By Gary Gunderson, Co-Founder
In the course of human events, politics turn poisonous and pointlessly mean. Words fail. And then we find our way again; the mean fail as they always do. This happens. I’m writing this from a part of England that has seen the Romans come and go, then the Vikings (some of them stayed), then a clutter of royalties. For a season, one’s enemies might capture one’s wife and daughters and hang them in cages on the castle wall. And, of course, you could figure out something worse. Humans do things to each other that animals would never imagine.
How does one live when the sharks and pirates own the seas? You find an island, says Margret Wheatley: “islands of sanity.” You tend its strength with the opposite of poison—with transparency, clear language, trust-building kindness. She sees educational institutions as islands of sanity, as they often have a tender and bruised relationship with the surrounding culture when it is whipped by superficial froth instead of thoughtful consideration.
Today our most urgent task is to build not just islands of sanity but an archipelago of sanity. That is the very practical work of Hold.Health. An archipelago is not a random clutter—Stockholm is one, as is Indonesia. Across the U.S at the moment there are islands building vitality, but often out of sight of each other. San Bernardino, Winston-Salem, a big one in the Pacific Northwest, Racine, southside Chicago, Viterbo in Lacrosse, and Goedgedacht in South Africa. Maybe an archipelago? Sometimes you’ll find a single church in a tough, cynical neighborhood (thinking of one across from a white house I know).
How do you sustain an island? Through the intentional weaving of groups of people with webs of trust, respect, honesty, and shared values about the good of the whole world.
The islanders speak dialects of hope that support practices of sanity that are not quite the same. They may be over the horizon, but well within range of learning from each other. During Apartheid, the tiny handfuls of resistant justice-seekers found guidance and encouragement from those in Koinonia Farms, near Plains, Georgia. After the recent U.S. election, a handful of us listened carefully to South African friends about how they sustained their spirit and intellect over impossible decades. The Americans shut up and paid attention.
Everybody on one island doesn’t need to know everyone on all the islands. But somebody trustworthy needs to sail among them. People like Soma Saha, Tyler Norris, Monte Roulier, Arvind Singhal, Kevin Barnett, Bill Davenhall, Jerry Winslow, Bobby Milstein, and Dora Barilla all navigate way out of sight of land and come back with good practical news of even more people.
This island strategy has worked for millennia. In 563 a monk fleeing the bloody fields of Ireland rowed out of sight to the tiny island of Iona, where the abbey remains an island of sanity 1,462 years later. A radical Christian Community still burns like a fire. TC and I like to pray there, as do people from all over the world.
Hold.Health is a scattering of island people with eyes for the health and well-being of the neighborhoods nearby, with special care for those most likely to be ignored, if not attacked, because of some difference from the fantastical “normal” color, sex, language, faith, or age. In Italy a tiny Waldensian minority has waded into the waves of Sicily to pull refugees from the water. Why? They remember the centuries when they were hunted and chased into the Alps. Sometimes the mercy of the islanders is regarded as noble (they’ve been nominated for a prize called Nobel), but more likely incredible and sometimes venomous. The proud never take them seriously.
Islanders take care with words so that underlying capacities of vitality, spirit, and courage are not wasted. Recently, a handful of us met in Charlotte as the Interfaith America project on Faith and Health took its first steps. We watched the service for President Carter and then turned to our work of creating a bridge for dozens of academics to walk toward each other, holding as precious the power at the intersection of faith and health.
We could think of the current many islands of fiercely hopeful work as remnants, which is worthy enough of protection. But I think they are seeds, which is even more worthy of nurture. But the world needs far more from us. The times have delivered unto us a remarkable convergence of gifted—yet, humble-spirited—people who build on “the most mature faith and most relevant science” … so that as Carter said, “we might make the choices that lead toward life.”
Ours is still a young movement, lively and vital on numerous islands. We’re not even tired. More like Indonesia than St. Helena where Napoleon was trapped. So we think hard about things that matter.
We must be very careful with our words, testing them first against our own life, then held up for those we love, and then tested with those we don’t know. When we gather, we use them out loud, first in small groups. They let us tell credible stories that lead toward life, even joy.
We do good work.
If you feel alone on a small island, maybe you’re part of an archipelago and don’t know the other islands, yet. Join Hold.Health. A start.
