Who we are
We are a diverse group of people, from various countries and professions, who have recognized our own need for a space where we can explore the direction and meaning of our lives with some friends. Early informal experiences, together in someone’s living room, showed us how life-changing participation in a learning community like this could be. About ten years ago a handful of us started thinking and talking about forming an association dedicated to launching and helping little groups like this all around the world. We came up with the name Nexus (a causal link) for what we were creating together.
Our modern culture has a flawed individualistic and materialistic bias that can leave out the invisible aspects of reality, like transcendence, wonder and love. This flattens our experience of living. A worldview that marginalizes what can’t be quantified is dehumanizing. It’s hurting us. As strongly as the world pushes us to reduce every human encounter to an economic transaction, we have to push back, and push back together.
We need spaces in which our shared humanity is the basis for learning about life. Processing what is happening in our lives requires attentive listening. Our individual and professional journeys have brought us to an appreciation of story as a powerful way of offering alternative plots and meanings beyond the frames of our present perceptions and understandings. Through Nexus, we have gained years of experience and expertise in creating friendly meeting places with pedagogical approaches based on participation, mutuality and respect for personal integrity. With the help of new participants, we continue learning how to do this better.
We want to play our part in adding value to people’s journeys, and allow others to add value to ours. As a wise Hopi Indian elder once said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Our everyday life stories, with their passions and problems, along with our willingness to open them up vulnerably, qualifies us to be the people we need to be for one another.
Recent Posts
Mr. Kato Plays Family by Michiko Flašar
“Mr. Kato Plays Family” by Michiko Flašar is a quiet, sensitive novel that stays with you long after reading. Anyone expecting a loud, dramatic story will be surprised—for this book draws its strength from small moments, in the gaps of everyday life. At the center is Mr. Kato, a man who can be hired to play the role of a family member. He steps in where closeness is missing: as a temporary husband, father, or son. What initially seems like a bizarre idea quickly turns out to be a touching exploration of loneliness, longing, and the question of what family actually means.
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
This novel tells the story of Violette, a cemetery caretaker in a small town in Burgundy(France). Visitors, both occasional and regular, come to her home to warm up and chat. We discover her past through a poignant narrative, tinged with humor and suspense.
Listening to Stories from Around the Globe
Learning to engage with stories through film has been a major field of precious discovery for me in the past decades. It has given me more than one life. It has offered me a rich palette of human and cultural colors in life’s diverse experiences and challenges. I have been allowed to share in the challenges, the joys and the griefs people have experienced in a multitude of cultural situations, some very similar to my own, many very different to mine. It has helped me to understand better my own perceptions, emotions, strengths and weaknesses. I am sure that it has enhanced my empathy, to understand better how the same experience can impact people in very different ways.