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> Lisa Graustein>Hey.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Hey. Hey, hey.
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> Lisa Graustein>Hey. Our faith at its core actively assumes there shouldn't be norms, right? Because listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn't mean we're going to do the same thing all the time. Doesn't mean it's just potlucks and circles.
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> Dwight Dunstan>In the morning. You're listening to the Seed Conversations for Radical Hope, a Pendle Hill podcast where Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world growing through the cracks of our broken systems. I'm your host, Dwight Dunston. Um, in season six, we are asking questions about love and power. What does love require of us in the face of injustice, violence and despair? How can we harness the power of our imaginations to lovingly plant and tend to the seeds of the world we are co creating? What is God calling you to be faithful to in your acts of love, justice and power? And where do we already see love and power at work? In sea form or full bloom? On today's show, we have a dear friend, Lisa Graustine, who's going to come to us sharing reflections, thoughts, a quote that inspires her.
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> Dwight Dunstan>But before we get into that, we ground each episode in a short reading of our own. And, uh, today's reading is from Martin Luther King Jr's where do we Go From Here? Chaos or community? The line of progress is never straight for a period. A movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain. When you are approaching a city, often it feels as though you are moving backwards and you lose sight of your goal. But in fact you are moving ahead and soon you will see the city again. Closer by our second quote from where do we go from here? Reads Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Today's guest is Lisa Graustein. Lisa is a lifelong Quaker, an educator, a solo mom, um, and an artist. She lives on the land of the Neponsett Band of the Massachusetts people and what's colonially known as Boston. Lisa has spent years working with teens in schools and in Quaker spaces, leading young Friends programs and worshiping across the wide spectrum of the Religious Society of Friends. These days, she works as a facilitator and trainer in diversity, equity and inclusion. Lisa also helped launch Three Rivers Meeting and has co facilitated cohorts of the Quaker Coalition for Uprooting Racism. And I had the pleasure of being her co facilitator for the 2023-24 cohort. In that time, we laughed, cried, raged, pondered and visioned with folks from all over the country and Canada about the ways Quakers and Quaker organizations can embody new ways of being in the world. I had heard Lisa's name for a long time, and my first introduction to her was actually being facilitated by her and Neon Uspan, who was on one of our earlier seasons. Being in space and in community and in life with Lisa has done so much for me on my various healing journeys around my spirituality. Racism inside myself, building across gender, what it means to be a friend. And I'm so glad that she's joining us on this episode.
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> Dwight Dunstan>So without further ado, I want to bring you into this conversation. Lisa, good morning.
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> Lisa Graustein>Good morning. Thank you. I'm like all teary eyed now. I'm so glad the theme is about love and power, Dwight, because I just love you so much. I love the way that you move with your power and in your power and the ways you invite other people to not just be in their power, but play with their power. Working with you was about acknowledging all the lines of power that society says are there and then exploring all the other kinds of power we can have with each other and with the divine to make real what should be happening right now versus what is. So I'm so excited that you invited me to join you into this conversation. Thank you.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Absolutely. I'm also teary. Lisa, we've been on some journeys. You know, I feel like we're, we're sort of metal workers. It's hot, the equipment is heavy. Sometimes it's a little messy.
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> Lisa Graustein>Some sparks flying here and there.
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> Dwight Dunstan>You gotta watch out here and there. Exactly. And we often turn to each other and just, they're, uh, like, you good? You need anything? I'm, um, gonna, you know, I got some water. You know, we got to keep doing this work.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Think about the MLK quote we started with about the winding road and how it can sometimes feel like we're moving backwards. And then there's moments in, in which the work really shows itself.
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> Dwight Dunstan>We see the progress. And I'm just wondering in your, in your work, in your world, where, where that has shown up for you.
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> Lisa Graustein>I mean, I feel like everywhere. My whole career wasn't because I went into college saying, I'm going to go be a teacher and do this stuff. I went to college not knowing what I wanted to do. And a friend said, hey, you want to do this conflict resolution program. And I ended up devoting four years of my life to. In college, to running a program with 300 volunteers, working with kids.
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> Lisa Graustein>And that's how I knew I wanted to become a teacher. Each teaching gig I had helped me understand a different aspect of justice, of liberation, and led to the next thing. And it wasn't linear. I also think as a Quaker, we sit waiting for God to say, here, go do this thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>It's messy, it's complicated. You don't have all the pieces yet, but I, uh, put it on your heart.
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> Lisa Graustein>You can't not do it. And every time I've experienced that kind of a leading, it's not been straight. Who shows up to support it and who shows up to block it where it goes. And sometimes you get this nice gradual wind down. And sometimes God's like, nope, done. Peace out. Go to this next thing. Or I need to put you on the bench for a little bit to chill out till we get the next thing. Very few things in nature are straight.
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> Lisa Graustein>Nature's interested in fluid and interconnected.
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> Lisa Graustein>And moving with nature is where God first put down instructions for how to be that we're born into this incredibly beautiful world that I think probably has every lesson we need to learn for how to live well when we pay attention to it. Yes.
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> Lisa Graustein>Down with the not straight. I'm also not straight.
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> Lisa Graustein>So I like that part of it too.
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> Dwight Dunstan>That part as well. Right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>I'm curious, Lisa. Our listeners might be tuning in and, uh, thinking, but I really want things to be clear and linear. I actually am so not a person who does well when there's the coming to the. A bend in the road and having to be emergent or be flexible. And maybe in your own life, as you're on the windy road, that feeling has also come up for you. So just if there's any tips or strategies you would give our listeners as they look to, uh, maybe have more comfort with the windiness or be more centered or spirited.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate that question. Right.
