As many Louisvillians know, in 1975 Muhammad Ali offered what is often credited as the shortest poem in the English language: “Me. We.” Those two words carry a clarity that continues to resonate and speak to the delicate balance between the way we hold the idea of “me” in relationship to the idea of “we.”

Louisville’s civic vitality, like that of any city, depends on this balance. A city, after all, is a living collection of interwoven narratives shaped by history, hope, sorrow, joy, and the marvelous and mundane rhythms of daily life. While our perception remains deeply personal and private, it simultaneously overlaps with the perception of others in a dance that forms our shared experience.

During the 2025 Festival of Faiths, the theme of Sacred Belonging gave us an opportunity to explore how a flourishing whole (the we) is made up of flourishing, interwoven parts (the me).

When the work of tending to our own well-being is neglected, we risk confusing our real selves — that of loving, compassionate beings — with what Thomas Merton described as the “false self.” This false self prioritizes self-interest over collective well-being, confusing this with self-preservation, when, in fact, it can ultimately be the source of self-destruction.

We need connection with each other to not only survive, but to thrive. Such existential questions around how to be human in the face of extreme imbalances and the natural human resistance to think of “we” over “me” is a major cause of what many health professionals believe to be a global mental health epidemic. Isolation, in all of its forms, is believed to directly contribute to mental health imbalances. The opposite is also true. Community life is believed to be an essential source of human flourishing. So, what are we to do? One place to begin is by strengthening our capacity to relate wisely to the world within us in the name of improving the world outside of us.

As we look ahead to our 30th Festival of Faiths focused on Sacred Courage, we can begin to explore courage as a central quality of the heart that allows us to meet life’s most difficult circumstances with greater clarity and compassion. The heart not only sustains our physical existence, but it also houses our most virtuous human qualities: strength, tenderness, sensitivity and care. Within that remarkable range lies the potential to reconnect what has become divided within us. When the heart is engaged in this way, the distance between the “me” and the “we” begins to soften, and the conditions for genuine belonging can take root.

If we can nurture these qualities in ourselves, the possibility of belonging — in its deepest and most sacred sense — remains well within our reach. By cultivating this inner capacity, compassion and shared responsibility can continue to grow within our Louisville communities.