...through a glass, darkly...

Celebrating the Havdallah in Vukovar

2010-05-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

From our interfaith journey to Macedonia and Croatia.

On Saturday evening we stood together in a circle holding candles flickering in the wind under a starry sky on a weathered wooden pier on the Danube River in the town of Vukovar as Rabbi Steve led us in the Havadallah, the traditional ritual to close of the Sabbath. Together we sang the traditional chorus. Then, holding high a glass of red wine, Steve spoke, in Hebrew and in English, the words of blessing of the wine, invoking the sweetness of the Sabbath.

Then we sang the same chorus with increasing confidence and he spoke the blessing of the spices as he lifted a bowl of spice high. Then we passed the cinnamon from hand to hand, its aroma reminding us again of the goodness of a Sabbath spent with God and loved ones. My heart was warmed by the growing bond with my fellow pilgrims on this journey – Muslim, Christian and Jew.

As Steve blessed the flame, reminding us of the illumination available to us on the Sabbath, I reflected that we were standing literally over the Danube, a mighty timeless river that has witnessed so many joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies all occurring on this same site. I was also touched to be participating in a stream of tradition that flowed back through the centuries for probably 4000 years. I felt for a few moments an intense sense of connection to Jewish families closing the Sabbath by celebrating the Havdallah.

But it was as Steve began to sing the traditional song calling for Elijah to come to usher in the Messianic age of peace and the candles were snuffed out in the glass of wine that a wave of emotion swept over me. I recalled that earlier that day we had learned that there had once been Jews living in Vukovar but after World War II not a single Jew resided there. All were displaced or killed in the Holocaust. Then it hit me, this night, for perhaps the first time in 65 years, the Havdallah was being sung in Vukovar.

Finding Hope in Vukovar

2010-05-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

This has been a day of emotional extremes. This afternoon we visited the memorial to the deaths of 261 wounded men, physicians and hospital staff who were removed from the hospital, after the fall of Vukovar in 1991, taken to a hangar in the country outside of town and systematically tortured and beaten before being executed and pushed into a mass grave.
The hangar where they were tortured and where four of the men were beaten to death has been transformed into a memorial. Photos of each of the men line the walls. They are illumined a few at a time in a seemingly random way and as they go dark others are illumined, reminding us all of how their lives were snuffed out prematurely by their captors. I thought of their pain and the pain of grandparents who would never see their grandsons in this world again, of parents still grieving six years later as the bodies of their sons were exhumed and finally laid to rest, of wives bereft of husbands, of sons and daughters who would never feel the strong arms of their fathers. I left the memorial almost overwhelmed with sadness at the senselessness of such suffering.

And then I thought, will it never end? There have been so many mass graves, so many atrocities, and so much brutality. But I did not contemplate the savagery of human beings as if I could hold myself aloof from such misshapen individuals and peer down at them from a position of superiority.

I know the violence of my own heart too well. The line between good and evil runs not along the boundaries between nations or tribes but down the middle of every human heart. An exaggeration, you say? Well then at least down the middle of this human heart.
I crossed the street from the memorial with arms crossed, head bowed, and eyes fixed firmly on the ground. All I could feel were a deep sadness and sense of near hopelessness. As I stepped onto the sidewalk across the street, I glanced up to look for our bus and saw instead that a field of dirt stretched away for hundreds of meters. I could not help but think “how appropriate” - a barren field across the street from the site of atrocities.

But then as I continued to stare woodenly at the field, I realized that I could see lively green shoots timidly poking up out of that dirt that my own mood had painted as barren. Those signs of life and hope brought to mind the hope filled stories of the morning – stories collected by Srdjan Antic of neighbor helping neighbor survive the war here without regard to their ethnicity.

Srdjan had also shared with us the work that he has done to bring about reconciliation between the rival factions in his society. He told of how his own transformation occurred almost eleven years ago at the ROM Leadership Development and Peace Gathering.

It was at ROM that he met people who did not even ask if he was Serb or Croat. Instead they greeted him with obvious acceptance without regard for his ethnicity. He told of how he went up to his room and turned to his friend and asked, “What is wrong with these people?” As the days passed he realized that they were just fine and it was he that was abnormal. He left ROM three weeks later determined to see others as fellow human beings, deserving of respect. He also began immediately to plan the first projects to bring that renewed mind to others.
Seeing those green shoots reminded me that in the midst of all the misery and pain, there will be hope as long as we commit like Srdjan to not accept the brutality of the status quo but to work to transform cultures of violence into cultures of peace.

