Wednesday, August 23, 2006

...8/23/06 - More Reflections on ROM...

...through a glass, darkly...
So much time and effort is invested on the other side of a conflict or dispute and rightly so. Without peacemaking and reconciliation efforts, the cycle of violence will most likely continue. Yet someone must also actively research and address the question of building sustainable peace and avoiding violent conflicts. To gain some understanding of the systemic processes required for building sustainable peace, only studying what has gone wrong in the past is insufficient. It seems to me that we must also spend time studying what has gone right. I was ecstatic on the Thursday morning of the second week of ROM when I realized we were going to be given that opportunity.

During the horrors of the wars of the 1990s in the Balkans, one region of Croatia experienced no ethnic violence. Gorski Kotar, an administrative region of Croatia, had in the 90s, and still has, an ethnically and religiously diverse population. Villages populated by Serbs co-exist next to villages populated by Croats. At a time when the government of Croatia was led by nationalists who encouraged ethnic division and distrust, when neighbor turned on neighbor simply because the neighbor belonged to the wrong ethnic group, Gorski Kotar somehow remained an “Oasis of Peace,” the title of a book that has been published to tell the story. On Thursday morning of our second week together, we had the great privilege of hearing that story from three key leaders whose courage and wisdom helped keep the peace.

With Tihomir Kukolja interpreting, Jozef Horvat, then president of the Gorski Kotar regional government, Franjo Starcevc, local peace activist, and Nada Glad director of Radio Delnice, told us the story of how Gorski Kotar, with the exception of a single air attack, avoided the war and the violence that took the rest of the Balkans into hell.

We heard first from Mr. Horvat, the author of the book, “Oasis of Peace,” and a key leader in the region. I was immediately struck by the humility of this obviously intelligent and very competent man. He wanted us to know from the outset that he is not a hero. He claimed to be a leader who simply followed the will of the people of the region. He firmly believes that if the people of Gorski Kotar had not wanted to continue to live peaceably with their diverse neighbors, he and other leaders would have been unable to make a difference. I am in no position to disagree.

What I do believe is that Mr. Horvat and others made some key decisions and took some very important actions that were vital to preserving peace as the people demanded. Because efforts are underway to translate his book into English, I will not give you chapter and verse of the presentation that morning. I do want to highlight elements of the story we heard that morning.

One of the first things that Mr. Horvat did was to negotiate directly with the commanders of the Yugoslavian army based in the capital of Gorski Kotar. Mr. Horvat understood that the war would quickly come to his region if the members of that garrison were to come under attack by Croatian forces or even if they were to feel threatened in any way. He met frequently with the commanders and men of the garrison to reassure them and ultimately to work out a plan to smuggle them out of Croatia and back to their homes. This they successfully did. Unfortunately, the commander of the base and his second in command were tried before a court martial in Serbia and served time in prison because they did not stay and fight as the war between Serbia and Croatia began.

Mr. Horvat also recognized that to avoid destruction of Delnice, they had to transfer three large warehouses of munitions out of the city and into the mountains before the munitions depots could be attacked by air. They were convinced that an air attack would occur to keep the arms out of the hands of the locals. When the attack finally came, only one warehouse was bombed and it contained only 5% of the munitions it once held. That was still enough to knock out all the windows in Delnice, but miraculously there was no loss of life in the attack.

Ms. Nada Glad, manager of the radio station played a key role by airing programs that supported peace in the region. She chose not to content mandated by the government that could have excited the people to violence. Ms. Glad was ultimately fired when it was discovered that she had been using the radio to preserve peace instead of airing the government’s pro-war, pro-ethnic violence programming.

Franjo Starcevc actually had the temerity to start a School of Peace in Gorski Kotar after the wars began. He ran his school of peace for 5 years during the wars, teaching non-violence and conflict resolution principles. Mr. Starcevc is a very humble and gentle soul. He belittled his own contribution, but I have heard from others that it was his gentle influence as a teacher over a period of years that may have had the greatest impact of all.

Despite their protestations to the contrary, I do believe that these otherwise ordinary people did do something extraordinary. At the risk of their jobs and even their lives they stood for what was right, good and decent. They refused to succumb to the hate talk and the manipulations of the natural patriotic fervor and religious commitment of the local citizens. Edmund Burke, 18th Century statesman and philosopher, once observed: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” In Gorski Kotar, good men and women acted and evil was averted.

