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With Gratitude for Every Act of Care and Light

With Gratitude for Every Act of Care and Light

Rabbi Rachel Gartner at the IYS Global Dialogues Workshop

As a rabbi, I’ve long suspected that if people could hear the stories I hear nearly every day from those in my care –  you know the type of stories shared in the clerical “cone of silence” –  the world might shift if but a tiny, tiny bit on its axis. Perhaps even just enough to set it on a slightly better course than it all too often feels to be spiraling towards

By Rabbi Rachel Gartner, Co-Director, In Your Shoes™ Research and Practice Center

As a rabbi, I’ve long suspected that if people could hear the stories I hear nearly every day from those in my care –  you know the type of stories shared in the clerical “cone of silence” –  the world might shift if but a tiny, tiny bit on its axis. Perhaps even just enough to set it on a slightly better course than it all too often feels to be spiraling towards.

I’m not talking magic.  

Not a single cure all, but a complementary treatment among others. Good medicine. A spiritual vaccine perhaps.

I’ve often puzzled over this set of questions: 

What if people could live in such a way that we regularly offered and received the stories that really matter to us? 

What if we devoted ourselves to rigorously creating contexts in which such stories could be shared  – ethically, meaningfully, and impactfully? 

How might such encounters contribute to transformations of self, of relationships, of communities, of policies, of systems?  

And what if we understood those exchanges as profound acts of care?

Care for ourselves. Care for one another. Care for our collective future. 

Again, I’m not talking magic. Just one complementary form of caretaking.

To my mind, this is what In Your Shoes is and offers. As the development of The Art of Care embodied and the performance itself reflected, every aspect of In Your Shoes – the process used to create The Art of Care – is itself offered as an act of care.

In Your Shoes is a training ground for – and a lived practice of  – softening and strengthening ourselves to be able to give one another our deeply focused attention; sharing courageously of ourselves as we choose to do so; experiencing ourselves reflected back with admiration and respect; earning and building trust among diverse individuals; meeting each other where we are and taking each other forward on a journey, and for those IYS programs which culminate in public performances – inviting others to join in our travels.  

All these things are acts of care, offered with care, in service of creating ever widening circles of care in our world. 

I am gratified by the ways, extent, and depth with which The In Your Shoes Center has been able to make these offerings of care since we launched in September 2023.

Lyndi’s Mattito:

I sometimes play a game with myself, 

Like, if you have the option of going back 

To your young self 

Knowing already some of the mistakes you would do, 

and what you would do and not do?

Knowing everything that you know today,

Like, would you do it?

Luis’s Billie

I very much felt 

like I had to grow up 

at a very early age. 

And the things that I saw 

motivated me 

to never become a victim.

Billie’s Luis:

We become the adults that the children we were… needed.

At Georgetown in 2024 alone, IYS has been a featured centerpiece of  The Georgetown Global Dialogues, LEAP (Learning, Equity, Access, Pedagogy) initiative for academic departments, GU Qatar Women Changemakers program, Climate Core Pathways Initiative, Earth Commons Global Water Security Conference, Interfaith Retreat Initiative, Global Health Institute, and The Red House University Wide Cross Disciplinary course offerings.

Beyond Georgetown’s gates, IYS has been featured in wide variety of contexts around the world, including at the Stockholm School of Economics, Edinburgh International Festival and Beyond Borders Festival and Women in Conflict Fellows (with participants from Syria, Yemen, Belarus, Uganda, and elsewhere), Krista Tippett’s On Being Project, La Mama Umbria Global Directors Symposium, National Association of Independent Schools, Parents’ Circle/Families Forum.

With gratitude for every act of care and light we can bring at this season, and every season, today and every day,

Rabbi Rachel Gartner

Co-Director,

In Your Shoes Research and Practice Center

The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics (The Lab) 

Senior Advisor for Spiritual Care,

Georgetown University