Give the Mediators a Break - Call in the Transformers

2009-11-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

I just read Tom Friedman's op-ed in yesterday's NY Times about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (go to http://tinyurl.com/yfsbpqa). I have to agree that Pres. Obama should give all sides his phone number and tell them to call when they are ready to seriously address the material issues standing in the way. Peacemaking research supports the concept of "ripeness" for conflict resolution.

Mediation seldom works unless the parties are ready for the hard work of finding a mutually acceptable solution. Or to put it another way, in this particular instance when enough mothers love their children more than they hate the enemy, peace making mediation efforts have a chance. When that happens, astute leaders of all sides involved will sense the sea change of public opinion and act.

At the same time we must not confuse mediation and dispute resolution with the kind of conflict transformation offered by The Institute for Sustainable Peace. Conflict resolution is about addressing the immediate concerns or issues of the parties. As John Paul Lederach reminds us in “The Little Book of Conflict Transformation,” conflict transformation efforts go beyond resolving current disputes and I would say often precede those efforts. Conflict transformation, undertaken with small groups representative of all factions, can build over time to help create a critical mass of individuals ready for substantive peacemaking among their respective groups or tribes.

Conflict transformation begins with bringing people together to build bridges of understanding and trust. In the process, participants address issues of identity - particularly identity defined in terms of whom we name as our enemies. Dehumanizing stereotypes are transformed and people are able to see each other as human beings with common needs, common sufferings, and common dreams.

Tom, thank you for the good word. President Obama, give them your phone number and let them know that you are ready when they are. And in the meantime, the ISP’s peace rangers and other similar groups will do the long quiet cultivation work of conflict transformation.

09 Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

A good friend recently shared his thoughts on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. He wrote:
“One of the 'issues' that I have wrestled with throughout my life has been the issue of Being and Doing. Our society, in fact most societies, judge or measure people based on what they do... That is how we measure the physical, material, side of our existence. Our society, particularly American society, does not put much weight on our 'Being'.”

“Most religions and many philosophies consider that a person's real value, the person's real measure, is not in the physical or material accomplishments they achieve, but rather in their Being...”

He went on to write that “…Pres. Obama was appropriately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on his Being, which was recognized as a fundamental contribution to World Peace at a time when the nature of so many leaders, particularly those who had gone before him, is too materially focused, and when measured in spiritual or non material terms, were negative to the point of being evil. Or they were simply nothing (Vapid) and had no impact one way or another......”

I confess that when I heard the news, I had not thought about it that way. My immediate response was "he hasn't done enough to merit the Prize yet. Not that he won't, it just hasn't happened yet." My next thought was that the committee is putting pressure on him - giving him something to live up to as President. And recognizing his potential. His potential for “doing.”

My friend is right that we in the rationalist, utilitarian West, and particularly in America, place way too much emphasis on doing. Our sense of individual self-worth is a function of how much we possess or control, how much we accomplish, and our perception of how others value us. And how others value us is dependent on their perception of our “doing” more so than our “being”.

Last night I watched the movie, “Frost/Nixon,” on the long flight to Dubai. In it, as you will recall if you have seen it, former President Nixon calls David Frost one night after over indulging his favorite alcoholic beverage and reveals the essential motivation of his life: to prove to the "Eastern snobs" that he is worthy to be in their company. Nixon tells Frost that they are alike - both from very humble, middle class beginnings, both struggling all their lives to prove their worth, and both fighting to get back into the light. Nixon was desperate for the public to judge him not by Watergate but by his prior accomplishments. What a poignant example of putting all the emphasis on doing and missing the importance of being - what many would call character. And as with Nixon, all too often failures of character or being undermine our doing.

