Hart Edmonds is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, as his wife Cheryl. We moved back to Hart’s home state of North Carolina to begin retirement a few years ago, to start what some call our Third Act!  When we moved to the historic town of Hillsborough, NC not far from Durham and Chapel Hill, we discovered one of the most engaged, civic minded communities we had ever experienced. If the arts are your passion you can find your people here. If you are drawn to addressing the environment and climate change, you'll find your people also. Hiking clubs, reading groups, and  political activists are everywhere it sometimes seems. Underneath all of this, there's a clear desire to find community in a time when so many people feel isolated or disengaged.  My recent involvement in the Hillsborough Climate Challenge, a series of learning and service oriented activities around climate change in April leading up to Earth Day on April 22, has connected me with a group of leaders who haven't given in to cynicism or despair about the planet's future.  That's infectious. 

In this third act of life, we have also found fly fishing and bluegrass music have become not just personal hobbies, but ways of experiencing community as well. Hart takes bluegrass guitar lessons, while Cheryl focuses on mandolin and Irish music. Playing in an Irish or Bluegrass jam, you get to know your fellow musicians as you create something together. Yes, fInding your people in some kind of creative endeavor is also a part of Civic and Community Life. Some call this a search for Beloved Community. I do myself. 

Throughout Hart’s career in ministry a central passion has been the cultivation of community for the common good, believing that we can be “good medicine” for each other as we seek to strengthen the bonds of peace, justice, and reconciliation.  In many ways, Civic Engagement and Leadership has been Hart’s life long passion, first in college and then after seminary as Director of an Urban Ministry in Baltimore, MD.  It was in that context that Hart found mentors who taught by word and example what it means to be a “community organizer” in the broadest sense.  Over the years, as a pastor and community leader in urban, college, and small town contexts, Hart has come to embrace the power of stories and storytelling. Stories connect us to what matters most: our families, our friends, our neighborhoods, our planet and life itself. Stories are the “good medicine” we share with each other to seek the well-being of our communities in a time of deep polarization in our politics and in our contested views of what faith and justice call us to be and do. In the Art of Convening, we learn how to welcome each other in spaces that are both safe and  brave to do the good work of Civic Engagement.