Stitch by stitch
Helping Friendly Newsletter, 05.10.24
GM! ☕️
Just one thing this week: radical gentleness.
I made the graphic poem above at the conclusion of a class I took on movement chaplaincy this spring. I’ve been trying to get my head around what it means to take gentleness seriously as a calling, an ethic, and a theory of change.
There is real tension between this small, slow work and the world’s big, urgent problems. Always, I need to check my privilege. I’m allowing myself to be troubled by that, to feel the challenge and frustration of the gentle path. There’s an ache. Unmet suffering. The grief of “not enough.” I won’t pretend otherwise.
Still, I trust it. Though slow and not easily scaled, I believe gentleness can uniquely touch root problems, hence the “radical” qualifier. It runs deep enough to subvert patterns of violence and domination where other practices fail or, worse, repeat the same mistakes. Gentleness, paired with honesty and accountability, is impactful.
In fortification and consolation, I find kinship with humans I admire for being both soft and strong, like Fred Rogers and adrienne maree brown. There is also felt connection with tiny agents of life: acorns, bumblebees, raindrops, dandelions, earthworms...a single breath, even. I’d be honored to call any of these “colleague.”
I know I live this incompletely. But, a growing gentleness reminds me that expecting perfection or purity only undermines the ideal. Better to gently invite return, growth, and persistence. I hope folks who’ve worked with me can recognize a resonance in my methodology, and that my writing carries the rhythm.
For the poem, I chose an image of repair, of the mending that likely fell within my female ancestors’ domain.1 It is a nod to their wisdom, well worth recovering, to the repair needed for the possibility of justice and peace, and to unseen, under-appreciated, essential contributions everywhere.
Thank you for being here to share it.
💞
Stitch by Stitch
“Small is good, small is all…what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.”
adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
ICYMI, last week I shared 5 Things to Consider:
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Peace,
Jenny
P.S. dressing room selfie! i didn’t buy the sweater, but i did get the message 👇🏼
FWIW and in full transparency, I don’t actually know how to sew. 🙃