Being and doing are inseparably joined. How can I, or a Nobel Prize committee, perceive the being or character of another apart from his/her doing? Maybe this is what Jesus had in mind when He said "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

There are many, many people in the world who are letting their light shine in that manner. It is likely that President Obama was awarded the Nobel for peace because he is one of those or at least so far appears to be and he is the U.S. President. And as President his quality of being or character can make a huge difference in the world for good or for ill.
Would it be fair to say that your doing, however large or small your sphere of influence, is potentiated by the quality of your being (character)? Which brings me back to where I started when I first heard the news. President Obama was a good choice this year. I would only add to my friend’s analysis that Pres. Obama’s quality of being potentiates his quality of doing. Or to be more honest...I hope so.

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-06T19:49:00.000-07:00

Another 4th of July has come and gone. Well almost. We are having a few friends over in about half an hour to finish out our rather low key celebration of the 4th of July weekend. I needed an excuse to stay out of the kitchen for a few minutes and posting a blog on celebrating the 4th is as good as any. My question is what are we celebrating on the 4th? The official holiday is to commemorate our founding father’s declaring independence from Britain. For sure it is a day for fireworks, speeches, celebration of patriotism, and freedom seems to be a common theme. This is usually the day that we hear and read a lot of people expressing their pride in America and being American.

Let’s explore that last thought a bit. Is pride in America like pride in the tribe or is it something else? A few years ago I had dinner, in Paris, in the home of Xavier Eiffel, great grandson of Gustav Eiffel. In the course of our conversation (all conducted in English, in which he is fluent) the talk turned to nationalism and pride. That conversation gave me yet another opportunity to express my pride in being American. Not that Xavier was being a rude host running down America. But that was the era of “freedom fries” in the Congressional cafeteria.
What I told Xavier and still believe is that America has been and continues to be great. But the greatness does not originate in our economic might. Nor does it find its genesis in our having the most powerful military in the world. Our greatness as a nation is found in universal ideals that were powerfully expressed in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I said to Xavier that I am proud to be part of a country that was not founded on tribalism, ethnicity, or uniformity of religion. The United States of America was founded on principles. Principles that we have not always followed. Equality of all men. Liberty – suspension of habeas corpus periodically when we get so scared that we forget who we are and what we say we stand for. But at least the founding fathers took the time to document principles of universal human rights and responsibilities that were being explored and articulated during the Enlightenment.

Belief in those principles led to the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Get this! The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, four years after the ratification of the Constitution. What governments in the history of the world have willingly, even pro-actively, limited their own power without a coup or the threat of one. Ours did when we adopted those amendments to our Constitution.
But how many of our citizens really understand the principles this country was founded on? The ones that I fear we least understand include: Separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The principle of religious liberty set out in the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The protection against unreasonable searches and seizures: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

I cringe when I hear some of my fellow citizens calling for English to be declared the national language or when my fellow Christians bemoan that we are have left our roots as a Christian nation. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an outspoken follower of Jesus, but I would fight and die for the right of my fellow citizens to have the freedom to choose their own religion and not have my religion forced on them through legislation or presumption. But that is the subject of another blog: practicing what we preach about the free market, including the free marketplace of ideas.

In conclusion, happy 4th of July and God bless America. God help us be even truer to our ideals and principles. Help us to be ever more cognizant that to whom much is given much is required. We have been in the past a shining city on a hill, a symbol of hope for liberty to the oppressed of the world. Let that light shine and remember its source. We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Report: Agitate, Integrate, Co-create - Leadership Development Workshop - May 29-June 7

2009-07-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

We spent the first six days of our recent Leadership Development Workshop, helping 26 leaders from all regions of Sudan “build a relational container strong enough to hold their differences.” Then we spent the better part of our seventh day together putting the strength of that container to the test as we talked directly about an issue that had been haunting the workshop almost from the outset.

The issue? Should southern Sudan, now a semi-autonomous region under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, separate from the rest of Sudan and function as an independent country? I say haunted the conversations because as soon as this question surfaced, the participants would quickly move to submerge it lest the conversations turned ugly.

After all this is a peace project! We have to be nice and polite to each other. It is as if an unwritten rule is passed that to preserve peace we cannot bring up an issue we know will be divisive. Instead of peacemaking, most groups only engage in peace faking. We could not have a serious dialogue about how to build a future of peace without confronting the issue of separation vs. unity head on.

On Friday we did just that but in the most constructive, respectful dialogue that I have ever been part of. Of course when I started the conversation I had no assurance of a good outcome. What we were doing was high risk, but then we knew that. Which is why I thought long and hard about how to make a positive beginning.

