By Nick Theisen

I’ve always been proud to call Minnesota home. It’s a landscape of (often underrated) beauty, heart, heartiness, and resilience. It’s by no means without complication, but there’s something to be said about the way those complications are approached. Minnesota, as I’m coming to understand, is unique in the bridging space- there’s a wide variety of soulful and honest work being done in bridging divides, whether that be religious, racial, urban-rural, political, or other forms of division. There’s a growing network of folks who are doing this work and seeking a larger story.

In early May, after years of conversation and relationship building, The Minnesota State Office of Collaboration and Dispute Resolution came together with Marnita’s Table, brought several others on board, and put together the inaugural Minnesota Bridgebuilding Network Summit.

A Peace of My Mind was a part of it. We brought our studio process and gathered stories around why people show up to do the work they do. As this network is getting to know itself, we wanted to gather stories that offer the heart a space to speak. We kept the prompt open- not everyone there identifies as a bridge-builder- and held the space for people to put their own language to their work.

These stories reflect a drive to build understanding, a curiosity to engage wholeheartedly in creating communities of vibrance, and a sense that we share much more in common than we’re often led to believe.