How We Are Organizing Our Mission
Last week, I shared about our new mission statement at Paths to Understanding: “Gathering Neighbors and Growing Trust.” This new language isn’t just words. It’s shaping how we organize our work and where we put our energy. To live out our mission, PTU is focused in three areas: 1. Local Practice, Shared Tools At the…
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Gathering Neighbors, Growing Trust
For many years, our mission statement at Paths to Understanding has been: “Bridging bias and building unity through multifaith peacemaking.” That statement has served us well. It has helped us focus on creating understanding between people of diverse wisdom traditions and countering religious-based bigotry. We will always do this work—it’s at the heart of who…
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A Feast of Connection
by Viveka Hall-Holt, Let’s Go Together Coordinator A few weeks ago, we held our very first Potluck Project gathering in Snohomish County, WA. Fittingly, we met in a space that is transformed into a community kitchen twice a week to feed people in need. We called our event Neighbors Coming Together: A Feast of Food…
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All of the Above: Relief and Resilience
In recent weeks, many have asked me: “How can we do bridge-building work when there is so much harm taking place?” I get it. The challenges are real. We live in a time that is both dangerously unequal and dangerously divided. Inequality leaves too many without security or opportunity. Division makes it harder to even…
Read MoreThe Role of the Interfaith Movement in Our Time
Later this month, I’ll be joining interfaith leaders from across the nation at a round-table convened by Interfaith America. The question before us is simple, but urgent: What is the role of the interfaith movement at this point in our history? As I prepare for that conversation, here’s what I see. A Whole-of-Society Problem We…
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Growing Together: Complimentary Methods in a Civic Ecosystem
In any ecosystem, growth doesn’t happen all at once. A seed doesn’t become a towering tree overnight. Streams don’t carve valleys in a single season. Life unfolds gradually, in stages. And in the same forest, you can find new shoots, flowering plants, and old-growth giants all existing together. The same is true of civic life.…
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Growing Together: Our Diverse Values in a Thriving Civic Ecoystem
In every healthy ecosystem, diversity is not a problem to be solved—it’s the very thing that makes life possible. Forests thrive because trees, ferns, fungi, insects, and animals all bring different functions that nourish the whole. Remove too much of that diversity, and the ecosystem weakens. The same is true for civic life in Washington…
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Growing Together: Four Commitments for a Thriving Civic Ecosystem
At Paths to Understanding, we often say that no single organization can solve the challenges we face. Polarization, disconnection, and distrust in our institutions are too complex for any one group to take on alone. These are whole-of-society problems—and they require whole-of-society responses. Think of a forest. No single tree makes a forest, and no…
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Too Big and Too Small
It’s easy to spend hours each week reading about national politics, big court cases, or the latest viral controversy. These stories are important—but for most of us, they are too big. We have almost no direct influence over them. We can get angry, anxious, or exhausted, but that rarely leads to any action that changes…
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