What we started with was celebrating the hard work we had already done to build the relational container. I gave the participants the opportunity to affirm their friendships by stating what they had come to appreciate about each other. And they did, in many instances with great specificity, thanking each other and complimenting each others’ strengths.
Next I asked them to name the strengths of the Sudanese people that could be utilized in building sustainable peace. They filled up two pages on the flip chart.

Then we turned to the ultimate question that occupied us for the next several hours. I asked them to talk about their visions for a future of peace for Sudan. That brought out the different positions on unification and separation.

Over a five hour time period, our friends from Sudan used all of the skills and practices introduced earlier in the week. They talked openly and directly about the relative merits of unification and separation and in the process engaged in a level of civil discourse almost unheard of in the world today. They listened so intently and respectfully to each others’ narratives – taking the time to understand the thinking that caused them to take their positions. And they were amazed by what they did.

As one of the SPLM leaders from Sudan put it: "I have never experienced anything like this. When Sudanese come together, these kinds of conversations last at most 30 minutes and end with shouting and even punches being thrown. This was amazing." Not only had they shared deeply about the big issue, they had found real common ground as they named the strengths of the Sudanese people and identified the elements essential to building sustainable peace. They had managed to speak to each other in a way that strengthened the fabric of their fellowship. They even discussed how peace might be built and sustained under either scenario of unification or separation.

Their dialogue opened the door on Saturday for co-visioning and co-creating new practical initiatives for building sustainable peace. One group planned how to get out the vote among the Sudanese Diaspora in the upcoming presidential elections in Sudan. Another group planned the creation of a new school in Ayala, Darfur. Another group, representing all regions of Sudan and including a high ranking SPLM official, planned the opening of a branch office of the Institute for Sustainable Peace in Sudan. They want to be trained to conduct similar workshops all over Sudan.

That night, gathered around a campfire under starry Colorado skies, one by one they stood to bear witness to changes within, real transformation of attitudes toward former enemies, and a commitment to work together across their regional, ethnic and religious differences for sustainable peace. The relational container was built…and when tested... it held.

(For more, see www.2peace.org)

Leadership or Playing to the Mob?

2009-03-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

What a crazy week this has been.

Concerning the House’s passage of a 90% tax on the bonuses of a limited number of people in the Financial Industry, this is a time for reasoned leadership, not playing to “the mob.” Students of Roman history need to be speaking up. Does this not remind you of the final days of the Roman republic when real public servants were so hard to find and the Roman elected officials played to the mob in the forum?

The way Edward Liddy was treated on Capitol Hill is shameful. This is a man called in to lead AIG by the government. He is taking a $1 a year salary. He has no stock options. He is a public servant in every sense of the word. I encourage you to read Mr. Liddy’s op-ed piece in the Washington Post for Wed. March 18. You can find it online by clicking on http://tinyurl.com/cdb8th

Tax policy should never be used as a tool for punishment. As the President pointed out tonight on 60 Minutes, this tax bill would affect at most 10,000 people. Tax bills should reflect a reasoned approach to tax policy that focuses primarily on raising revenue for government operations in the fairest way possible. The internal revenue code should not be a system of rewards and punishments.

I have heard that we get the leaders we deserve. Maybe this is true in a democracy. If so, it is time that we modeled the behavior that we seek from our leaders. Maybe it will begin to resonate.

Time to “run into the roar.”

2009-03-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Steve Barnhill of Edge Creative told me and a group of guys hanging at a friend’s ranch a great story. Steve said that he heard from a man recently here from Africa. I want to share it because it contains some great advice.

Apparently lions love to eat gazelles. But they have to catch them to eat them and gazelles run faster than lions. So the lions have to be smarter.

When a pride of lions finds a herd of gazelles the lionesses fan out and begin slinking in closer and closer to the herd. The gazelles eventually sense their presence and run like hell away from them. What they don’t know is that the oldest, mangiest, weakest, slowest lion has positioned himself (of course he is the male) on the side opposite from the lionesses. As the gazelles bound toward him, he rises to his feet and lets out the biggest roar imaginable. And of course, the gazelles are scared silly by the roar and turn and run right back into the claws and maws of the chasing females. Gazelle is back on the menu ladies.