Let me share with you a personal dream. We should raise funding for the translation of “Oasis of Peace.” Then a group of young scholars or graduate students from multiple disciplines should be assembled in Gorski Kotar to learn more about how and why a critical mass of the people in this region chose peace over war. Then the results of that research should be published for the world to read. We spend so much of our time analyzing what went wrong. Let’s spend some time researching and then spreading the good news about what went right.

If you agree, I welcome your ideas about how best to make it happen.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

…8/15/06 update on the ROM Peace Project.

...through a glass, darkly...

Since my last blog I have been considering what happened on Wednesday night of the second week and trying to understand it in the context of community building. The late Scott Peck, in his highly instructive book on community building titled The Different Drum, describes a pathway to community that all groups must travel. Peck believed that all groups start out in Pseudo-community. This is where everyone tries to abide by the rules of the group and act “nicey-nicey.”

Think of going to church on Sunday morning and being greeted with “Hi! So good to see you. How are you?” Knowing that the interrogator is not looking for an authentic description of the precarious state of your finances, your anguish over your teenager’s latest walk on the wild side, or the fight you just had with your wife on the way into the church parking lot, you quickly respond, “We’re just fine. So good to see you too. How are you?” And of course we know we will get the obligatory “Oh everything is good.” That is unless we are drawn an encounter with that rare person for whom everything really is great and we then get to hear about how Suzie just got into Harvard, son John just returned from serving the poor in the jungles of Africa and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize, and my husband just got a big promotion. Following which one walks away with a big smile on one’s face while secretly seething over the daily injustice of life. But I digress. I was discussing Peck’s concept of pseudo-community where most groups remain as long as possible for fear of real engagement and the inevitable conflict that follows. I believe that Peck understood us all too well.

And ROM is no exception. For the first few days everyone is extremely polite. We are all trying our best to be culturally sensitive. After all, this is a peace project! We each want to demonstrate our respect for diversity and our tolerance of individual differences however secretly irritating. Some, of course, choose the safest approach and are very quiet for the first day.

This rule following and politeness begins to erode on day 2 when we join with the other members of our newly assigned groups in trying to solve the puzzles and problems at the Adventure Academy. There is nothing like a little physical hardship and the necessity of pulling together to overcome an obstacle to bring the best and the worst out in people. But the worst that usually happens is the unmasking of the extroverts, the know-it-alls, and the self-perceived leaders. Even then the rest of the group is tolerant. Others may be eager to voice their own input, sometimes talking at the same time. But everyone is still very polite.

Peck described the next phase of community formation as Chaos. William Isaacs, in his book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, calls this phase Breakdown. This is the phase where we begin to more fully recognize that despite our common commitment to finding peace, we are NOT THE SAME. We really do have differences – of opinion, of perspective, of culture, of ideas – you name it. In all groups this creates tension and anxiety. In the Balkans such differences have in the past been deadly.

Yet Peck and Isaacs and others who have researched these processes all agree that for real community to be built, we must go through Chaos. The risk of course is that it will be too much for us. Tempers may flair. Angry words may be spoken. And some may not be able to handle the inevitable tension. Some leave the group, if not physically then emotionally. Some groups retreat back into pseudo-community, scared to death of the conflict and the accompanying pain. But some groups, particularly those that have learned conflict resolution skills and principles and practices of generative dialogue, are able to push through the chaos to a space of reflective inquiry and real community.

One of the reasons I both fear and eagerly anticipate the second week of ROM is that I know at some point the group will move into Chaos. During this crucial second week we speak the truth about what really happened in the Balkans. We openly confront and wrestle with the suffering of the innocent, and the atrocities committed by those who have the power to act out their basest instincts. We learn that no ethnic or national group has clean hands; all committed war crimes.

I fear that week because there is always the possibility that the members of the group will either begin fighting and turn their backs on the peacemaking process or that they will just give up on the hard work of community building and retreat into pseudo-community. At the same time, I am eager for the week because I know from prior years that if we work through the chaos, we will emerge, on the other side of the pain, into real caring and authentic community.

Each year, during the second week, it is the role reversal exercise that brings us to a necessary crisis of emptiness that is the gateway to real community. There is something about putting yourself in the place of a victim from the opposing group that strips away all of the stereotypes and mental models or images that feed the deep seated fears that impel us to strike out at those that we see as different and foreign to our definition of human. We are able to see the sufferers not as enemies but as fellow human beings whose pain we cannot help but feel. In that moment, we begin to empty ourselves of our preconceived notions, of our certainty that we already know all we need, of our need to dictate, dominate and control.