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> Lisa Graustein>And we're in a time of incredible disruption and disorientation. The most I feel like I've experienced in my. In my 50 years on this earth, when I look at why I freak out about change or why something is not going the way I expected, that is usually a placeholder for issues around control, around belonging, and around safety. If I thought it was gonna be one way and it's not, do I still have agency? Can I make the things happen that I want to happen? Can I create the environment Where I feel secure, Am I still going to have a place here? Is there still space for me here? Control and belonging, uh, are both also about a sense of safety, perceived or real. And this time, those things are all thrown out the window. You know, every day there is a new piece coming from the government about who no longer belongs, who no longer is safe or never was safe, but even less safe now, and how what we thought was going to happen isn't going to be what's happening. I don't cope with any of those things particularly well, but if I look at what's the underlying need that I can work to have care for? I can't always give people control, but I can always be part of creating belonging. How do I let you know you are important and vital, and I'm going to stay with you? And safety is hard to create.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Hmm.
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> Lisa Graustein>Because I'm basing that on my sense of safety, which is gonna be different than yours. But if we can be open and explicit about what do we need to get towards safety? You know, as a sex ed teacher for a gazillion years, and we don't talk about safe sex, we talk about safer sex. We're constantly in a process of how do we make relationship, how do we make community safer? And that's very different because it's not about the end goal. It's about what do, in this moment, do we need to do to make things safer. And so I think about that in moments of change, of not how do we back away from a change that maybe needs to happen, but how do we work to make it safer for everybody involved? The racial justice work you and I do, right, it's that dance of belonging and calling in and calling out, and there's still belonging, and you can still be a part of us, but this thing is not okay. We come from a culture that says things have to be rigid and you're in or you're out. What I love about working with you is you're constantly creating spaces to bring people in, to engage people, to invite people to let them know they're okay, but also let them know things that are happening are not okay. And so that, to me, is what so much of change is about. How do I make sure you and I are okay where maybe the thing between us is not okay and needs to get shifted?
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> Lisa Graustein>Um, I don't know. Does that piece about control and belonging and safety resonate? Like, how do you think about what we need to be able to navigate change?
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> Dwight Dunstan>Well, yeah, it resonates for sure. And I was thinking about facilitating rooms together and trying to cultivate a sense of safety. And some people were going to be really coming in really relaxed, feeling safe, and some weren't. And that was often based on race. Right. And other experience, for sure. But in a, uh, program that was really focused on race and uprooting racism, thinking about supporting folks to feel a sense of belonging, feel heard, feel valued, appreciated, accompanied in their own experience, just thinking about pretty early in that time together, that cohort, you and I modeled this sort of fishbowl.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And I remember not feeling very safe in that moment. Right. There was stuff I didn't feel like I could quite show about my experience as a black person.
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> Lisa Graustein>Huh.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Quite yet to that group. You know, you and I have the combos. But there were still, for me, even as the facilitator, wanting to feel safety in the space by the end, I know for myself, uh, there was a level of safety that I had cultivated inside myself and with the group that I think allowed me to show up more powerfully in a different kind of power. Because I think there's also power and protection. I think there's power in containment as well. Being able to get feedback about what's not working for someone and not crumble, you know, but see that as an act of love, and that's ultimately in service of this greater love trying to come through the space. It's hard to do. It's hard to get feedback. It's hard to make mistakes.
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> Dwight Dunstan>It's hard to cause harm and get called out on it and have to relate to a group differently because of the harm that you cause. I understand all of that. And there's something else that, when I hear you talking, that is calling to be grounded in the space or to be centered in the space. Not my own feelings or desire to get it all right, but love.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Which looks messy, right?
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> Lisa Graustein>When I think about the second quotation that you read at the beginning of this episode about the ways that white folks that we don't think we have much to learn and how norm that is, at least in the U.S. quaker circles that I travel in for BIPOC folks, there's a lot of survival strategies grounded in maintaining that too. So to disrupt any of those norms in a Quaker space often does result in a loss of belonging and a loss of connection, even if it was a veneer of safety.
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> Lisa Graustein>That's a lot of what we were playing with. How do we disrupt those norms? Our faith at its core, actively assumes there shouldn't be norms. Right.
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> Lisa Graustein>Because Listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn't mean we're going to do the same thing all the time. Doesn't mean it's just potlucks and circles. I was excited for the spaces we got to create together with the folks in the cohort that felt more Quaker in some ways to me than a lot of nominal Quaker spaces.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yeah, yeah. Racial justice work, social justice work of all kinds. And, um, I'm thinking about our work in working towards racial justice. It can be so enlivening and inspiring and life giving and it can also just be deeply heartbreaking and frustrating and disappointing or both in one day.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Right. You know, just oscillate between the to and are lots of different experience. And I'm curious where the tension or release around racial justice work lives in your body.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, I appreciate that question. A lot of my work these days is working with different communities for how we get more activated during this time that we're in politically, how we move as a group in some new ways, how we create some new smaller structures to be really nimble. It's really been about looking at everything that's needed. And what's the part that I can do well as opposed to being overwhelmed by everything that needs to happen. That can sound like a cop out when it comes to racial justice work because white folks can do book groups really well that don't have a lot of impact on anything. But my work before this time was really trying to help friends understand the interconnectedness between different systems of oppressions. White supremacy, climate destruction are, uh, two sides of the same thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right. They're ways that dominance is destructive to every living thing on the planet. We don't need to be intention about. Are, uh, we working on racial justice or are we working on climate change? We understand them as a whole with different ways that we need to move and work. And this time, right now feels like it's that. But even more so because the interconnectedness of all the oppression and evils and power over are being laid so bare. They've always been there in our country, but they're being magnified and laid bare in some new ways. How do we move well together in some bold and radical new ways? Because this is it. Uh, we're at endgame. We've got to do it.
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> Dwight Dunstan>You brought in an Alice Walker quote for our time and I'm wondering if you can read it and bring it into our conversation. Talk about how it's landing for you these days.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, the piece I wanted to share. I've always heard attributed to Alice Walker and it's kind of her principles of a love activist. As a history teacher and former librarian, I went to like go find the source and it seems to actually come from somebody else's kind of synthesis of her work. But I reread her book Anything We Love can be Saved last night and found elements of this in the essays there. What I have seen attributed to Alice Walker about being a love activist is to recommit every day to protect what matters most. Embrace your joy, stand for truth, be courageous. Spread forgiveness and love the earth. Recommit every day to protect what matters most. Embrace your joy, Stand for truth, be courageous. Spread forgiveness and love the earth. I have that list on an index card on my bulletin board right above my desk.