Had they kept going, they could have easily outrun the old roarer. The indigenous people having observed this Mutual of Omaha life lesson have learned from it. What they say is, “Run into the roar.” Seems to me that it is time for us to do the same.

The bad news roars every day. And we are running silly. Everyone I know is cutting back, hunkering down – in short operating out of fear. Maybe it is time to run into the roar.
We are no less creative, no less imaginative, no less talented, and no less educated than we were just 18 months ago. Time to live creatively and generously. It is time to turn back around and run into the roar.

New Conversations

2008-11-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

We are now 3 ½ weeks post-election. We are living through a historic moment - the kind that will get its own chapter in the history books that our children’s children will be reading and will no doubt be grumbling about due to the length of the homework assignment. By then let’s hope that they will find it hard to grasp the significance because they live in a color blind world where men and women are not judged on the basis of racial stereotypes. Yes, this is a moment of historical significance and it also represents a historical opportunity to create a more civil discourse in our country and in the process come closer to realizing the vision stated by President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

No one I have asked has said that is a bad idea for Democrats and Republicans to reach across the aisle on the floor of the House of Representatives and the floor of the Senate to work collaboratively to solve the very complicated problems facing our nation. Here is a harder question. Are you willing to model that behavior for your elected officials? What I am slowly learning is that legislators, congressmen and even Senators tend to take their cues from us. We are far more powerful than we think.

What if you had the opportunity to sit down and engage in a respectful conversation with other members of your community without first knowing their political positions. Would you do it? Are you willing to do the hard work of suspending judgment while actually listening to a fellow citizen describe his or her thinking about how best to achieve our collective hopes and dreams? Are you willing to relax your grip on certainty for a couple of hours once a month and when someone at the table states a position with which you disagree fight down the urge to tell them they are just plain wrong and instead ask them to tell you more about the thinking they did to arrive at that conclusion?

What if we applied the Golden Rule to our conversations? What if we treated other persons engaged in conversations with us the way we would want to be treated? You already know what that would look like and how that would feel. Don’t you?

My hope and prayer is that many of us will do just that. And then how cool would it be to invite our elected officials to come home periodically and participate in those conversations. Not only would they learn what we are really thinking and saying in our more lucid moments, they might even learn from us how to solve some of the big problems we are facing. And then, they might even decide to follow our example and have similar conversations in Washington. Let’s seize the day and make the most of this opportunity before it fades away.

The Leader As Servant

2008-08-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

Over thirty years ago, Robert Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled "The Leader As Servant" that has had a profound influence throughout the world. Two weeks ago, "the leader as servant" was one of our themes at the ROM 10th Year Celebration in Fuzine, Croatia. From July 13-27, I joined seventy young leaders and speakers/mentors from 16 countries who came together to celebrate the past ten years of the ROM Leadership Development & Peace Gathering and to explore how to contribute to building a more caring society when they return home. Tonight I want to tell you the story of just one of the young leaders that participated.

Since he came to ROM for the first time in the summer of 2005, Gerti Bogdani has been selected to be the official spokesperson for the political party in power in Albania and has been elected as mayor of his borough in Tirana, the capital city of Albania. Last year Gerti obtained donations from several companies and grocers in Tirana with which his office put together over 300 food baskets to distribute to the poorest of the poor in his borough. Unlike prior administrations, they distributed the baskets without regard to the political affiliation of the recipients. Also, unlike his predecessors, Gerti would not permit his staff to contact the local media to cover this service event. I asked him why he would not want some positive publicity. His response was “Jesus said that when you give your alms you should not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.” He went on to explain that it would not be a gift if publicized through the media. It would just be more political manipulation. I realized then that I have a lot to learn from this young leader in his late 20s. As we enter the quadrennial "mean season," let's hope and pray that we have young leaders on the ballot like Gerti that we will be able to recognize and vote into office as we seek to build a more caring society right here at home.

2008-08-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

What a messed up world we live in. A friend recently wrote to me of his sadness on learning of the loss of a friend. Here is the story that he related.

