Places of Refuge: Sense-Making of the US Election

community call

Nov 27

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Facilitators: RCC Stewardship Circle

Topic: Places of Refuge: Sense-Making of the US Election

Like many of you, we watched this year’s election campaign with keen interest and a heavy heart. At its best, politics is about vision, about the kind of society we want to live in, about what kind of people we believe we are. In this election there were two competing versions for the United States and by a popular vote margin of roughly 2%, the voters opted for one of them. The result, and the deep polarization across US society, has left half the country reeling and the other half jubilant.

On the RCC Stewardship Circle we’ve been asking: What is the role of retreat centers in a divided country? How do we hold on to our commitment to “universal flourishing” in the current political landscape? Rebecca Solnit asks us to “embrace the ideals of love, kindness, open-mindedness, the ability to engage with uncertainty and ambiguity, inclusiveness” as the first job at this time.

We invite you, your team, and your constituents to a gathering of refuge to make sense of the US election. In this ninety-minute call we will share space with each other to process the election results and imagine the role of retreat centers going forward. How can we support each other in the work that needs to be done?