What's Your Growing Edge?
Growing Edge Resources intention is to provide support and resources for individuals and organizations desiring to live life on a growing edge. The name “Growing Edge Resources” was inspired by the work of Howard Thurman who wrote:
“All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born: all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and people have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child – life’s most dramatic answer to death – this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!”
Growing Edge Resources comes alongside individuals and organizations to help them discover their growing edge and live it faithfully and authentically. Through this process, individuals and organizations will discover opportunities to thrive and flourish within their given context. Through coaching, consulting, and facilitating, Growing Edge Resources makes it their purpose to equip individuals and organizations with the tools they need to flourish.
As the author and speaker Parker Palmer puts it, “What’s the growing edge of your life? Some find it inwardly, as they reach for a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. Some find it with other people, at an edge where a relationship needs to begin, change, or end. Some find it in their work, as they look for ways to bring their gifts into deeper alignment with their soul’s imperatives and the worlds needs Others find their growing edge in joining the struggle for justice in a broken world.”
Core Values
Connection
Life is about connection and how we live out this interconnectedness. We seek to connect with ourselves and one another and find a place to belong. Our actions matter and effect all that is around us. As we connect, we live a life of wholeness.
Dignity
Everyone is created with inherent value, dignity, and potential. We grow and develop when we recognize our own dignity and the dignity inherent in others. We build a flourishing world when we uphold the dignity of one another.
Development
Development is that ongoing process of growing and developing as persons and organizations. It means that life is a process and growth is a process. Life is never static. We are invited into an ongoing journey of personal and organizational development.
Potential
Each person and organization is inherently filled with potential. The root of “potential” is “potent” which means “being able” or “power”. Within all of us and our organizations is the inherent ability to act, grow, develop, and flourish. When we are empowered, we live into our potential.
Service
Life is best lived when lived in service to others. To live for only ourselves reduces our world down to our own self-interest. To live in service to others expands our heart, soul, and life and we experience the generative nature of life itself.
Authenticity
We are living our Best Self when we are living out who we truly are rather than role-playing or engaging in “impression management”. Part of living on a growing edge is discovering (or rediscovering) who we truly are and living that out with passion. This is true for both individuals and organizations.
Collaboration
We have individual gifts, talent, and abilities but life is best served when we can collaborate and multiply our efforts. In collaboration, we discover the power of the Abundance Mentality and experience the power of multiplied gifts.
Transformation
Inherent in nature and creation is transformation. We see it in the process of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. We are invited into this transformational process so we can help to bring transformation to our world. This means embracing change and often deep change.
Wholeness
We are meant to live undivided lives. To live a divided life is to live a life that is fractured, fragmented, and divided from our Truest Self and our best intentions. Often a divided self brings divisiveness to all they do. To live on a growing edge is to live towards a wholeness that brings wholeness to our world and our daily activities.
Evolution
We have been created to evolve. We must “…consciously evolve, we must orient our being toward new life and growth because the unity that we really are, the deep connective tissue of oneness, will not let us rest with separateness. Too much is at stake now to hide behind our secure walls.” (Illia Delio) As we evolve and grow, so our world is able to evolve and reach its fullest potential.