On July 31, Ruediger Noeh died with two other women in a car crash in Chad. He leaves his wife Barbara and 4 and 1 year old daughters. A bus crashed into their jeep in the early morning after the driver lost control of the bus speeding in a curve. Ruediger was a translation expert for Arabic dialects. His vision was to translate the new testament for a huge tribe in Southeast of Chad, close to Darfur. Another who died in the crash was a young lady who was serving as an agriculture expert. She left her University career to serve farmers in Chad and tell them about Jesus. The third one was a young girl - an intern for a year -who just arrived in Chad to serve the team. The last great job Ruediger did was conducting negotiations in Arabic to free a US hostage in Chad on July 24. All were there to serve others - to do good. Our hearts go out to their loved ones.

So much tragedy is caused by the decisions of others - like a bus driver speeding around a curve. When I hear of such a tragedy, my first impulse is to wonder why God would let such a thing happen to such good people. Then I realize that the real responsibility is on us.

We are each one capable of causing so much pain. The wonder is that God can and does cause all things to work for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. As I look through a glass darkly, I confess that most of the time I don't see that good or understand how good can come of it. But we are told that one day we will see Jesus face to face and then we will see more clearly. That hope is one of the things that keeps me going, particularly in times like these.

In the meantime, I choose to join the ranks of those who are working to build a more caring society. I recognize that we will never be able to create a utopia in which all of us are fully conscious of the potential effects of our decisions on others. At the same time, we must try.

We must work towards a time when a critical mass of individuals seek the good of others and not just our own. If the driver of the bus had chosen to do unto others as he would have them do to him, he would have eased up on the gas pedal and the lives of many in both vehicles would be better today.

I continue to be perplexed a majority of the time but I choose to stand firm on the little of goodness that I know. Will you join me there?

Greetings from ROM in Fuzine

2008-07-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

It is almost midnight here in Fuzine, Croatia and we just finished the second full day of this year’s project. This is the 10th meeting of the project, which began in 1999 while shots were still being fired in some parts of the former Yugoslavia. This year’s project is different in its focus. Almost all of the participants have experienced ROM before. They have been invited back to explore together how we can build on the foundation that has been laid and take our efforts to a new level with new initiatives in all of the countries of Southeast Europe.

On Monday morning I had the privilege of helping kick off this year’s workshop. I shared the importance of memories and of erecting memorials to significant experiences. We must remember the transformative experiences of the past for they will often sustain us when we face challenges in the present that could cause us to question our purpose and weaken our commitment to the vision of building sustainable peace. At the same time, dwelling on our memories and institutionalizing the experiences of the past can prevent us from clearly seeing and dealing with the needs of the present.

For the next two weeks while we celebrate the past we must also live in the question. Who am I? What is my work? What must I do to be a change agent for sustainable peace in my home region? What is sustainable peace? Is it merely the absence of violence or is it a positive and more active state of being and doing?

We heard a very clear challenge from Drazen Glavas this morning to become mindful of the mental maps or paradigms that must change if we are to make progress. Drazen held up two puzzle boxes. Most of us use the photograph on the front of the box to guide us as we put the puzzle pieces together. What would happen if we got mixed up and used the photograph on the box top of a puzzle different from the one we are trying to put together? Of course, we would be frustrated because it would be impossible to recreate that photo using the puzzle pieces before us. So what are our options? One option would be to try to change the pieces to make them fit the image. This is what all too many of us do everyday. We try to conform reality to our image of it instead of questioning whether we have the right image or paradigm.
This week we are challenging our paradigms or mental models of “the leader,” personal success and what makes a successful society. We are going to live in the question instead of assuming we already have all the answers. As Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

Tonight we watched the movie, “Freedom Writers.” If you have not seen that movie, it is a true story about Erin Gruwell, a rookie teacher who chose to go to Wilson High School which had been integrated after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Faced with a classroom divided along ethnic lines and violently hostile, Erin challenged the stereotypes of the district administration, faculty at the high school and the students about each other and themselves. Through her efforts, a group of students who were essentially being warehoused until they dropped out found hope and a reason and means to excel.

After the movie, several of our young people, who had obviously been moved, thanked me for showing the movie. I could see in their eyes the realization that if these gang members in LA could make it, they can too. The movie was a fitting end to the day when the theme was motivation or as Drazen titled his talk: Motivaction!

On that new word in my vocabulary, I will say, Goodnight from Croatia.