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> Lisa Graustein>It's actually so faded I can barely read it at this point. I keep it there because each one of those things is a good thing to do. And I can't do all those things every day, but I can do one of those things every day. And sometimes I can do two or three of those things. And I also find that when I am feeling stuck or overwhelmed, immobilized, any one of those gets me moving. What does courage look like in this moment? How can I be forgiving in this moment of myself or others?
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> Lisa Graustein>What does standing for truth require of us right now? What's the truth we need to stand for? What does it look like to embrace my joy? If I'm operating from a deficit of joy, I'm not operating very well. So how can I be joyful? Protect what matters most? And that's not a singular thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>That might shift depending on the situation and the time. But looking at any situation of what matters most to protect and to recommit every day, um, the work can be exhausting. It can be tiring, it can be complicated. The times can be overwhelming. But if I recommit every day, that means I'm committing for the next 24 hours. And that I can always do and then love the earth.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Mhm.
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> Lisa Graustein>And Alice Walker, in so many ways, in both her essays and her. Her novels, loved the earth and understood the earth as mother and as teacher, as divine. So when I'm stuck, where do I go? Back to the earth. Not just to reground myself, but to put myself in creation and see what creation has to offer. You didn't ask me about hope, but I feel like hope and love, grief and rage are all kind of the intertwined emotions that I hear you talk about a lot that I Know, we invited people in to experience a lot in the work we do together. And I think at this time, that's a word that people are so desperate for, because it feels so far away.
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> Lisa Graustein>Even when I'm not feeling hope, I can stand for truth. I can be courageous. I can recommit. Even if I'm just recommitting to you as a person, I can forgive, I can love. So I wanted to bring that into this conversation about love and power that you're having this season, because they. They speak to me and they guide me.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yes. And bring hope on in here.
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> Dwight Dunstan>We were nerding out before we went live, but we were talking about Star Wars.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And Episode four of Star wars is what a new hope.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Right?
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Because this is the Seed podcast, and I don't want to get too nerdy, make this a Star wars podcast.
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> Dwight Dunstan>But, you know, the resistance. Talk about being on the brink of annihilation. There's.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>There's so many metaphors in Star wars that I really appreciate, but there's something about.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yeah. Just bringing into focus the role that hope plays. Injustice in love, in cultivating joy, in letting our hearts break.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>All of that. Sometimes I know for me, I want love to be gentle and feel good the whole time.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Sometimes love actually means saying the hard things or stepping back or showing up in a space even when it's not easy.
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> Lisa Graustein>A very personal moment of love and hope that shown up recently was I had experienced some very, very hard things and was carrying them in my being in a way that was not healthy. And so I gathered some friends to just hear my story, hear my experience.
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> Lisa Graustein>Uh, I wasn't asking people to solve, to help, to offer advice, but just to hold a piece of it so that I could release it from my being. I could release it from my physical body. It could stop having as much impact on me as it was after I did that sharing. And I. I burned up what I had written to really, like, release it and move it on. I did invite friends just to say something so something they were feeling, something they heard.
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> Lisa Graustein>You were a part of this. What I received back was so beautiful. One friend who didn't speak, just took notes a few weeks later, sent me this beautiful accordion folded book they had made with abstract prints they had done on each page in different colors with some of the words that people said. The words were written as if they were following the flow of water or a tree branch.
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> Lisa Graustein>Very organic. And it's hard for me, when I'm big in my feelings, to hold onto that feedback. So having this gift was such a piece of my own healing in being able to hold onto it and being able to go back to it, to have it made as art, to have it be fluid. I think about the ways in other groups that I'm working with more broadly, where in the middle of doing hard, hard work, we might stop and dance together. At one group of folks that I was a part of, um, organizing, a bunch of people didn't know each other. We were across a big geographic area, invited people to share stories of resistance that they had been a part of. And then out of those stories, they had to introduce their partner using just three adjectives to describe this person they had just met. And what was astounding was even those people in most cases did not know each other. It was a very professional setting. So it tends to be a little, you know, everyone was like, in and stuff, kind of corporate. The adjectives people were using to describe each other were so powerful and were so true. Because in sharing one story of resistance witnessed or experienced, so much of who someone's spirit is came through doing that is what we need right now. The hope is not going to come from is this government going to change at the rate I need it to change? The hope is going to come from, can I be with you, friend or stranger, in a way that is truthful and real and justice oriented and see you and have you see me? And can we strengthen each other and can we magnify that out to be the change that has to be happening now?
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> Lisa Graustein>We see that happening in pockets all over the country. And so I also think about how we hold onto the stories that maybe aren't getting frontline press coverage, but that are about people dancing and singing and caring and protecting, um, each other in this time that is trying to destroy all of that.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yes. Thank you for sharing.
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> Lisa Graustein>Where are you seeing hope and love? Where is that showing up for you?
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> Dwight Dunstan>First thing that came to mind in my facilitation, I've been doing a lot more mediation or group conflict process work. Folks are in one place at the beginning of the week where there's not a lot of hope or desire to be connected or hope that what we're doing together will actually create any change or people's behaviors will change. Then at the end of the week, people are just, yeah, connecting in ways literally they never done. And they've been working together for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And they can see the change. They actually notice something's different in themselves and in the relationship and that's just given me so much hope. It takes effort, certainly, as a facilitator. It takes effort on their part as the participant to get to this new place, this new ground, to sort of come around the bend and see the city. You know, they don't know if they're moving backwards in the car. That's been giving me so much hope, Lisa. And also just making art. You know, I'm a clown. I do a lot of theater work. And we make it a practice when we connect, to share about our art, the, uh, art we're making even in these times. It really sustains both of us to be creative in that way and more. Yeah, I would say those things are some moments of hope and love.
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> Lisa Graustein>M. We've talked about change. We've talked about love. We've talked about power. We've mentioned grief. A little bit.
