{"id":2512,"date":"2019-03-24T08:38:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T13:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=2512"},"modified":"2019-03-25T08:22:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:22:26","slug":"developing-habits-of-the-heart-part-i-by-liana-thompson-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=2512","title":{"rendered":"“Developing Habits of the Heart, Part I,” by Liana Thompson Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, December 9, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In worship last week, Keith Harvey brought us a message that began with a story about Jeremiah. He then gave us examples of Jeremiah figures from more recent times: people like John Woolman and Martin Luther King, Jr. Individuals who spoke their truth, even when the views they expressed went against the grain of society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Woolman is a figure whom Parker Palmer lifts up at the beginning of his book, Healing the Heart of Democracy<\/em>. Parker explores how Woolman provides an example of how an individual can hold the heartbreak they experience due to the conditions of the world in such a way as to enable continued wrestling with an issue. Woolman, traveling among Friends to speak out against slavery, continued to speak his truth even when his perspectives weren’t immediately adopted by the community. The community, meanwhile, didn’t shut him down. Woolman influenced many Friends to free their slaves, and over the years his testimony contributed to a shift in perspective on slavery in the Religious Society of Friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though society has changed since Woolman’s time, our\npolarized society has a desperate need to learn to embrace the kind of\ntension-holding that Woolman and the Religious Society of Friends exemplified\nin the 1700s. Quakers have done this tension-holding for over three hundred\nyears in our consensus based system. Somehow we need to model that in our\nmajority-rule based society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parker believes that individuals from diverse backgrounds\ncan better hold tensions in society through developing what he calls the Five\nHabits of the Heart. Taken together, these habits embody what Parker terms as\nchutzpah and humility. By chutzpah Parker means knowing that I have a voice\nthat needs to be heard and the right to speak it. By humility, he means\naccepting that my understanding of anything is always partial (and may not be\nas true as I believe), and that I therefore need to be willing to listen to the\nperspectives of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within that framework, Parker outlines the five interlocking\nhabits of the heart as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. We must understand that we are all in this together.<\/li>
  2. We must develop an appreciation of the value of \u201cotherness.\u201d<\/li>
  3. We must cultivate the ability to hold tension in life-giving ways.<\/li>
  4. We must generate a sense of personal voice and agency.<\/li>
  5. We must strengthen our capacity to create community.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    He links the first three habits\u2014we are all in this together,\nan appreciation of the value of \u201cotherness,\u201d and the ability to hold tension in\nlife-giving ways\u2014with humility, and he links the last two habits\u2014generating a\nsense of personal voice and agency, and strengthening our capacity to create\ncommunity\u2014with chutzpah. Yet each of the habits grows into and out of the others\nin a web of interconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In today’s polarized political climate, with all of the\nchallenges that we face as a society, country, and world, I often feel like\ndeveloping my sense of voice and agency is the most important thing. Certainly\nbeing able to stand up for what I believe in is important. Just as John Woolman\ndid, we each need to speak truth as we see it. At the same time, I need to be\nable to listen to others who see the world differently than I do\u2014and to listen\ndeeply, with a willingness to learn\u2014especially when I think, or even know, that\nI am right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Listening can be hard. Listening can be really hard. Even on\nthe level of our closest relationships, listening can be hard. When I believe I\nknow the truth about something\u2014whether it has to do with politics or what\nhappened last summer\u2014and my partner has a different perspective, it is really\nhard to listen and not just try to convince him that I am right. Parker\nbelieves that most of our interactions play out this way\u2014we listen in order to\nrespond and in order to rebut. Sometimes in normal conversation we get so\ncarried away with formulating our responses that we’re not even really fully\nlistening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Through my retreat facilitator training with Parker and\nother leaders from the Center for Courage and Renewal, I have learned how much\nlistening can impact a relationship. And the kind of listening that is the most\nimpactful is deep listening\u2014listening with the intent to hear and understand\nsomeone. Deep listening is different than listening in order to respond with\nanswers or opinions. It is really different than listening with the intent to\nframe a counter perspective or convince someone of something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Deep listening humanizes people. As I have sat in Circles of\nTrust (the retreat model developed by Parker), I have been privilideged to\nexperience the humanity of total strangers through deep listening. Often,\nthrough deep listening, I am able to find pieces of others’ experiences that\nresonate with my own lived experiences. Always, through deep listening, I am\nable to find deep compassion for the human beings sitting in the circle with\nme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So I see deep wisdom in Parker’s call to cultivate the\nhabits of the heart that connect to humility as an integral part of the fabric\nof community. And so, today, I invite you to reflect on the first two of the\nhabits of the heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Habit One: we must understand that we are all in this\ntogether. We are dependent on the same resources, linked by interconnected\nsocial and political structures and policies, affected by the same economic and\nenvironmental crises. This doesn’t mean that we all experience these things in\nthe same ways, or that political, economic, and ecological change affect us all\nin the same way. Nor does it presume equailty in our experiences. But we are\nall affected, for better or worse, in interconnecting ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before we get too grandiose and far-flung in our thinking, I\nwant to bring us back to our own lived experiences to help us consider how we\nare all in this together on a more person-sized scale. So I offer you two\nquestions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When in your life have you connected with a\nstranger due to a shared experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Where in your life have you experienced people\ncoming together across differences? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Alongside those considerations, I offer you Habit Two: we\nmust develop an appreciation of the value of \u201cotherness.\u201d Though we are all\naffected in interconnecting ways, our lived experience is in smaller groups\nthat have distinct ways of being in the world and that hold different\nperspectives and beliefs. This habit encourages us to practice hospitality and\nto embrace what people from groups different than ours have to teach us.\nPerhaps more than any other habit, this one requires us to practice deep\nlistening. So the question I offer you related to this habit is: When in your\nlife have you deeply listened to another’s story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Recognizing our interconnectedness and valuing different\nperspectives, beliefs, and ways of being in the world aren’t in of themselves\ngoing to bring us to consensus on difficult issues. However, cultivating these\ntwo habits of the heart may help us to connect with people who are different\nthan we are, to hear their stories, and to begin to identify the places where\nwe might hold some amount of common ground. It is a beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As we return to silent worship, I invite you to\nhold the three questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When in your life have you connected with a\nstranger due to a shared experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Where in your life have you experienced people\ncoming together across differences? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When in your life have you deeply listened to\nanother’s story?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, December 9, 2018 In worship last week, Keith Harvey brought us a message that began with a story about Jeremiah. He then gave us examples of Jeremiah figures from more recent times: people like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42],"tags":[120,121],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-message","tag-liana-thompson-knight","tag-parker-palmer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9rLvf-Ew","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2516,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}