There are times in the world and in our lives when hope feels abstract. Maybe there’s a little ironic detachment. Maybe it’s more of a passive wish than taking action.
And there’s nothing wrong with wishing. But what I’m craving, and what I believe we need more than ever, is the kind of hope that gets its hands dirty. The kind that shows up–at community kitchens and school board meetings and in living rooms with our neighbors–that does not wait for the world to get better before jumping in. The kind of hope that asks, what is mine to do here?
My guest today embodies that question in a way that stopped me in my tracks when we met last summer. Shirley Showalter’s life has taken a path from her childhood in a buttoned-down Mennonite community to earning a PhD and becoming a distinguished professor of English, a liberal arts college president, and serving as vice president of the Fetzer Institute, where she spent years in conversation with some of the most thoughtful spiritual leaders in the world. And now, in what she calls her elderhood, she is still asking the question, what does it mean to belong to something larger than myself?
In this conversation, Shirley and I talked about activism, elderhood, spiritual practice, what makes us blush, and the particular, peculiar, and unpredictable journey of becoming powerful and staying powerful across a lifetime.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
The deep joy and sense of belonging that Shirley found in nature as a child that she has carried and sought out throughout her life
How Shirley got involved in her hometown’s school board and invited other community elders and educators to join her
How being an educator, servant leader, and activist has kept Shirley connected to the “barefoot feeling” of her childhood
The mission statement that is guiding Shirley through her elderhood
The practices Shirley engages with to connect a lifetime of experiences as she walks herself and others home
Learn more about Shirley Showalter:
Resources:
"We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home," Blue Ridge Threshold Choir
Lyrics by Ram Dass, originally by Rumi
Music by Kate Munger