Learning How to Talk to Each Other

written by Hearth Founder, Miranda Aisling

This past Friday, The United States performed what is possibly the most impressive of our ceremonies: the peaceful transfer of power. The following day, an equally American tradition swept through the nation and across the world: the peaceful assembly in dissent of that power.

Following last year’s seemingly endless, polarizing campaign, this transfer of power, the following marches, and the peace within which they happened are all the more impressive. But they do underline a deep need in our nation and our local communities: we need to learn how to talk to each other.

In our unprecedented age of digitization, our ability and patience for sitting in front of a person we don’t agree with and having an honest, respectful conversation is diminishing. Instead of hours-long, heartfelt dialogues, we have 140 character soundbites consciously shaped for wit, impact, and inflammation. At the same time, globalization is putting us in touch with more people than we’ve ever been able to talk to.

As a creative community that strives to be approachable, affordable, and accessible, Miranda’s Hearth is actively creating ways for people to talk to each other. Already, we dance together, read together, discuss together, make together, write together, and eat together. This spring, we’re launching a new monthly series that will enable us to do all that in multiple languages! Inspired by her travels across the world, Hearth Ember Kate Voss will be spearheading our newest monthly series, Fireside Chats, A Language Exchange.

The goal? To create a space for conversations across languages that break down cultural barriers. We already know that we have community members who speak (at varying levels of fluency) Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Greek, and more but we’re sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg. At our language exchange, we invite everyone to share their native tongue, practice a long-time second tongue, or pick up friendly phrases in a whole bunch of tongues!

How are we going to do this? Well, we’re still figuring that out and we’d love your help! Currently, we’re coming up with a structure for the event while looking for a space and a time. Our hope is to have the event up and running in the spring. Let us know what you’d like to see from the event, where you think we should host it, and who we can talk to in order to make sure that it is a constructive, supportive environment by sending an email to miranda@mirandashearth.com.

Want to get an e-invite for the first Fireside Chat? Send us an email and we’ll add you to the invite list!

We’re looking forward to chatting with you, en cada lengua!