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> Lisa Graustein>I, uh, want to talk a little bit about tenacity or commitment or strength. I see you, Dwight, as a deeply tenacious person and moving across all the spaces that you work. Facilitation, clowning, theater, your music, Never backing away from things that need to be said, lifted up, engaged with. That's something else we all need right now is to remind each other how we can be tenacious.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Mm. There's actually a recipe that we can tap into. Sort of intangible things like prayer. You know, I don't move into space without prayer, any facilitation space without prayer anymore. Because I've just seen the miracle of prayers and someone holding space. Lisa, you and I were facilitating, and we had elders in that space whose only role it was to hold the container and pray. In my assessment, we don't get through those 10 months without Polly and Campo.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And Retta, uh, who stepped in, really holding us.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Because we're up against hundreds of years of racism and dehumanization and shame and hate and all these. All these things on paper. Or maybe somebody looking outside of us, our group, they would be like, what are y' all doing? That'll never work.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right, Right, right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>That'll never work. But we had some key ingredients, and I would say that whole group tapped into a, uh, tenacity. But certainly you and I, if we keep working at it, there's actually stuff that we can do, stuff that our bodies could do. Our bodies could do it together. Our stuff.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Our spirits can hold. Some of us didn't know our spirits could even hold what we were facing. I just have had enough experiences of arguably the impossible becoming possible. I can't help but have that kind of tenaciousness, some type of, like, curiosity, rigor, discipline, faith, hard work, and also care and celebration, and all of that is in the recipe today. Those things kind of define tenacity. God wouldn't put an idea in my brain if there wasn't a path there. Like, why else would, uh, would I be, like, given this beautiful vision of a room full of folks that can really see each other, even though there's lots of racial harm and wounding and histories there? I could literally see it in my head. Why would spirit plant that and have that not be. Be able to have some sort of pathway to get there? Thank you so much for being on the podcast and being so generous with your stories, with your. Your spirit, with your insights. Your hands are in so many different things, and I'm just so grateful that you're here on the planet at the same time as us and our listeners. It gives me so much hope. So thank you, Lisa.
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> Lisa Graustein>Thank you, Dwight. Thank you for this invitation.
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> Lisa Graustein>Thank you to your production team. I always love talking to you. I always feel more grounded and expansive after time with you. I listened to a few other episodes of the Seed before this recording time. What a gift you're giving, not just to the Quaker world, but to the broader world. The ways that you invite people in to real and honest conversations that have space for pain and depth, but also are really grounded in joy and possibility. That particular blend, I feel like we just need so much right, uh, now. And so I thank you for this ministry that you're doing among us and for us, and that will continue to reverberate.
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> Lisa Graustein>There are truths that you are lifting up and inviting to be named in this space that feel like they're on that scale in a way that can be received in smaller bites for the timeliness that we're in. I thank you for that. I hope the rest of your day is blessed and spacious.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Thank you, Fran. Love you.
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> Lisa Graustein>Love you too.
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> Dwight Dunstan>M. Thank you to Lisa. Thank you to our listeners for being in this conversation that took us many places.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And some of the words standing out for me are hope, love, tenacity, art, winding roads. I'm really struck by the word recommit that showed up in the Alice Walker quote in Kingian nonviolence, um, the branch of nonviolence that comes from Martin Luther King and the freedom movement. We often talk about six steps in a nonviolent campaign, and one of them is self commitment. This invitation to look at your internal world as well as the external involvement. Though it's a very specific framework for being in movements. I couldn't help but think about a practice I learned from Marcel Martin in nurturing faithfulness. She asked the participants to think about dedications, who they were going to dedicate their time, their effort to someone outside the space. Who are we being called to bring into the space as a way to anchor us and keep us tenacious, engaged and connected to this deep internal project of thinking about aligning ourselves and being faithful to what God's calling us to be faithful to? When I think about self commitment, I think about dedicating our time to someone. Lisa brought in her son. This is someone who as, uh, she looks out in the world, whether it's racial justice or thinking about the climate. She said, uh, I have a child, so that's why I'm showing up in the ways that I'm showing up. That's why I'm Tanisha's in the ways I am. I'm curious if there's someone you want to dedicate that journey to, whatever journey that is. There might be a loved one, an ancestor or someone in history, or it's just future generations. Commit your day to one person. Hold them on your heart, think about them often in your day and see how that shapes the ways that you show up. Do you notice yourself expanding, feeling more possibility, inviting in more love? Do you notice yourself maybe more contemplative, more inward questioning Some of the ways that you move the invitation is to dedicate your day to one person and just see how that informs your day. And feel free to email us or reach out if you have any insights or you tried the practice and something new rises to this top a new idea, a uh, noticing.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Know that we'll be holding you enlightened love as you turn away from this podcast and move in the rest of your day with a dedication on your heart.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Thank you friends.
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> Dwight Dunstan>The SEED is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit led Learning Retreat and community. We're located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania on the traditional territory of the Lenni Lenape people. Many of our guests are teachers, leaders and scholars Speakers at Pendle Hill. We host retreats, workshops and lectures all year round. For a full list of these upcoming education opportunities, visit pendlehill.org learn this episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano. Our theme music is the Irise Project by Reverend Retta Morgan and Bennett Coon, produced by Astronautical Records. Other music comes from epidemicsound.com and you also heard some of my music. You can stay in touch by emailing podcastindlehill.org that's podcastindlehill.org for a full episode, transcript, links and show notes, visit pendlehill.org podcast. You can also worship with me online through Pendle Hill Once a month. I attend this virtual quicker meeting on the last
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30am
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40 minutes. To access the virtual worship space via Zoom, visit pendlehill.org explore worship. If you're finding these conversations meaningful, consider supporting our work financially. Simply head over to pendlehill.org donate. You can also support us by letting people in your life know about our podcast. We want to connect with other folks like you, so please subscribe and rate and review us on your podcast platform. These seeds could not be planted without you.
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> Lisa Graustein>Hey.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Hey. Hey, hey.
