Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom: An Interview with Paul Engler
Lessons on community-building from a social movement strategist and intentional community cofounder
There are any number of reasons to talk to Paul Engler:
As a community organizer in labor unions, or in the movements for the global climate justice, immigrant rights, or anti-war, Paul can regale you with stories of street protests, imprisonments, and hunger strikes.
As a movement-building strategist Paul can lecture you on the history of social movements and social change theory as captured in This is an Uprising, the 2016 book Paul co-wrote with his brother Mark about the craft of building non-violent movements for social change.
As a licensed therapist and decades-long meditation practitioner Paul can talk with clarity and vulnerability about his stoic German-Catholic upbringing in Iowa, the impact of the death of his father and grandmother when he was in elementary school, his fears from struggling with dyslexia, and the violence that he experienced from being bullied in his neighborhood.
As a friend, (I’ve known Paul since 2016) Paul has been encouraging, funny and cooky – equal parts mad scientist, crazy uncle, and teddy bear.
However, for the first episode of the podcast I wanted to talk to Paul for two reasons. First, in 2006, Paul cofounded the Center for the Working Poor and has lived there ever since. The center is based on the model of a Catholic Worker house. Its core principles include strategic nonviolence, voluntary simplicity, and faith in action. Paul talks with humility about the community’s shortcomings and what lessons he has gleaned as he coaches others to start movements and communities.
That leads me to the second reason I wanted to talk to Paul. He has not only created a community, but helped to incubate movements and communities as the cofounder of the Momentum training institute. Momentum has trained thousands of people, and launched many movements, most famously Sunrise, a movement to stop the climate crisis. While Paul has spent most of his time training non-religious groups and movements, he has been formed by what he describes as the “mystical” and “contemplative” branch of Christianity, namely Thomas Keating and Contemplative Outreach, as well as Buddhist teachers and practices. We talk about some of the key concepts – frontloading, creating the DNA of a movement, and movement ecology – as well as his thoughts about starting a training institute to launch faith-based movements and communities.
One of the moments that stands out from the interview is at the end when Paul talks about hope. Not only are there the discouraging political and environmental crises which Paul strategizes about professionally, but Paul is going through a self-described middle-age crisis as his personal ambitions and professional plans have crumbled. One of the images that inspires him is of a thousand flowers blooming– people experimenting with new community and new ways of life in a thousand different ways as cultural assumptions and personal plans crack open and falter.1 Talking with Paul encouraged me to nurture what’s flowering in me. I hope this interview does the same for others.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to it below or go here to listen and subscribe to the podcast with your preferred app. Also below are links to many of the authors and books which Paul references.
Permaculturist and ecovillage pioneer Starhawk’s website and her book The Empowerment Manual
Momentum is the “training institute and community of organizers” which Paul co-founded with Carlos Saavedra. Here is their overview of frontloading and movement ecology
Ivan Marovic, Serbian organizer in the Otpor movement
Rory McEntee, Adam Bucko, and the Center for Spiritual Imagination
The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, Fr. Thomas Keating, James Finley, Matthew Fox
Fr. Richard Rohr’s writing on the cosmic egg
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
Books by Joanna Macy
Camphill communities
Good stuff.
Please also check out this movement which promotes the Blooming of a Thousand Flowers too.
http://newrepublicoftheheart.org