Solitude and solidarity don’t compete with one another; they complete one another.
— Parker Palmer
This takeaway quote from the Carrie Newcomer/Parker Palmer 30th Anniversary Spiritual Searcher presentation spoke to me and others last Saturday night.
Their inspiring presentation, along with pianist Gary Watson, was entitled, “What We Need Is Here,” from a quote by contemporary American mystic Howard Thurman. Later, Parker amplified that theme, combining it with the twin threads of “solitude and solidarity:”
What we need is here, within us and between us.
Solitude is the “within,” and his question for us to contemplate is, “How often am I alone to reflect deeply?”
For the “between”—solidarity—he asks, “How often am I in community with at least one or two others [or a larger community of trust] to share deeply?”
As I think we all know, it is far too easy to distract ourselves away from a true solitude, even when we are fortunate enough to have it. I believe I’ve read that the most silence people can handle in a service of worship is 15 seconds.
And, in my experience at least, it is far too difficult to allow enough vulnerability to be in true solidarity (or “communion”) with even trusted others.
“To Conjure the Future We Want, We Need a Revolution of the Heart,” is an article that helped me discover a young Black activist and spiritualist from Detroit, Cherise Morris, who writes from the marginalized perspective I believe we so need to hear: “Spirituality has always provided the space for resistance,” she writes. “It seems to me that the modern idea of revolution—which is inextricably tangled up with the systems that rationalized the oppression of specific groups—will never be enough to enable genuine change.
“We can never truly remake the world, if we do not also remake ourselves. Everything is connected.” (boldface mine.)
As Parker Palmer says elsewhere: Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships. Only as we are in community with ourselves can we find community with others.
The Diamond Path, or Diamond Approach, is the spiritual path and practice I’ve found that moves me into those twin threads of solitude and solidarity, a practice of both deep reflection and deep vulnerability with trusted others. It’s not a path for everyone, but if you’re interested in hearing an introduction to this “psychological-spiritual work for the development of soul,” this newsletter contains a link to an upcoming webinar by the founder of this spiritual school, Hameed Ali. When I listen to the replay of this webinar, I’ll be interested myself in what he has to say! You can also discover more about this work at www.diamondapproach.org.
Cherise Morris writes that “any substantive change on the societal level requires that we first begin to reach within for the healing we need as individuals. We then carry this healing forth and forward to help those closest to us reach toward their healing. [Like one of Carrie Newcomer’s messages from Saturday: Maybe I can’t change the world, but I can change what’s three feet around me.] It is that centripetal healing force that will reach out to and resonate into the worlds around us. When you heal the ways you love those closest to you, you open yourself to heal the lineages from which you are one and apart from.”
And to close with one of my favorite Parker Palmer quotes, reminding me of the Oneness of all:
We are not alone in the universe. We are participants in a vast communion of being, and if we open ourselves to its guidance, we can learn anew how to live in this great and gracious community of truth. We can, and we must—if we want our sciences to be humane, our institutions to be sustaining, our healings to be deep, our lives to be true.