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> Lisa Graustein>Hey. Our faith at its core actively assumes there shouldn't be norms, right? Because listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn't mean we're going to do the same thing all the time. Doesn't mean it's just potlucks and circles.
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> Dwight Dunstan>In the morning. You're listening to the Seed Conversations for Radical Hope, a Pendle Hill podcast where Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world growing through the cracks of our broken systems. I'm your host, Dwight Dunston. Um, in season six, we are asking questions about love and power. What does love require of us in the face of injustice, violence and despair? How can we harness the power of our imaginations to lovingly plant and tend to the seeds of the world we are co creating? What is God calling you to be faithful to in your acts of love, justice and power? And where do we already see love and power at work? In sea form or full bloom? On today's show, we have a dear friend, Lisa Graustine, who's going to come to us sharing reflections, thoughts, a quote that inspires her.
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> Dwight Dunstan>But before we get into that, we ground each episode in a short reading of our own. And, uh, today's reading is from Martin Luther King Jr's where do we Go From Here? Chaos or community? The line of progress is never straight for a period. A movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain. When you are approaching a city, often it feels as though you are moving backwards and you lose sight of your goal. But in fact you are moving ahead and soon you will see the city again. Closer by our second quote from where do we go from here? Reads Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Today's guest is Lisa Graustein. Lisa is a lifelong Quaker, an educator, a solo mom, um, and an artist. She lives on the land of the Neponsett Band of the Massachusetts people and what's colonially known as Boston. Lisa has spent years working with teens in schools and in Quaker spaces, leading young Friends programs and worshiping across the wide spectrum of the Religious Society of Friends. These days, she works as a facilitator and trainer in diversity, equity and inclusion. Lisa also helped launch Three Rivers Meeting and has co facilitated cohorts of the Quaker Coalition for Uprooting Racism. And I had the pleasure of being her co facilitator for the 2023-24 cohort. In that time, we laughed, cried, raged, pondered and visioned with folks from all over the country and Canada about the ways Quakers and Quaker organizations can embody new ways of being in the world. I had heard Lisa's name for a long time, and my first introduction to her was actually being facilitated by her and Neon Uspan, who was on one of our earlier seasons. Being in space and in community and in life with Lisa has done so much for me on my various healing journeys around my spirituality. Racism inside myself, building across gender, what it means to be a friend. And I'm so glad that she's joining us on this episode.
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> Dwight Dunstan>So without further ado, I want to bring you into this conversation. Lisa, good morning.
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> Lisa Graustein>Good morning. Thank you. I'm like all teary eyed now. I'm so glad the theme is about love and power, Dwight, because I just love you so much. I love the way that you move with your power and in your power and the ways you invite other people to not just be in their power, but play with their power. Working with you was about acknowledging all the lines of power that society says are there and then exploring all the other kinds of power we can have with each other and with the divine to make real what should be happening right now versus what is. So I'm so excited that you invited me to join you into this conversation. Thank you.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Absolutely. I'm also teary. Lisa, we've been on some journeys. You know, I feel like we're, we're sort of metal workers. It's hot, the equipment is heavy. Sometimes it's a little messy.
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> Lisa Graustein>Some sparks flying here and there.
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> Dwight Dunstan>You gotta watch out here and there. Exactly. And we often turn to each other and just, they're, uh, like, you good? You need anything? I'm, um, gonna, you know, I got some water. You know, we got to keep doing this work.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Think about the MLK quote we started with about the winding road and how it can sometimes feel like we're moving backwards. And then there's moments in, in which the work really shows itself.
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> Dwight Dunstan>We see the progress. And I'm just wondering in your, in your work, in your world, where, where that has shown up for you.
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> Lisa Graustein>I mean, I feel like everywhere. My whole career wasn't because I went into college saying, I'm going to go be a teacher and do this stuff. I went to college not knowing what I wanted to do. And a friend said, hey, you want to do this conflict resolution program. And I ended up devoting four years of my life to. In college, to running a program with 300 volunteers, working with kids.
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> Lisa Graustein>And that's how I knew I wanted to become a teacher. Each teaching gig I had helped me understand a different aspect of justice, of liberation, and led to the next thing. And it wasn't linear. I also think as a Quaker, we sit waiting for God to say, here, go do this thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>It's messy, it's complicated. You don't have all the pieces yet, but I, uh, put it on your heart.
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> Lisa Graustein>You can't not do it. And every time I've experienced that kind of a leading, it's not been straight. Who shows up to support it and who shows up to block it where it goes. And sometimes you get this nice gradual wind down. And sometimes God's like, nope, done. Peace out. Go to this next thing. Or I need to put you on the bench for a little bit to chill out till we get the next thing. Very few things in nature are straight.
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> Lisa Graustein>Nature's interested in fluid and interconnected.
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> Lisa Graustein>And moving with nature is where God first put down instructions for how to be that we're born into this incredibly beautiful world that I think probably has every lesson we need to learn for how to live well when we pay attention to it. Yes.
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> Lisa Graustein>Down with the not straight. I'm also not straight.
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> Lisa Graustein>So I like that part of it too.
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> Dwight Dunstan>That part as well. Right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>I'm curious, Lisa. Our listeners might be tuning in and, uh, thinking, but I really want things to be clear and linear. I actually am so not a person who does well when there's the coming to the. A bend in the road and having to be emergent or be flexible. And maybe in your own life, as you're on the windy road, that feeling has also come up for you. So just if there's any tips or strategies you would give our listeners as they look to, uh, maybe have more comfort with the windiness or be more centered or spirited.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate that question. Right.
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> Lisa Graustein>And we're in a time of incredible disruption and disorientation. The most I feel like I've experienced in my. In my 50 years on this earth, when I look at why I freak out about change or why something is not going the way I expected, that is usually a placeholder for issues around control, around belonging, and around safety. If I thought it was gonna be one way and it's not, do I still have agency? Can I make the things happen that I want to happen? Can I create the environment Where I feel secure, Am I still going to have a place here? Is there still space for me here? Control and belonging, uh, are both also about a sense of safety, perceived or real. And this time, those things are all thrown out the window. You know, every day there is a new piece coming from the government about who no longer belongs, who no longer is safe or never was safe, but even less safe now, and how what we thought was going to happen isn't going to be what's happening. I don't cope with any of those things particularly well, but if I look at what's the underlying need that I can work to have care for? I can't always give people control, but I can always be part of creating belonging. How do I let you know you are important and vital, and I'm going to stay with you? And safety is hard to create.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Hmm.
