TEDxMahtomedi 2018

 

Opening Remarks​

​

I have a confession. The other day I was working with one of our speakers when I suggested he add a small note about the common good to his talk. His response, “I don’t think people know what that means anymore,” sent me into a tailspin of despair.  Somehow, that one comment cut through all my barriers and walls and numbness about the current state of the world. I was heartbroken.

 

I know that many of you are also broken-hearted. We watch as things we once held as bedrock foundations begin to crack. Our collective institutions all seem to be caught in a vicious wind of moral outrage and paranoia.  We’re in a wild, stormy, post-truth and post-trust world, and it’s easy to get lost.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Parker Palmer, the wonderful Quaker philosopher and writer. He often tells a story about farmers on the Great Plains: At the first sign of a blizzard, they would run a rope from the back door out to the barn. The farmers all knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, 

having lost sight of home in a whiteout, while still in their own backyards.

 

So here we are, in the wild, stormy, and chaotic blizzard of 2018. It’s a storm like we haven’t seen before. 

Sometimes I worry that we may we have lost our way in a ferocious  whiteout of fear and anger.

 [How many of you can relate to this worry?]

 

I feel so lucky. Many times in the past year, I’ve reached out into the storm and found my rope to the barn.

You know what it is? It’s this group of people, this TED community, that saves me every time.  It’s this remarkable assemblage of people (the speakers, yes, but also you in the audience) who have their eyes wide open to reality, but are still curious. The TED community, by its very nature, stays open to compassion and creativity. We delight in human flourishing. 

 

So I’d like to offer you an invitation. Today’s talks hold insights from different disciplines, 

but they all come together to help us understand each other, to make clear the lens through which we see the world, and to find the better angels of our nature. 

 

Our speakers are weaving a rope that is a counternarrative to what is happening in our political sphere. They are casting a rope to the barn door of hope so we can find our way home again. You’ll find that our speakers each articulate the importance of developing an intentional approach. Weaving a rope of understanding and respect is a deliberate craft, and it requires curiosity, imagination, hospitality, and humility. 

 

Above all, it requires trust, and trust in the common good. 

 

Closing Remarks​

Tonight we’ve seen that there are so many ways knowing - intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, relational… this wonderful diversity also means that there are many ways to speak to the elephant [Stephani, citing Jonathan Haidt's research on the intuitive mind).

 

Each of you have your own gift of connection, and it can express itself in many different forms. Regardless of how it manifests, when we lean in, open up, and listen deeply, we are intentionally creating a revolutionary act in today’s environment. We are willing to be curious.    

 

Remember the barn and the blizzard from earlier this afternoon? Our throughline – our rope to the barn door – is us. It’s our connection and our courage. We weave the rope through our interactions, and in doing so, we create a little patch of common ground that’s built on empathy, accountability, and democracy.  We are writing a dynamic story about how we connect to each other, even though the storm is pelting down from every imaginable direction. 

 

Weaving this rope is not something we can do on our own. The power of self- deception is too great. We need community to find the courage to venture into the blizzards. So together, in this community, let’s start weaving. Let’s cast forth a solid, intentional, and playful line that will remind us of our  better angels. 

 

 I’d like each you to consider what inspired you tonight, and come up with one thing that would move your inspiration into action. An outward and visible collective commitment to the common good. We are the change makers we’ve been waiting for. 

 

Now let’s go out there and lean into some elephants.