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Dear, Chris,
Every year, as December closes, I reflect. It’s not formal—just a look back at the highlights and lowlights to guide the year ahead. But this year it hit differently. Harder. Heartbreakingly.
It started in spring with the swirl of tension and “othering” in our political sphere, fueling what I call “collective dysregulation.” I saw it everywhere: in the news, conversations, even in myself.
By summer, personal loss deepened my ache, and by November, the weight of democracy’s struggles felt crushing.
My energy had become unsettled, my mood off kilter and damped down. I struggled to stay focused on work, then baffled, I grappled to find the right words to describe my inner experience.
Heartbreak is the closest word I have for it.
Parker Palmer reminds us, “everything human is driven by the invisible power of the heart.” Activism, then, isn’t about politics. It’s about hearts driven by love for others, the planet, and justice. It’s about taking action for what we care most about amidst the competing tensions in our lives.
For me, activism means fostering skillfulness to engage with one another—debating, collaborating, solving problems—without denigrating or dismissing.
“Reduce the heart to feelings,” Palmer says, “and you get politics as emotional manipulation. Restore the heart to its rightful role...and it gives us a place of power to rebuild democracy from the inside out.”
It’s from that point of shared heartbreak that we can build a bridge of mutual understanding, cooperation, and craft our future together.
Which leads me to another question, the question of power.
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