A Word from the Voice Between the Lines
My job is to keep the meaning completely embodied in the work itself, and therefore alive and capable of change. I think that's how an artist can best speak as a member of a moral community: clearly, yet leaving around her words that area of silence, that empty space, in which other and further truths and perceptions can form in other minds.
-Ursula K. Le Guin
If you found this book, it also found you. What in your life right now resonates with the idea of courage and leading a life of integrity?
This book found me, too, by way of two other books. The first was Let Your Life Speak. The leader of a women's writing group I was in introduced me to this book by Parker J. Palmer around 2002. His words "self-care is never a selfish act" helped me overcome cancer-caregiver burnout. Ten years later, the same writing teacher and friend let me know of a job opening at the nonprofit Parker founded, called the Center for Courage & Renewal, which she saw on his Facebook page. I landed the job!
A couple years later, I was in a used bookstore when a yellowed paperback copy of The Courage to Create by Rollo May jumped off the shelf. "How can we acquire creative courage?" says a line on the cover. I say that creativity is my caffeine, but also that creativity once saved my life. Seeing that word paired with courage, I had to take the book home. My inner artist was hungry.
I say that this book now in your hands also found me, because I am the person who raised her hand to compose something that would take on a life of its own.
At first this book project was an outgrowth of our organization's endeavor to evolve its own purpose. What is our theory of change? How have we equipped, inspired, and sustained leaders for these challenging times? Are they better able to find meaning in their work by reconnecting who they are with what they do? Does that inner strength help them deliver a service or product that will make a difference for their organizations, their employees, and the customers or clients they serve? We sensed a ripple effect from stories folks told us, even though we know we provide only some ingredients in the complex mix of why and how people access their courage to lead. We wanted to dig further.
So I set off to gain insight through interviewing a broad range of people who have participated in our programs to see how they are applying Courage & Renewal ideas to their lives and leadership. In one-hour interviews with more than 120 people, one-on-one and sometimes in groups, I asked about Courage principles and practices they still use. I asked what was hard, what was different, what was better.
My job was to stitch together their stories with the underlying wisdom of Parker Palmer spanning his nine books, plus twenty-five years of our applied learning with leaders. I now know Parker not only as an author but also as a colleague and friend. I know him and love him as a regular guy and a wise elder. It was an honor to meet people who have experienced and now embody the ideas he writes about. It was daunting to decide how best to paint the whole picture.
During the writing process, as director of marketing and communications for the Center, I've also been testing these practices in my day job and inside my head, heart, and life. I had many "case study" hard days. The backdrop of book-making over three years included the natural life-span changes in our nonprofit organization: a retirement and a search for an executive director, almost a full turnover in both staff and board, and nearly doubling the size of our facilitator network. Add to that the elections of national leaders, polarized politics, ongoing wars, desperate refugees, the opioid epidemic, homelessness, too many shootings, too many suicides, natural disasters, man-made disasters, and two record-rainfall winters here in Seattle. All became metaphors and living proof that the world needs more courage everywhere every day. I've been paying attention 24/7 to how our practices can give me-and others-more courage and trust in life and at work.
Even though one of our touchstones says "Speak your truth using 'I' statements," I've aimed to stay mostly out of view in this book. It's not my leadership memoir. It's not the story of how the Center itself has grown or changed as an organization. Yet our learnings are here-informed by the voices of authentic leaders.
We're not here to insist that you must attend our Courage & Renewal programs, although you are welcome. We make no promise that your life will be changed by the time you read the last page. This book contains ideas to consider and stories of others further along on the path. Consider it a mix tape, a playlist, a snapshot in time. Consider it an invitation to more conversation. Consider my voice your companion.
Ideas are just words on the page until people bring them to life. It takes courage to create a meaningful life of integrity. It also requires good company. And practice. And space to ponder questions like this:
What would you do with more courage?