Were We Made for These Times?
As we name our gifts, and learn how to best offer them, we realize we were prepared to serve in this harsh time.
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Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.....
For years we have been learning, practicing, been in training for...
and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The “plain of engagement” has come into clear view with the exponential growth of human and planetary suffering and destruction caused by violence, greed, self-interest and willful blindness to reality. Few of us predicted this, and none of us knew how it would feel until we were in the experience. How do we stay engaged and maintain both our physical strength and spiritual devotion to the issues that have motivated us? How do we deal with the levels of burnout and despair that threaten to disable us? How do we discern the work that is uniquely ours to do in the context of NOW?
To stay active, engaged, and useful, we cannot stay focused on personal experience: our grief, trauma, overwhelm, and exhaustion. We need to do the inner work so that we can devote our attention outward to serve this world. We need to know at the deepest level that we are not victims; we are the ones who have been prepared with specific gifts to serve this exact moment.
This course will validate, with great clarity, that we were made for these times. We gain this good ground of confidence by exploring the gifts we were given, and learning how to offer them now. We identify both the source and the specific gifts. We come to understand that these times are not a disruption to our plans and lifestyles. We realize that we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills. No more whining or complaining. Only gratitude.
This course is not about defining your Life’s purpose. Our life purpose creates the container of meaning within which we define our values, choose our work, seek relationships, and live from integrity. Perhaps you have done this important discernment. In this program, we are focused on the gifts we’ve received specific to this time. What is needed from us to support the people, causes, and places we want to serve? In the context of those needs, what are the gifts and skills we can offer? Here, we focus on contextual discernment, honoring that we were prepared specifically for the challenges and opportunities of this time.
“You are not the project; the world is your project.”
Sadhguru--yogi, mystic, global activist
HOW WILL IT WORK?
We gather every two weeks beginning on February 27, 2025 from 12-1:30 pm ET for four months to discover our ground of confidence. There are four modules, each with a specific theme. The theme is developed in two sessions: The first session is Teaching and Contemplation on the theme. Interim practices offer practices and questions to make visible your own trustworthy experiences. The next session is for Learning and Sharing; what did you learn from doing the practices? These will be shared in small groups
KEY DATES
February 27, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #1: Where Do Our Gifts Originate?
March 13, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Session for Learning and Sharing: Where Do Our Gifts Originate?
March 27, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #2: What Are Our Gifts, and How Do We Name Them?
April 10, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Session for Learning and Sharing: Naming Our Gifts
April 24, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching & Contemplation #3: How Can We Offer Our Gifts with True Generosity
May 8, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Session for Learning and Sharing: The Practice of Generosity
May 22, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Teaching and Contemplation #4: Where and How Should We Offer Our Gifts?
June 5, 2025, 12-1:30 pm ET
Final Course Session: Into the World with Our Offerings
YOUR INSTRUCTOR
MARGARET (MEG) WHEATLEY Ed.D.
Margaret (Meg) Wheatley began caring about the world’s peoples in 1966, as a Peace Corps volunteer in post-war Korea. In many different roles–speaker, teacher, consultant, advisor, formal leader—she acts from the unshakable conviction that leaders must learn how to invoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity and need for community. As this world tears us apart, sane leadership on behalf of the human spirit is the only way forward. Since 1973, Meg has taught, consulted, and advised an unusually broad variety of organizations on all continents (except Antarctica). Her clients and audiences range from the head of the U.S. Army to twelve-year-old Girl Scouts, from CEOs and government ministers to small town ministers, from large universities to rural aboriginal villages. She has served as full-time graduate management faculty at two universities, and been a formal advisor for leadership programs in England, Croatia, Denmark, Australia and the U.S. Through Berkana, she has advised leadership initiatives in India, Senegal, Brazil, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mexico, Greece, Canada and Europe.
Meg received her doctorate in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, her Masters in Media Ecology with Neil Postman from N.Y.U. , and her Bachelor’s from the University of Rochester (with a year’s study at University College London). She has been honored for her ground-breaking work by many professional associations, universities, and organizations.
She has authored thirteen books, from the classic Leadership and the New Science (1992, 1n 21 languages) to Who Do We Choose To Be: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity (2017, 2023) and Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations (2024). Her most creative work (2020 with Jerry Granelli) is an audio and book, The Warrior’s Songline, a Journey into Warriorship Guided by Voice And Sound.
IN CONVERSATION WITH
REV. CAMERON TRIMBLE
Cameron Trimble is a serial entrepreneur committed to the triple bottom line – a concern for people, peace and the planet. Driven by an adventurous spirit, she runs businesses and NGO organizations, both secular and faith-based. She serves as a consultant, a frequent speaker on national speaking circuits, is a pilot, and an author.
Cameron is the CEO of Convergence, a not-for-profit made up of subsidiary companies and organizations focused on personal and organizational transformation.Cameron is also a Partner at FutureWomenX, a global company of courageous, ambitious, forward-thinking female leaders united in our mission to elevate women and drive transformative change for a better future. She also currently serves as the Board Chair of Stop the Traffik USA, an NGO focused on putting an end to human trafficking around the world through the use of technology-driven intelligence-led prevention. STT works in partnership with IBM, Barclays, Facebook, the Financial Times and many others to develop the tools to identify and disrupt human trafficking networks.
As a commercial pilot, Cameron learns many of her leadership lessons through the adventures of the flight deck. She has also enjoyed a career as an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, serving as the pastor of four congregations in the Atlanta area. Hers has been an eclectic career path – undoubtedly with more adventures to come – and she welcomes the wisdom she gains each day on the way.