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> Lisa Graustein>Because I'm basing that on my sense of safety, which is gonna be different than yours. But if we can be open and explicit about what do we need to get towards safety? You know, as a sex ed teacher for a gazillion years, and we don't talk about safe sex, we talk about safer sex. We're constantly in a process of how do we make relationship, how do we make community safer? And that's very different because it's not about the end goal. It's about what do, in this moment, do we need to do to make things safer. And so I think about that in moments of change, of not how do we back away from a change that maybe needs to happen, but how do we work to make it safer for everybody involved? The racial justice work you and I do, right, it's that dance of belonging and calling in and calling out, and there's still belonging, and you can still be a part of us, but this thing is not okay. We come from a culture that says things have to be rigid and you're in or you're out. What I love about working with you is you're constantly creating spaces to bring people in, to engage people, to invite people to let them know they're okay, but also let them know things that are happening are not okay. And so that, to me, is what so much of change is about. How do I make sure you and I are okay where maybe the thing between us is not okay and needs to get shifted?
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> Lisa Graustein>Um, I don't know. Does that piece about control and belonging and safety resonate? Like, how do you think about what we need to be able to navigate change?
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> Dwight Dunstan>Well, yeah, it resonates for sure. And I was thinking about facilitating rooms together and trying to cultivate a sense of safety. And some people were going to be really coming in really relaxed, feeling safe, and some weren't. And that was often based on race. Right. And other experience, for sure. But in a, uh, program that was really focused on race and uprooting racism, thinking about supporting folks to feel a sense of belonging, feel heard, feel valued, appreciated, accompanied in their own experience, just thinking about pretty early in that time together, that cohort, you and I modeled this sort of fishbowl.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And I remember not feeling very safe in that moment. Right. There was stuff I didn't feel like I could quite show about my experience as a black person.
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> Lisa Graustein>Huh.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Quite yet to that group. You know, you and I have the combos. But there were still, for me, even as the facilitator, wanting to feel safety in the space by the end, I know for myself, uh, there was a level of safety that I had cultivated inside myself and with the group that I think allowed me to show up more powerfully in a different kind of power. Because I think there's also power and protection. I think there's power in containment as well. Being able to get feedback about what's not working for someone and not crumble, you know, but see that as an act of love, and that's ultimately in service of this greater love trying to come through the space. It's hard to do. It's hard to get feedback. It's hard to make mistakes.
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> Dwight Dunstan>It's hard to cause harm and get called out on it and have to relate to a group differently because of the harm that you cause. I understand all of that. And there's something else that, when I hear you talking, that is calling to be grounded in the space or to be centered in the space. Not my own feelings or desire to get it all right, but love.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Which looks messy, right?
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> Lisa Graustein>When I think about the second quotation that you read at the beginning of this episode about the ways that white folks that we don't think we have much to learn and how norm that is, at least in the U.S. quaker circles that I travel in for BIPOC folks, there's a lot of survival strategies grounded in maintaining that too. So to disrupt any of those norms in a Quaker space often does result in a loss of belonging and a loss of connection, even if it was a veneer of safety.
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> Lisa Graustein>That's a lot of what we were playing with. How do we disrupt those norms? Our faith at its core, actively assumes there shouldn't be norms. Right.
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> Lisa Graustein>Because Listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn't mean we're going to do the same thing all the time. Doesn't mean it's just potlucks and circles. I was excited for the spaces we got to create together with the folks in the cohort that felt more Quaker in some ways to me than a lot of nominal Quaker spaces.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yeah, yeah. Racial justice work, social justice work of all kinds. And, um, I'm thinking about our work in working towards racial justice. It can be so enlivening and inspiring and life giving and it can also just be deeply heartbreaking and frustrating and disappointing or both in one day.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Right. You know, just oscillate between the to and are lots of different experience. And I'm curious where the tension or release around racial justice work lives in your body.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, I appreciate that question. A lot of my work these days is working with different communities for how we get more activated during this time that we're in politically, how we move as a group in some new ways, how we create some new smaller structures to be really nimble. It's really been about looking at everything that's needed. And what's the part that I can do well as opposed to being overwhelmed by everything that needs to happen. That can sound like a cop out when it comes to racial justice work because white folks can do book groups really well that don't have a lot of impact on anything. But my work before this time was really trying to help friends understand the interconnectedness between different systems of oppressions. White supremacy, climate destruction are, uh, two sides of the same thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right. They're ways that dominance is destructive to every living thing on the planet. We don't need to be intention about. Are, uh, we working on racial justice or are we working on climate change? We understand them as a whole with different ways that we need to move and work. And this time, right now feels like it's that. But even more so because the interconnectedness of all the oppression and evils and power over are being laid so bare. They've always been there in our country, but they're being magnified and laid bare in some new ways. How do we move well together in some bold and radical new ways? Because this is it. Uh, we're at endgame. We've got to do it.
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> Dwight Dunstan>You brought in an Alice Walker quote for our time and I'm wondering if you can read it and bring it into our conversation. Talk about how it's landing for you these days.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah, the piece I wanted to share. I've always heard attributed to Alice Walker and it's kind of her principles of a love activist. As a history teacher and former librarian, I went to like go find the source and it seems to actually come from somebody else's kind of synthesis of her work. But I reread her book Anything We Love can be Saved last night and found elements of this in the essays there. What I have seen attributed to Alice Walker about being a love activist is to recommit every day to protect what matters most. Embrace your joy, stand for truth, be courageous. Spread forgiveness and love the earth. Recommit every day to protect what matters most. Embrace your joy, Stand for truth, be courageous. Spread forgiveness and love the earth. I have that list on an index card on my bulletin board right above my desk.