Last Wednesday night in that crisis of emptiness we found the pathway to real community. We came face to face with the evil and bent to destruction that lurks in the darkest recesses of every human heart. We wrestled with our differences and yet we emerged with our newly formed friendships not only intact but also strengthened by the experience. And once again we proved Scott Peck right. The pathway to real community runs through chaos.

Thanks for staying with me through these ruminations about seeing the world through the eyes of the other. Next time I will tell you about an utterly remarkable two hours with three genuine heroes who played key roles in preventing ethnic violence in their region at the same time that hell literally broke loose in the rest of the Balkans.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

...an update on the ROM peace project.

...through a glass, darkly...

For the past three summers we have engaged in a role-reversal exercise that has played a pivotal role in the ROM experience. This year Wednesday night of week two of ROM was not an exception.

On Monday, we asked nine of our participants to begin planning for an exercise to be conducted in front of all of the other participants at ROM. We asked each one to step into the skin of a person that had become a victim of the conflicts in the Balkans since 1991. The person whose shoes they are to fill must be someone that would be considered a member of an opposing or enemy group. The role reversals this year would include a Bosnian Serb telling the story of a Bosnian Muslim, an American woman telling the story of an Iraqi mother, a protestant from Northern Ireland telling the story of a Roman Catholic from Belfast, a Serb telling the story of an Albanian from Kosovo, an Albanian from Kosovo becoming a Serb in Kosovo, a Croat telling the story of a Serb living in Croatia, and other similar role reversals. Our objective is always to have a story that represents a victim from each major constituency in the room. The role-plays would be followed by a period of discussion among all those in the room.

Over the course of the two days leading up to the exercise my heart went out to the nine role players. They expressed to me just how difficult it is to learn enough about the “other” to be able to put one’s self in that person’s place. I could see that all nine were more subdued during the other activities of Monday and Tuesday and were even actively suffering as they prepared.

Wednesday night as the exercise began I confess that I did not know what to expect. I did not want the experiences of prior years to raise my expectations too high, yet I was still apprehensive. There is always the possibility that the “audience” will not connect with the role players or with the stories that they tell. On the other hand, the audience could well respond with anger. After all, since the exercise by design represents a victim from every constituency in the room, every constituency in the room also has its representative victimizer. The risk we take with such an exercise is that contrary to our instructions, the emphasis may be more on the evil of the perpetrator and less on the personal experience of the victim. There is also the risk that despite the best efforts of the role players, someone in the room will find it impossible not to defend his or her own ethnic group’s role in the conflict.

As each of the nine role players told his or her story many of the members of the “audience” began to weep. I believe some wept because it reminded them of their own experiences of suffering during the wars. Others who wept for the victims belonged to the same ethnic or nationalist group as the perpetrators. After the role plays we opened it up for discussion, asking the role players to comment on their own learning, if any.

Our discussion of the exercise got off to a rocky start with one of the role players telling us that she spent the last two days angry with me and with Tihomir for giving them this assignment. She said she felt that the exercise forced her to invade the privacy of the victims. We thanked her for her honesty but I must confess that my heart sank. Not only because I feared that the exercise might turn out to be a failure, but because I heard the genuine pain in her voice.

Then other role players began to share their positive experiences with the exercise. Many said that while it was extremely difficult to obtain enough personal information to trade roles, doing so gave them totally new perspectives about their ostensible enemies. Next members of the audience began to share how they had been personally touched by the exercise. Many, while only witnesses to the exercise, said that it had helped them to see the conflicts involving their own ethnic groups in a new light. At some point, someone said that as the stories were told the ethnic differences dissolved and he realized that in each story, regardless of the details, the common denominator was human beings suffering at the hands of other human beings.

A real turning point came when one of our participants, from Germany, referenced his own sense of collective guilt for the Holocaust and how hard it is today to be a German. A long discussion ensued about how to responsibly address the atrocities committed by one’s own ethnic or national group. Tihomir reminded us of the Old Testament prophets who expressed remorse and asked forgiveness of God on behalf of their nation for the grave sins of the past. Only one or two had a difficult time with that concept. Two members of the same ethnic group really got into when one thought the other was defending the actions of their group. She asked expressed her own shame at the atrocities committed by her people. I spoke of my own difficulty in that regard – it was my ancestors in the south who treated African Americans so badly not me. What was my responsibility toward them for past oppression at the hands of whites in America? Then one of the participants, a schoolteacher from Macedonia (if my memory serves me) made one of the most profound statements of the night. She said, “None of us is responsible for the sins of our grandfathers committed in the past, but we are responsible for rectifying the results of their mistakes in the present.”

