Living the Questions: A Civil Rights Elder on Exhaustion and Rest, Spiritual Practice, and the Necessity of Loving Community

<p>Our colleague Lucas Johnson catches up with one of his mentors, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons. Now a member of the National Council of Elders, she was a teenager when she joined the Mississippi Freedom Summer. She shares what she has learned about exhaustion and self-care, spiritual practice and community, while engaging in civil rights organizing and deep social healing. Dr. Simmons was raised Christian and later converted to the Sufi tradition of Islam.</p><p>Lucas Johnson leads The On Being Project's work in social healing as Executive Director of <a href="https://onbeing.org/civil-conversations-project/">Civil Conversations and Social Healing</a>. He is a community organizer, writer, and a minister in the American Baptist Churches. Read his full bio <a href="https://onbeing.org/author/lucas-johnson/">here</a>.</p><p>Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida and a member of the National Council of Elders. Her account of her work as an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is featured in the book, <i>Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.</i></p><p> </p>