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> Lisa Graustein>It's actually so faded I can barely read it at this point. I keep it there because each one of those things is a good thing to do. And I can't do all those things every day, but I can do one of those things every day. And sometimes I can do two or three of those things. And I also find that when I am feeling stuck or overwhelmed, immobilized, any one of those gets me moving. What does courage look like in this moment? How can I be forgiving in this moment of myself or others?
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> Lisa Graustein>What does standing for truth require of us right now? What's the truth we need to stand for? What does it look like to embrace my joy? If I'm operating from a deficit of joy, I'm not operating very well. So how can I be joyful? Protect what matters most? And that's not a singular thing.
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> Lisa Graustein>That might shift depending on the situation and the time. But looking at any situation of what matters most to protect and to recommit every day, um, the work can be exhausting. It can be tiring, it can be complicated. The times can be overwhelming. But if I recommit every day, that means I'm committing for the next 24 hours. And that I can always do and then love the earth.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Mhm.
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> Lisa Graustein>And Alice Walker, in so many ways, in both her essays and her. Her novels, loved the earth and understood the earth as mother and as teacher, as divine. So when I'm stuck, where do I go? Back to the earth. Not just to reground myself, but to put myself in creation and see what creation has to offer. You didn't ask me about hope, but I feel like hope and love, grief and rage are all kind of the intertwined emotions that I hear you talk about a lot that I Know, we invited people in to experience a lot in the work we do together. And I think at this time, that's a word that people are so desperate for, because it feels so far away.
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> Lisa Graustein>Even when I'm not feeling hope, I can stand for truth. I can be courageous. I can recommit. Even if I'm just recommitting to you as a person, I can forgive, I can love. So I wanted to bring that into this conversation about love and power that you're having this season, because they. They speak to me and they guide me.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yes. And bring hope on in here.
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> Dwight Dunstan>We were nerding out before we went live, but we were talking about Star Wars.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And Episode four of Star wars is what a new hope.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Right?
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Because this is the Seed podcast, and I don't want to get too nerdy, make this a Star wars podcast.
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> Dwight Dunstan>But, you know, the resistance. Talk about being on the brink of annihilation. There's.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>There's so many metaphors in Star wars that I really appreciate, but there's something about.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yeah. Just bringing into focus the role that hope plays. Injustice in love, in cultivating joy, in letting our hearts break.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>All of that. Sometimes I know for me, I want love to be gentle and feel good the whole time.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Sometimes love actually means saying the hard things or stepping back or showing up in a space even when it's not easy.
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> Lisa Graustein>A very personal moment of love and hope that shown up recently was I had experienced some very, very hard things and was carrying them in my being in a way that was not healthy. And so I gathered some friends to just hear my story, hear my experience.
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> Lisa Graustein>Uh, I wasn't asking people to solve, to help, to offer advice, but just to hold a piece of it so that I could release it from my being. I could release it from my physical body. It could stop having as much impact on me as it was after I did that sharing. And I. I burned up what I had written to really, like, release it and move it on. I did invite friends just to say something so something they were feeling, something they heard.
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> Lisa Graustein>You were a part of this. What I received back was so beautiful. One friend who didn't speak, just took notes a few weeks later, sent me this beautiful accordion folded book they had made with abstract prints they had done on each page in different colors with some of the words that people said. The words were written as if they were following the flow of water or a tree branch.
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> Lisa Graustein>Very organic. And it's hard for me, when I'm big in my feelings, to hold onto that feedback. So having this gift was such a piece of my own healing in being able to hold onto it and being able to go back to it, to have it made as art, to have it be fluid. I think about the ways in other groups that I'm working with more broadly, where in the middle of doing hard, hard work, we might stop and dance together. At one group of folks that I was a part of, um, organizing, a bunch of people didn't know each other. We were across a big geographic area, invited people to share stories of resistance that they had been a part of. And then out of those stories, they had to introduce their partner using just three adjectives to describe this person they had just met. And what was astounding was even those people in most cases did not know each other. It was a very professional setting. So it tends to be a little, you know, everyone was like, in and stuff, kind of corporate. The adjectives people were using to describe each other were so powerful and were so true. Because in sharing one story of resistance witnessed or experienced, so much of who someone's spirit is came through doing that is what we need right now. The hope is not going to come from is this government going to change at the rate I need it to change? The hope is going to come from, can I be with you, friend or stranger, in a way that is truthful and real and justice oriented and see you and have you see me? And can we strengthen each other and can we magnify that out to be the change that has to be happening now?
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> Lisa Graustein>We see that happening in pockets all over the country. And so I also think about how we hold onto the stories that maybe aren't getting frontline press coverage, but that are about people dancing and singing and caring and protecting, um, each other in this time that is trying to destroy all of that.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Yes. Thank you for sharing.
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> Lisa Graustein>Where are you seeing hope and love? Where is that showing up for you?
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> Dwight Dunstan>First thing that came to mind in my facilitation, I've been doing a lot more mediation or group conflict process work. Folks are in one place at the beginning of the week where there's not a lot of hope or desire to be connected or hope that what we're doing together will actually create any change or people's behaviors will change. Then at the end of the week, people are just, yeah, connecting in ways literally they never done. And they've been working together for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And they can see the change. They actually notice something's different in themselves and in the relationship and that's just given me so much hope. It takes effort, certainly, as a facilitator. It takes effort on their part as the participant to get to this new place, this new ground, to sort of come around the bend and see the city. You know, they don't know if they're moving backwards in the car. That's been giving me so much hope, Lisa. And also just making art. You know, I'm a clown. I do a lot of theater work. And we make it a practice when we connect, to share about our art, the, uh, art we're making even in these times. It really sustains both of us to be creative in that way and more. Yeah, I would say those things are some moments of hope and love.
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> Lisa Graustein>M. We've talked about change. We've talked about love. We've talked about power. We've mentioned grief. A little bit.
