Integrating Our Inner and Outer Lives

In a quiet, serene town in the Catskills, on a brisk fall evening, people, strangers for now, gathered in the expansive hall of Peace Village for the 2011 Images & Voices of Hope Summit. After Executive Director Judy Rodgers' welcome, the microphone was passed around the room as introductions began -

I'm a human rights activist.

I'm a poet.

I'm a TV producer.

I'm a singer.

I'm an editor and a mom.

I'm a student.

I'm a photojournalist.

Our three-day journey had begun.

And what a group to begin a journey with. In that first hour, as we heard briefly from everyone, I was struck by the work and passion and dedication of people who came from as far away as Denmark, Iceland, Colombia, Brazil, San Francisco and many other U.S. cities and towns to share their stories. Often we find ourselves doing tough, hard work alone in a tough, hard world. The Summit offers us a few days to take a step out of that world, get quiet, and connect with others who move through the world with a similar sense of purpose.

It's not often that we're able to talk about our work and reflection at the same time, with the same people. Here, that's the point. How do work and reflection connect? What is the right balance in our lives between the two?

Poet/philosopher Mark Nepo put that concern into the context of the four questions framing the panels: "How do we know what we know?" "How does our engagement with media shape our awareness?" "How do we know who or what we can trust?" "What do we do with what we know?"

Before each of those four panels, Mark set a reflective context for the discussion to follow, with the goal of bringing our "inner and outer life more closely together." In each pre-panel comment, he moved from the panel topic to other, more personal questions and ideas for us to think about, such as: "Begin to tell the story of the crack in your heart and what you let in or out. How has it changed you?" And, what is the "one thing you feel deeply sure about and one thing you feel deeply unsure about?"

The combination of the panel questions and Mark's gentle prodding of us to go even deeper into our ways of thinking and feeling was a thoughtful way to get us to confront our inner and outer lives.

The Summit continued in that wave, that movement between Mark's poetry and introspection and the reality that the journalists, marketers and others brought to the panel discussions.

One of the Summit's panelists was MIT Professor Sherry Turkle. Her insightful exploration of the contemporary need to be constantly "plugged-in" and how that affects our internal life, our spirit, was filled with thoughtful concern.

She talked about her years of walking the dunes on Cape Cod and her silent encounters with others walking the same paths, face up to the sky, alert to the sounds around them, taking in all the beauty enveloping them. And then she mentioned her more recent experiences walking on those same dunes. Only this time she noticed something odd with the people she encountered - this time their faces were tipped down, staring at a hand-held device, oblivious to their surroundings.

One of the many things I took away from Sherry's words, and the Summit itself, is that we need to integrate our desire to always be connected with the ability to think and act independently. To be realistic, we are all aware that the demands of work can be staggering. But we still need to find the balance between community and independence. As speaker John Esterle said, "... relationships are huge; they are our anchors in pretty stormy waters." So how do we bond but, when necessary, welcome solitude, be alone, in a plugged-in world?

Over the next few days photos and text from the Summit will be posted. I hope you will look at this material and create your own Summit, your own look into your outer work self and inner self and think about how they relate, how they connect, to create a whole self, able to absorb the stresses, struggles and joys of moving forward in the world, alone and together.