The mood of the room almost immediately changed. I cannot say what was in the minds of the others, but her eloquent wisdom gave me hope. The call to repent is a call to hope in a better future. We need not live on in shame and collective guilt for the atrocities committed by our forefathers or even our contemporaries. We can act redemptively by loving our neighbor today and correcting the outcome of past sins. The words of the prophet Micah come back to mind, “O man what does God require of you but to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?”

The exercise started at 8 am. We ended our discussion at 11 pm when Tihomir, God bless him, suggested that we each find someone from another ethnic group and give them a hug saying to them “I am sorry for what my people have done to your people. I love you.” A “hug-a-thon” ensued and the room was filled with the wonderful sound of laughter and voices alive with hope for a better future. One of the people I got a big hug from was the role-player who had confessed her anger at the beginning of our discussion. She told me she was no longer angry. I am pretty sure that she realized that her role-play honored and redeemed the suffering of the woman whose story she told. I know for a fact that her role-play and those of her eight fellows served as catalysts to healing and the most honest and vulnerable dialogue of our time together.

...an update on the ROM peace project.



For the past three summers we have engaged in a role-reversal exercise that has played a pivotal role in the ROM experience. This year Wednesday night of week two of ROM was not an exception.

On Monday, we asked nine of our participants to begin planning for an exercise to be conducted in front of all of the other participants at ROM. We asked each one to step into the skin of a person that had become a victim of the conflicts in the Balkans since 1991. The person whose shoes they are to fill must be someone that would be considered a member of an opposing or enemy group. The role reversals this year would include a Bosnian Serb telling the story of a Bosnian Muslim, an American woman telling the story of an Iraqi mother, a protestant from Northern Ireland telling the story of a Roman Catholic from Belfast, a Serb telling the story of an Albanian from Kosovo, an Albanian from Kosovo becoming a Serb in Kosovo, a Croat telling the story of a Serb living in Croatia, and other similar role reversals. Our objective is always to have a story that represents a victim from each major constituency in the room. The role-plays would be followed by a period of discussion among all those in the room.

Over the course of the two days leading up to the exercise my heart went out to the nine role players. They expressed to me just how difficult it is to learn enough about the “other” to be able to put one’s self in that person’s place. I could see that all nine were more subdued during the other activities of Monday and Tuesday and were even actively suffering as they prepared.

Wednesday night as the exercise began I confess that I did not know what to expect. I did not want the experiences of prior years to raise my expectations too high, yet I was still apprehensive. There is always the possibility that the “audience” will not connect with the role players or with the stories that they tell. On the other hand, the audience could well respond with anger. After all, since the exercise by design represents a victim from every constituency in the room, every constituency in the room also has its representative victimizer. The risk we take with such an exercise is that contrary to our instructions, the emphasis may be more on the evil of the perpetrator and less on the personal experience of the victim. There is also the risk that despite the best efforts of the role players, someone in the room will find it impossible not to defend his or her own ethnic group’s role in the conflict.

As each of the nine role players told his or her story many of the members of the “audience” began to weep. I believe some wept because it reminded them of their own experiences of suffering during the wars. Others who wept for the victims belonged to the same ethnic or nationalist group as the perpetrators. After the role plays we opened it up for discussion, asking the role players to comment on their own learning, if any.

Our discussion of the exercise got off to a rocky start with one of the role players telling us that she spent the last two days angry with me and with Tihomir for giving them this assignment. She said she felt that the exercise forced her to invade the privacy of the victims. We thanked her for her honesty but I must confess that my heart sank. Not only because I feared that the exercise might turn out to be a failure, but because I heard the genuine pain in her voice.

Then other role players began to share their positive experiences with the exercise. Many said that while it was extremely difficult to obtain enough personal information to trade roles, doing so gave them totally new perspectives about their ostensible enemies. Next members of the audience began to share how they had been personally touched by the exercise. Many, while only witnesses to the exercise, said that it had helped them to see the conflicts involving their own ethnic groups in a new light. At some point, someone said that as the stories were told the ethnic differences dissolved and he realized that in each story, regardless of the details, the common denominator was human beings suffering at the hands of other human beings.