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> Lisa Graustein>I, uh, want to talk a little bit about tenacity or commitment or strength. I see you, Dwight, as a deeply tenacious person and moving across all the spaces that you work. Facilitation, clowning, theater, your music, Never backing away from things that need to be said, lifted up, engaged with. That's something else we all need right now is to remind each other how we can be tenacious.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Mm. There's actually a recipe that we can tap into. Sort of intangible things like prayer. You know, I don't move into space without prayer, any facilitation space without prayer anymore. Because I've just seen the miracle of prayers and someone holding space. Lisa, you and I were facilitating, and we had elders in that space whose only role it was to hold the container and pray. In my assessment, we don't get through those 10 months without Polly and Campo.
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> Lisa Graustein>Yeah.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And Retta, uh, who stepped in, really holding us.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Because we're up against hundreds of years of racism and dehumanization and shame and hate and all these. All these things on paper. Or maybe somebody looking outside of us, our group, they would be like, what are y' all doing? That'll never work.
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> Lisa Graustein>Right, Right, right.
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> Dwight Dunstan>That'll never work. But we had some key ingredients, and I would say that whole group tapped into a, uh, tenacity. But certainly you and I, if we keep working at it, there's actually stuff that we can do, stuff that our bodies could do. Our bodies could do it together. Our stuff.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Our spirits can hold. Some of us didn't know our spirits could even hold what we were facing. I just have had enough experiences of arguably the impossible becoming possible. I can't help but have that kind of tenaciousness, some type of, like, curiosity, rigor, discipline, faith, hard work, and also care and celebration, and all of that is in the recipe today. Those things kind of define tenacity. God wouldn't put an idea in my brain if there wasn't a path there. Like, why else would, uh, would I be, like, given this beautiful vision of a room full of folks that can really see each other, even though there's lots of racial harm and wounding and histories there? I could literally see it in my head. Why would spirit plant that and have that not be. Be able to have some sort of pathway to get there? Thank you so much for being on the podcast and being so generous with your stories, with your. Your spirit, with your insights. Your hands are in so many different things, and I'm just so grateful that you're here on the planet at the same time as us and our listeners. It gives me so much hope. So thank you, Lisa.
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> Lisa Graustein>Thank you, Dwight. Thank you for this invitation.
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> Lisa Graustein>Thank you to your production team. I always love talking to you. I always feel more grounded and expansive after time with you. I listened to a few other episodes of the Seed before this recording time. What a gift you're giving, not just to the Quaker world, but to the broader world. The ways that you invite people in to real and honest conversations that have space for pain and depth, but also are really grounded in joy and possibility. That particular blend, I feel like we just need so much right, uh, now. And so I thank you for this ministry that you're doing among us and for us, and that will continue to reverberate.
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> Lisa Graustein>There are truths that you are lifting up and inviting to be named in this space that feel like they're on that scale in a way that can be received in smaller bites for the timeliness that we're in. I thank you for that. I hope the rest of your day is blessed and spacious.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Thank you, Fran. Love you.
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> Lisa Graustein>Love you too.
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> Dwight Dunstan>M. Thank you to Lisa. Thank you to our listeners for being in this conversation that took us many places.
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> Dwight Dunstan>And some of the words standing out for me are hope, love, tenacity, art, winding roads. I'm really struck by the word recommit that showed up in the Alice Walker quote in Kingian nonviolence, um, the branch of nonviolence that comes from Martin Luther King and the freedom movement. We often talk about six steps in a nonviolent campaign, and one of them is self commitment. This invitation to look at your internal world as well as the external involvement. Though it's a very specific framework for being in movements. I couldn't help but think about a practice I learned from Marcel Martin in nurturing faithfulness. She asked the participants to think about dedications, who they were going to dedicate their time, their effort to someone outside the space. Who are we being called to bring into the space as a way to anchor us and keep us tenacious, engaged and connected to this deep internal project of thinking about aligning ourselves and being faithful to what God's calling us to be faithful to? When I think about self commitment, I think about dedicating our time to someone. Lisa brought in her son. This is someone who as, uh, she looks out in the world, whether it's racial justice or thinking about the climate. She said, uh, I have a child, so that's why I'm showing up in the ways that I'm showing up. That's why I'm Tanisha's in the ways I am. I'm curious if there's someone you want to dedicate that journey to, whatever journey that is. There might be a loved one, an ancestor or someone in history, or it's just future generations. Commit your day to one person. Hold them on your heart, think about them often in your day and see how that shapes the ways that you show up. Do you notice yourself expanding, feeling more possibility, inviting in more love? Do you notice yourself maybe more contemplative, more inward questioning Some of the ways that you move the invitation is to dedicate your day to one person and just see how that informs your day. And feel free to email us or reach out if you have any insights or you tried the practice and something new rises to this top a new idea, a uh, noticing.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Know that we'll be holding you enlightened love as you turn away from this podcast and move in the rest of your day with a dedication on your heart.
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> Dwight Dunstan>Thank you friends.
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> Dwight Dunstan>The SEED is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit led Learning Retreat and community. We're located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania on the traditional territory of the Lenni Lenape people. Many of our guests are teachers, leaders and scholars Speakers at Pendle Hill. We host retreats, workshops and lectures all year round. For a full list of these upcoming education opportunities, visit pendlehill.org learn this episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano. Our theme music is the Irise Project by Reverend Retta Morgan and Bennett Coon, produced by Astronautical Records. Other music comes from epidemicsound.com and you also heard some of my music. You can stay in touch by emailing podcastindlehill.org that's podcastindlehill.org for a full episode, transcript, links and show notes, visit pendlehill.org podcast. You can also worship with me online through Pendle Hill Once a month. I attend this virtual quicker meeting on the last
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30am
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40 minutes. To access the virtual worship space via Zoom, visit pendlehill.org explore worship. If you're finding these conversations meaningful, consider supporting our work financially. Simply head over to pendlehill.org donate. You can also support us by letting people in your life know about our podcast. We want to connect with other folks like you, so please subscribe and rate and review us on your podcast platform. These seeds could not be planted without you.
