support integrity and serve the common good!
Question of the Month
What came up for you listening to the podcast this month? Do you have a longing for generative “meeting”? Have you had experiences with life-giving forms of community that give you inspiration or direction today?
The Growing Edge Podcast
You can listen here, or on Substack, The Growing Edge Website, I-Tunes or where ever you get your podcasts!
Episode 51: “All Real Living Is Meeting: Is Community Possible?”
In this podcast, Carrie and Parker talk about our individual and collective longing for safe and generative community, a counterbalance to western culture’s drive toward radical individuality. In this post-COVID time, many of us are reassessing what meaningful community looks like and how we choose to participate. We explore what happens in “the space between us,” and how important it is to be mindful about how we hold that space. Martin Buber famously said, “All real living is meeting.” How can we meet in ways that welcome the soul?
In this podcast we refer to the Center for Courage & Renewal and ServiceSpace. If you’d like to learn more about these wonderful organization check out our links to their websites. We also mention Parker’s Circle of Trust approach to community. You can learn more about Circles of Trust in Parker’s book A Hidden Wholeness. For more about generative spaces for democracy and the common good check out Parker’s book Healing The Heart of Democracy
Visit our website for the full archives of The Growing Edge Podcast.
Parker’s Online Events
Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalia (formerly Brain Pickings) kindly chose my commencement address to the graduates of Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, as one of her all-time best. If you don’t have a graduation to attend this year, you can listen to my talk HERE without waiting while thousands of students receive their degrees!
Here's the Good Life Project podcast—“We’re on a quest to help you live a more meaningful, connected and vital life”—where I talk with founder Jonathan Fields, a great conversation partner. Listen HERE.
HERE’S an interview I did for The Sun magazine, which is well-worth subscribing to whether or not you read the interview. Under the title “If Only We Would Listen”, Alicia von Stamwitz got me talking about “life its own self"!
Earlier this year, I had a chance to talk with William DeJean of Unleash Learning. Based in Sydney, Australia, William is an international thought leader in the field, and it was a delight to talk with him. You can listen in HERE.
Carrie’s New Album Release “A Great Wild Mercy” - Oct. 13, 2023
I’ll be recording a new album at Airtime Studios/ The Hundredth Hill Artist Retreat with Co-Producer/Engineer David Weber during May and June. The working title is “A Great Wild Mercy” and will be released Sept. 15, 2023!
I’m so excited to be joined by some incredible musicians including some names and voices you’ve heard on past projects : Gary Walters, Jordan Tice, Paul Kowert, Jim Brock and Brittany Haas. I’m really looking forward to sharing this new collection of songs with you all later this summer.
We will have some special pre-release packages and I’ll be sharing more news and even some in studio sneak peeks with my Substack Supporting Subscribers.
Visit Carrie’s A Gathering of Spirits Page and become a supporting subscriber to help make this album possible, and to get “backstage” posts about the recording in process.
Carrie’s Events - Summer Tour & Retreats
For more information visit Carrie’s Tour Page www.carrienewcomer.com/tour
Exciting News. Carrie will be a featured performer at the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Join Carrie and Gary Walters on the Washington DC Mall on July 4, 2023 to celebrate what brings us together in this country, what sustains us and reminds us of the best of who we are as individuals and as a growing edge community of democratic values!
Thank you 🙏 for this conversation and all the links shared. You both are bright lights in my life. I love how you lift others up and each other. A gift 💝 for everyone.