Stitching What Lies Beyond

Finding hope and human connection in times of profound division

Krista in Bhutan on her recent odyssey of travel.

Dear Friends,

I’m finally returning from my odyssey of travel  — some work, some play, much of it long planned, then became a compound adventure. After Berlin, where I was when I wrote last month’s Pause letter, Lucas, Pádraig and I spent three days in The Hague, partnering with the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute in a tender gathering of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel. It was the kind of “quiet conversation” I intend to do more of moving forward, in our hyper-reactive world, with our distressed nervous system at a species-level. But we did record a few conversations in the spirit of On Being, and we will share some of that with you, probably in the new year. There was so much grief being held in the bodies and spirits in that room, of course, and long friendships stressed and frayed unfathomably. But what I can report, what buoyed me, is that the long years of conversation and friendship also held in the bodies in that room were persevering, extending what love and compassion they could muster, forgiving each other when it was too much to ask.

There will be a beyond of this war and its geologic layers of crisis and trauma. My aspiration was to play a (very small, very quiet) part in nourishing some of those human beings who will be there for each other, and be there in service of a peaceful future, in that now unimaginable beyond.

I will turn 64 in a few weeks, and It has crystallized in my mind and moral imagination altogether that this is what I am here for: the nourishing of those who insist on pursuing the highest qualities of being human, and on being of service to healing and transformation on a long horizon of time. I believe this is our longed-for state of being, but we are bombarded by so much that primes us for its opposite, activates our primal fear of “the other” and a self-destructive desire to wall ourselves away instead.

All of this reflecting, of course, applies intensely to American political life at this moment. I’m orienting — and it is spiritual and life discipline, moment to moment — to the beyond of this election. For this is the only thing we can know for sure: On the day after this election, whoever wins, my country will be as fractured as the day before. That is where I am throwing my care, life force and social creativity. John Paul Lederach, who is as you know my teacher and companion in all of this, said to me the other day that the task in working for long-term evolution — as this also works in the natural world — is to attend "not to what has arrived but what is being stitched."

I’m holding fast to this wisdom, this challenge, this calling. Of being a stitcher, and building up the stitchers. Below we link to a few pieces of listening and reading — and upcoming events — to nourish this matter of tethering and orienting our attention amidst all that would distract and demoralize.

Be tender to yourself in the days to come. And I will be back here — a year older! — next month.

With love,

Krista

Listen: This podcast, Wisdom and Action, is a fruit of the Small Giants community of Australia, who are friends and inspiration to me. It came out of a Zoom conversation last summer, while I was on vacation, and you might want to skip the first few minutes of light-hearted introductions and warming up. At around 5:40, we begin to talk about this matter of orienting our attention towards what matters, regulating our nervous systems in order to do that, and persevering in service to the world we want to be part of bringing into being – the inner work as well as the outer work that entails.

A Cloud Never Dies by the Plum Village Band. It is impossible to describe this genre-defying offering of music and meditation, wisdom, and grounding and joy. Please download. It is a beautiful companion for the days/weeks/years to come. 

Read: A Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War, by John Paul Lederach, is now available in hardcover. Now you can hold it in your hands, mark it up, and physically share with others.

In the World

For Listening and Watching

November 18, Washington D.C.: Krista in conversation at Georgetown University with the wonderful writer and former National Ambassador for Young Peoples Literature Jason Reynolds, engaging the intergenerational dimensions of this present moment and the work that calls us forward.  RSVP required. 

Of note; Krista interviewed Jason first in 2021, and he and another former On Being guest, Jericho Brown, are newly anointed MacArthur "genius" fellows, class of 2024!

RSVP required.

Poetry with Pádraig Online Lecture Series: Fill your Sunday evenings with peculiarity, poetry, ancient literature with

Poetry Unbound

’s

Pádraig Ó Tuama

, who will be giving this new online lecture. His interests are literary, and artistic: Why did the writers who wrote texts that we now call biblical write those stories? What did they know about the human condition? What were their aesthetic interests? You can register here. Classes run Nov. 3, 10, 17, 24, and December 1.