Dear New School Friends:
I hope this finds you as well as you can be in these turbulent times.
It is easy to forget that, since its inception 50 years ago, Commonweal has always offered help and found support from across the political spectrum.
If a family member has cancer, if a child is differently abled, if a teen needs the guidance that our summer camps provide — it doesn’t matter what their politics are.
My image of Commonweal has long been that we are like a fleet of ambulances that go out onto the battlefields of life to care for the wounded on all sides.
In the Cancer Help Program week-long retreats (225 and counting), we say at the start that we leave our politics at the door.
Politics divides us. Healing takes place at the deep level of our common humanity.
It’s not easy to hold that vision of shared heart healing in times like these. But it’s more essential than ever. I have personally always found deep resonance with people whose political views are very different from mine but whose joys and sorrows resonate deeply with my own.
Commonweal’s work is ultimately about healing. My founding vision of Commonweal was as a center for healing ourselves and healing the earth. Healing takes place at a far deeper level than our political views. Healing takes place close to the core of what it means to be human.
Commonweal works where we are each and all touched by grief.
We need each other to find the wisdom of the heart.
We need each other to find the joy in our love of learning.
We need each other because in helping each other we find true peace.
Whether it is nature, or art, or music, or friendship that consoles us, we simply need each other, especially in the hardest times.
That’s what we do at Commonweal. We hope you’ll join us.
With prayers for our common future and for our children,
Michael Lerner
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