A real turning point came when one of our participants, from Germany, referenced his own sense of collective guilt for the Holocaust and how hard it is today to be a German. A long discussion ensued about how to responsibly address the atrocities committed by one’s own ethnic or national group. Tihomir reminded us of the Old Testament prophets who expressed remorse and asked forgiveness of God on behalf of their nation for the grave sins of the past. Only one or two had a difficult time with that concept. Two members of the same ethnic group really got into when one thought the other was defending the actions of their group. She asked expressed her own shame at the atrocities committed by her people. I spoke of my own difficulty in that regard – it was my ancestors in the south who treated African Americans so badly not me. What was my responsibility toward them for past oppression at the hands of whites in America? Then one of the participants, a schoolteacher from Macedonia (if my memory serves me) made one of the most profound statements of the night. She said, “None of us is responsible for the sins of our grandfathers committed in the past, but we are responsible for rectifying the results of their mistakes in the present.”

The mood of the room almost immediately changed. I cannot say what was in the minds of the others, but her eloquent wisdom gave me hope. The call to repent is a call to hope in a better future. We need not live on in shame and collective guilt for the atrocities committed by our forefathers or even our contemporaries. We can act redemptively by loving our neighbor today and correcting the outcome of past sins. The words of the prophet Micah come back to mind, “O man what does God require of you but to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?”

The exercise started at 8 am. We ended our discussion at 11 pm when Tihomir, God bless him, suggested that we each find someone from another ethnic group and give them a hug saying to them “I am sorry for what my people have done to your people. I love you.” A “hug-a-thon” ensued and the room was filled with the wonderful sound of laughter and voices alive with hope for a better future. One of the people I got a big hug from was the role-player who had confessed her anger at the beginning of our discussion. She told me she was no longer angry. I am pretty sure that she realized that her role-play honored and redeemed the suffering of the woman whose story she told. I know for a fact that her role-play and those of her eight fellows served as catalysts to healing and the most honest and vulnerable dialogue of our time together.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

...through a glass, darkly...

...through a glass, darkly...…from the ROM Peace Project.

Greetings again from ROM in beautiful Fuzine, Croatia. I have gained real respect for journalists who file stories and make deadlines. I had great plans for posting to this blog on a more regular basis. Now I recognize that journalists have a real advantage. They are usually observers who participate in the events that they cover coincidentally and not by design. I should have known that, as a leader, speaker, and participant I would have very little time to also play amateur journalist.

Now for the hard part - describing what has occurred here at ROM in the last few days. Week One was about developing friendships across ethnic and nationalist boundaries. In the words of William Isaacs (“Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together”) we worked on developing a relational container strong enough to hold the differences that usually surface during the second week.

On Monday of this week, Tihomir Kukolja, director of ROM, challenged everyone when he spoke of the horrors of the wars of the 1990’s in the Balkans and asked the question, “What is wrong with us here in the Balkans Café?” He reminded everyone of the history of wars and civil wars experienced by every generation for hundreds of years. He spoke of the abusive concept of identity in the region in which one’s identity includes always knowing which ethnic group are one’s enemies. He spoke of the “macho concept of history” in which myths are created about how one’s own ethnic or nationalist group is the rightful owner of certain territory and lost wars are turned into victories. He described the confusion of religion and ethnic identity in which the concept of one’s religion is entirely political and “faith” is a tool for manipulation. He spoke of the manipulation of the media by the government, nationalist, and/or ideological groups. He addressed the current state of denial and blame shifting with regard to the atrocities committed by all sides. Tihomir closed by reminding these young adults (ages 19-30) that while they are not responsible for the terrible decisions of the past, they are accountable for the future that will be in their hands.

Mounzer Fatfat, Ph.D., an advisor to the U.S. State Department in Iraq, described how he as a Muslim came also to be a follower of Jesus. He spoke of his own discovery that the principles and person of Jesus can be common ground on which Christians, Jews and Muslims can stand. He also told of how he came to forgive a lifelong friend and business associate for lying to him and cheating him in their business.

I had the opportunity to speak to the group about how to come together in community and think together with one mind. We also spoke of breaking the cycle of victimization and aggression through forgiveness. I reminded everyone that granting forgiveness does not mean saying that the offender has done no wrong. Forgiveness is an act of judgment that calls attention to the wrong done while forgoing the claims of justice. Forgiveness liberates one from the perverse communion of mutual hatred and reciprocal violence.

Last night we capped off our exploration of forgiveness by watching together the powerful film, “End of the Spear.” For those of you who have not seen the film, it is the story of the how the families of missionaries killed by a tribe in the Amazon basin went on to live with that tribe and reach them with the good news of the peace of Jesus and ended the cycle of revenge killings that had almost wiped out their population. All of us were very moved by this true story of the granting of forgiveness to the killers by the families of those killed.

