About this item
Democracy is a non-stop experiment in the strengths and weaknesses of our political institutions, local communities, and the human heart--its outcome can never be taken for granted. The experiment is endless, unless we blow up the lab, and the explosives to do the job are found within us. But so also is the heart's alchemy that can turn suffering into community, conflict into the energy of creativity, and tension into a force that opens us to the common good. Healing the Heart of Democracy names the vital "habits of the heart" we need to do the job and shows how they can be formed. Palmer proposes practical and hopeful, on-the-ground ways to learn how to hold the tensions of our differences in a manner that can restore a government "of the people, by the people, for the people
About the Author
PARKER J. PALMER is a writer, teacher, and activist whose work speaks deeply to people in many walks of life. He is founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as 13 honorary doctorates, 2 Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, and an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press. In 1998, the Leadership Project, a national survey of 10,000 educators, named him one of the 30 most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of the 10 key agenda-setters of the past decade. In 2010, he was given the William Rainey Harper Award (previously won by Margaret Mead, Marshall McLuhan, Paulo Freire, and Elie Wiesel) . In 2011, the Utne Reader named him as one of "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." For two decades years, the Accrediting Commission for Graduate Medical Education has given annual Parker J. Palmer "Courage to Teach" and "Courage to Lead" Awards to directors of exemplary medical residency programs. "Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer," was published in 2005. Born and raised in the Chicago area, he lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
