Participants at the 2025 Advancing Together Symposium met to connect, share and generate ideas, and consider how the stories we create apply to the work we do. They sought to build further on conversations in the Narratives of America project. 

The first day was spent in group conversations. We discussed the characteristics of a shared narrative that could help us work together for the benefit of our nation and humanity. We explored learning as a framing that can help weave together different experiences. The metaphor of maturation was considered as a way of understanding how society can change. Maturation, related to learning, was understood in this context both as an orientation toward interdependence and oneness, and as the ability to accommodate an interplay between multiple principles. We also spent time reflecting on application, on how we can apply insights from narrative work in other areas of work for social change. 

On the second day of the symposium, three speakers shared rich ideas related to narratives of America that created a foundation for further conversation.

This was the second Advancing Together Symposium that the US Baha'i Office of Public Affairs has hosted. In 2021 it convened its first Advancing Together Symposium, entitled Forging a Path Toward a Just, Inclusive and Unified Society. That gathering commemorated the 100th anniversary of the first race amity conference hosted by the Baha'i community.  We hope that future convenings can support a growing community of discourse about important questions related to national well-being.