The Art of Gathering

The final chapter appropriately concentrates on how to bring an event to a close while continuing to support and develop its purpose. Parker criticizes the “widespread tendency to close without closing” (245), which she likens to breaking up with someone by just not calling anymore. To illustrate what she means, she mentions one of her own failures: a two-day workshop she organized on measuring the impact of a foundation. Just before the ending, Parker realized she hadn’t planned any sort of culminating conclusion, and so she simply closed with a set of abrupt and anticlimactic logistical announcements.

She laments that “[t]oo many of our gatherings don’t end. They simply stop” (248). On the other hand, Parker acknowledges that other events are prone to lag and fizzle out when it would be better to just go ahead and end. Regarding this, she suggests that organizers accept the inevitability of concluding, approach it gracefully, and “promise to sustain what is better surrendered” (250). She strongly suggests that hosts close gatherings with some sort of gesture that signifies the importance of the event and honors participants. For example, Michael J. Smith, a professor at the University of Virginia who leads a two-year-long seminar on political and social thought, surprises students submitting their culminating thesis project by handing out tequila shots.