Freedom’s Sacred Dance

hope dance 3In addition to these veterans, we have interviewed artists, teachers, scholars, religious leaders, and activists (and some who combine all these descriptions in their lives) whose spiritually grounded lives have focused on transformative creativity. We have sat with sisters and brothers from Thailand, Vietnam, Guatemala, and South Africa who have worked for democratic social change. In each case the interviews have been part of a larger process of nurturing hope and healing. Indeed, these engagements with such committed and humane women and men have deepened our own determination to continue and expand the working dance of healing our friends, our family, our nation, and our world.

In the months and years ahead, our Veterans of Hope project will continue to gather and share the sacred stories. We will offer intergenerational retreats, focusing on the renewal and healing of those who work for compassionate democratic change in this country and overseas. We will continue to encourage younger artists, activists, and spiritual seekers to engage with their older counterparts to nurture the work and the spirit of one another, moving across lines of race, class, religion, and nationality. And we will work with those who are also seeking to create living connections between the search for “the beloved community” and the movement toward “a more perfect union.”

Such are the people who keep us going, and we know that our work is for them and their great grandchildren. The dance belongs to us all.


 Vincent Harding and Rosemarie Freeney Harding, themselves veterans of the southern Freedom Movement, are co-founders and co-chairs of the Veterans of Hope Project.www.veteransofhope.org

 

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