As the inaugural ballroom empties and the women rally, the need for resilience in our relationships has never been greater. How can we create relational resilience in our society? Start right where you are.
Throughout this post, I’d like to draw your attention to a number of readings and resources to nourish your soul, sanctify the season, and focus our attention on .
In the Space Between Us
The screamed words “I hate you” echoed in harmony with the slammed door. The anger of the temper being absorbed by the walls. The air electrified with the frayed ends of the cut wires of relationship and the energy charged with a fury hiding brokenness, frustration, and disappointment.
Does your home ever sound this way or is it just mine? Do children, teenagers, or significant others all of a sudden turn on each other? Do the stresses and strains of life wring out all of the love and leave a wreaking mildewed rag of relationship on the counter?
On a micro-level the disdain we can experience in our homes reflects our broader shattered sense of society. The safety we once tried to create now ruined by the hurtful words and a leadership who gives voice to hate. Jews, blacks, disabled, and females all wonder when the hate will turn against them, when will it become personal.
What is happening in the space between us?
The space between us. There’s an energy there. Rob and Kristin Bell call it the Zim-Zum. The Zim-Zum of Love is all about marriage, yet I wonder if there is a broader application as we consider the nature of our relationships and the difficulty in our communities.
What is the energy between us? Did you know our entire selves are creating that space? Our light and our shadow. Are we creating space for others to thrive? What would thriving look like? Can we start in our homes, move to our classrooms, embrace our community more broadly?
The Space Calls Us to Bravery
While we once held hope for safety and security, times change and a new call is before us.
I first heard the call when my lifelong friend and colleague in education, Dr. Matt Mayhew described it over Sunday brunch this summer. He opened my heart when he explained, “In education, we simply can’t ensure everyone’s safety, our learning communities must be brave.” We must be brave to listen, to nurture understanding, and to be resilient!
There is crisis, trauma, and hatred. The world can be dangerous and dreadful.
Yet, we can be brave! We can love bravely!
It can start by designing our homes and schools for thriving. In the space between us, we can make room for others to thrive. It is generous.
How?
In Jennifer Bailey’s call to courage, she writes about the bravery, “…it invites us to lean in to our radical differences by inviting strangers to lean into vulnerability and share the truth of their life experiences — their hurts, challenges, joys, and concerns — to uncover the humanity in each of us. It will also require loving accountability to call out patterns of behaviour that can be harmful and destructive to the livelihoods of others.”
Nurture Resilience In the Space Between Us
There is a common good. There are rights and responsibilities. We can courageously protect our sense of tribe and community through the practices of forgiveness, empathy, and trust.
These are practices of promise in schools.
Can we forgive imperfect teachers? Can we empathize with imperfect students? Can we cultivate trust amongst our team and with our parent community? Can we surrender our attachment to data and touch into the hearts of children?
It is in spite of the serious threats. That is the definition resilience. In spite of…
It overcomes heartache, tragedy, and conflict. Resilience creates goodness in spite of the hardships.
Do you know how we create resilience? We connect!
One of our greatest sources of strength and resources is relationships in community. Parker Palmer calls cultivating community one of the most important habits of heart in a democracy. With declining connections in religious organizations, neighbourhoods, and even unions, the greatest opportunity to create and cultivate community for our children, remaining in our society, is in our schools.
Let’s honour the space between us.
Will we advance learning outcomes? Undoubtedly! Will we advance our future? For sure! Will we advance our society? Of course!
Gather with me. Break bread together. Explore the zim-zum between us. Learn Forward.
For the sake of the children,
Karine