Founding Words
Overview of the Work
History of the Village University
Comments from Participants
WELCOME ANEW.
As you can see, you have arrived. Our site opens to yours: your sight/vision.
As you glance about and step forth, we invite you carry in your heart the Center’s mission, introduced in the previous page. In the Concord tradition, our labors are, as expressed, committed to giving voice, ever and anew, to the words of the ancient prophet: Without a vision – humane/inclusive – the people perish.
With such a vision, We the People are destined, through our labor pains, to bear forth the “new birth of freedom” that constitutes our enduring birthright.
Toward this promise — applied American Studies — we invite your two-fold involvement, to begin with:
TOP LINE: That you bring your best thoughts, aspiring hearts, and good will to the work, be it through:
1) Research: Join us in our areas of research, which range from the articulation of an Indigenous Spiritual Science, through accents highlighting of the Genius of Our Land; accounts of Concordian Economics; prognoses with respect to The Healing Of Our Modern Medical Model; testaments toward the cosmopolitan Christology, exemplified by its founder; the tete-a-tete between Man & Machine; or contributions of a chapter for the first book ever written on the fruition of lives and labors of Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and the New England Transcendentalists: The Hillside Chapel.
2) Publications: Our imprint, “Tales & Testaments,” offers a glimpse of our publications, which includes “The Sun Is But A Morning Star,” the introduction of Thoreau’s “Seminal Science of the Spirit; the first biography on Emerson in Russian; the ground-breaking work on the Economic Process, as well as plays and films. The imprint has also given birth to the “Concord~Walden Pond Publisher Collaborative,” which introduces new directions in publishing.
3) Educational Programs: A warm welcome to take part in our annual Concord Convocation and Village University Offerings; our conversation series that reminds us that wherever there is good will and respect We the People can Bridge the Growing Divide; making the acquaintance, further or otherwise, of one we believe to be a veritable Friend of humanity; a Concert Series, highlighting young performers whose source of inspiration is their very love of music; and offering your best thoughts with respect to recipients of Concord’s Noble Award, which addresses the essential prerequisites for peace.
4) Initiatives: We invite you to help us launch the movement for Spiritually Responsible Investing, which, embracing, no less, the very widow and her “mite”, represents, we believe, the next wave in investing. What would life be without a Treasure Hunt, to discovers its/our treasures, one that can be adapted and adopted in your own community? Does Religion still have A Role in Our Time? A spirited one or otherwise? If you believe the question has, at least, merit, we welcome your angles of vision.
Is it not time that we shored up our infrastructure, not our roads, bridges, public works alone, but our social and cultural infrastructure thereto? We welcome your initiative. The Concord Resolution has also been drafted to be adapted and adopted into kindred communities. The arts themselves — above all pageants, masques, and community dramas — have surpassed virtually all others human inventions, with respect to the revitalizing of our communities. Might you inspire your fellow citizens to consider working together to contribute a scene from your community to be woven into The New World Drama: And Crown Thy Good With Sister- and Brotherhood?
May the last become first via Dream Teams arising in communities across our country, which challenge those students leaders — who are leading in the wrong direction — to discover and dedicate themselves to the awakening of their dreams. “The business of America is business,” so we are told. And the business of business? The “bottom-line” speaks for itself. And the Top-Line? If you have a dream, which is also your passion, and it relates to regeneration of our earth, water, air, fire and/or quint-fifth element/essence, there may be not simply a job for you, but a “calling.” A warm welcome to join us in the development of a new was of doing business in our land: Columbia-Sirius Enterprises US.
Performed before the Pieta Statue in Concord Center in the aftermaths of Gulf War I, The Compassion Play begins its journey out onto our land, reminding us of who we, We the People, in truth, are — our sacred trust. Finally, as a conduit for the exchange of such research, educational programs, and initiatives with fellow citizens in communities across our land, the Franklin _______ Emerson Circles, invite you to fill in the blank with, as noted, a kindred spirit from your neck of the woods, who, alongside Ben and “The Sage of Concord” serves as an inspiration for cultural renewal.
BOTTOM LINE: If what you discover under our “roof” has, in your eyes, merit, a heartfelt invitation to acquaint yourself further with the work. Before you depart, we invite you to take a moment to stop by our “Treasury,” in order to help ensure that the work that lies before you has the necessary support to, indeed, carry on. This will occur if each visitor contributes a dollar or two, three, four or more… as your fortunes allow. The amount is not essential. For, as noted under Initiatives at The Concord Trust, money — the very “life-blood” of our nation — has a qualitative side no less. More, thereto at Donate, an “Offering.”
This two-fold invitation — Top and Bottom Lines — invites, friends, a balance.
“Build your castles in the air,” Concord’s native son exhorted, “for that is where they belong. But now put the foundations under them.”
The castle is built, in its fullness, thanks to the labors of many who, over the last 45 years, have gone before. The cornerstones are laid. A heartfelt invitation to lend a hand by helping to set down the foundations for the next 45 years, plus. In the words of Rev. William Channing, there is work to be done!
“The aim of this school [village university] is eminently practical. A new cosmos is coming out of this chaos, a new development of man’s mind and heart from contact with the life of the universe. No sham or lie is to be tolerated here. The greatest movement represented by Goethe and others in Germany was the spring morning. After this came the grand scientific movement, and this includes the tendency to a higher form of religion… There is a new age for man, a revelation of the sacredness of human life. Our object is to take up this movement, as it was left by the great German leaders, and organize it anew in the interests of human liberty. Something better than Transcendentalism is yet to come . . . .”
Con-cord-e,
Stuart-Sinclair Weeks
Founder,
The Center for American Studies