For the past few days, all of us have been struggling through the complex emotions of wounded memories and recognition of complicity in a world in which exploitation, exclusion and violence are too often the norms. Many here were directly affected by the wars in the region. Many are the victims of abusive family relationships. Many who may not be victims are realizing that “their nation or tribe” is responsible for much of the violence. And we Americans are not exempt.

Every day, in our small groups, our private conversations and our life together here in Hope House, we are using our new skills and tools for dialogue and conflict resolution. And through it all we remind ourselves of the possibility of a better world if enough of us will take to heart the words of Jesus: love your enemies, forgive as you have been forgiven, seek to be a peacemaker, become a servant rather than an exploiter, seek the common good rather than your own self interest.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

...through a glass, darkly...

...through a glass, darkly...
ROM Update – Day 3. We have made it through three days of ROM and I have a renewed appreciation for the saying: Time flies when you are having fun. We have about 65 young adults here – about 50 of them for the first time. They come from Croatia, Serbia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, Germany, England, and the USA. Folks we are talking about diversity. They are from different ethnicities and different religious groups (Muslims, all brands of Christian and I suspect agnostics and atheists). And they have so much in common. They have enormous leadership potential. They are well educated. (Most speak better English than I do.) They all want to be part of and even help build a better world.

I did not arrive until late afternoon the first day. I missed the first presentation by my good friend Burnet Thompson, titled: Do You Know What You Believe In. Burnet is about 80 years of age and every body’s favorite grandpa. He is also a great logician and thinker. He is the first person I heard say that Jesus does not equal Christianity. In fact, he thinks it is not particularly biblical to call ourselves Christians. The word Christian, he says, was transliterated (look it up on www.Dictionary.com) and not translated from the Greek. If, in 1 Peter (or was it 2 Peter?) it had been translated it would read “follower of Jesus.” That’s what he told me about 11 p.m. last night at my favorite bar in Fuzine.

Monday afternoon everybody received their small group assignments and then made introductions. Monday night we played a get acquainted game in which we had to find the people who matched certain statements about their backgrounds, things like climbed a mountain over 2500 meters (I had to get a metric conversion for that one) touched a real live snake. Then we did some team building exercises.

On Tuesday morning we went to a mountain park and in our small groups went through a series of challenging teambuilding games. In each one, we quickly realized that trusting each other and working together were absolutely essential to complete the challenges successfully. On the first exercise, my team, as it had been the night before, found it difficult to come together. Everyone had his or her own idea about how to overcome the obstacle. Members of the group broke off into pairs or maybe groups of three and competed for airspace stating their opinions. When the group finally stood in a circle and spoke to the middle of the group we began to make progress. Successfully completing the first task was a real boost to the group’s morale. Each task we undertook after brought us closer and closer together.

We had a couple of members who were deathly afraid of heights. The team members really encouraged them but did not press too hard when they opted out of particularly frightful challenges. The respect between members grew and grew as the day wore on and we completed the tasks. Remember that each group is entirely diverse. Each member comes from a different country or ethnic background. By the end of the day, we were no longer American or Serbian or whatever. We were teammates, maybe even brother and sister. Many of us had faced fears due to the encouragement of our teammates. It was beautiful.

Today we had to interactive presentations. The first, by the director of ROM and my good friend, Tihomir Kukolja, was about role models for leadership. Tihomir began by asking participants to share the names of great leaders that they really respected. We heard the names of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and one or two names that I cannot pronounce or spell. I found it interesting that eastern Europeans offered all the names. Then Tihomir observed that all of the great leaders shared in common things like commitment to the poor, sacrificial leadership, and service to others. He also observed that each one considered Jesus of Nazareth to be a role model.

Later in the morning we began to explore the principles and practices of generative dialogue. I was very gratified by the response to the initial presentation. Later in the day I heard the different groups began to talk about their mental models. I am so glad that the participants are immediately able to practice what we explore about dialogue.

How do I sum up the last three days? Developing friendships. Real determination to renew their minds. Very serious engagement in the action learning activities. Smiles and laughter.

I finished the evening listening to several Bosnians, Kosovars, a Serbian, an American and a German telling jokes at our favorite local bar. The young people are doing their best to build community among former enemies. Keep praying for us as we cross boundaries, face our fears of each other, and seek transcendent identity as human beings created in the image of God.