ROM 2007

2007-08-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

I am reporting again from the ROM 2007 Leadership Development & Peace Gathering in Fuzine, Croatia. Thursday morning of the second week we had the privilege of hearing three modern day heroes tell their stories. In the early ‘90s, as the former Yugoslavia began to unravel and the voices for war and extreme nationalism prevailed, one region in Croatia, Gorsky-Kotar took a different course. Just a few miles away, other communities were torn apart as fighting began breaking out between Serbs and Croats who had lived next door to each other their entire lives. Yet Gorsky-Kotar came to be referred to throughout the Balkans as an Oasis of Peace. Today we would see that appellation as complimentary, but in the 90s it was intended as a phrase of derision.

Josip Horvat, then president of the Gorsky-Kotar regional government, Nada Glad, station manager of Radio Delnice, the regional radio station, and Franjo Starcevic, are ordinary citizens who are quick to reject hero status. They reminded us that in such times, it is warriors who are declared to be heroes. They see themselves as ordinary people who simply chose to do what they felt was right.

To better understand their accomplishments, we must set the local context. Delnice, capital of Gorsky-Kotar, contained a Yugoslavian Army base. As Croatia split itself off from the former Yugoslavia, it had no standing army. The best it could boast was a lightly armed police force. In Gorsky-Kotar, local civilians had only the rifles and pistols used for hunting in the forests. In contrast, the soldiers of the Delnice base were heavily armed. They also controlled and guarded a major munitions depot that contained heavy weapons, ammunition, bombs and artillery shells.

As Croatia declared its independence, the Yugoslavian army soldiers who were not Serbs slipped away from the base and returned to their homes. Eventually, about 150 heavily armed Serb soldiers remained on the base in Delnice. An enemy with superior firepower confronted Horvat and his fellow peacemakers. But this was not the only threat they had to consider.

The munitions warehouses near the center of the town were likely to be targeted for air strikes by the Serb air force to prevent their falling into the hands of the Croats and the army Croatia was likely to form. If they were hit by an air strike, the resulting blast would have the same effect as 20 kilotons of TNT (almost twice the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima). Horvat knew that he had to get the munitions out of the center of Delnice.

Horvat, with the support of his peacemaking confederates initiated talks with the Serb commanders of the army base. Over a period of weeks, Horvat negotiated an agreement by which the soldiers on the base would be given civilian clothes and money for transportation so they could be smuggled out of Croatia. They would be assisted to leave Croatia and smuggled into Serbia to avoid confinement in a POW camp. In return, the soldiers would turn the base and the munitions over to the civilian authority of Gorsky-Kotar led by Horvat. The only alternative for both sides was a fight in which many on both sides were likely to be killed.

Throughout the negotiations, Horvat and his friends had to contend with the acts of extremists on their own side. At one point, a soldier on the base was killed by a Croat sniper. The mayor of the town immediately wrote a letter asking the forgiveness of the soldier’s family. Ms. Glad, manager of Radio Delnice, had the letter read over the radio. The commandant of the base and his soldiers heard the broadcast because they listened everyday to the 4 pm radio show of Radio Delnice to get some idea about what was happening in the community. They later reported that hearing the letter read on air helped to build trust and to lower tensions on the base.

Ultimately, Horvat was successful. The base and the munitions were handed over to the local Croat civilian authority without a shot being fired. The Serb soldiers and their commanders were smuggled out. Upon taking control of the munitions warehouse and military base, Horvat and his peacemakers had to find a way to transport the munitions away from the city. He organized a force of volunteers from the community to load over 100 heavy trucks to transport the munitions to a safer place in the mountains far from Delnice. When the last warehouse was 95% empty the long anticipated air attack came. The resulting blast shattered windows throughout Delnice but no lives were lost and the town was left standing.

Throughout this difficult period Franjo Starcevic played a pivotal role as a peacemaker in the region. Franjo is an elderly gentleman whose gentle spirit and good humor raises the spirits of all who meet him. When I met him, even though we were unable to speak each other’s language, I knew that I had been in the presence of someone close to the heart of God. Franjo, at great personal risk, visited the Serb villages in Gorsky Kotar. Franjo doesn’t drive. In order to visit the villages he had to walk great distances. But maybe that helped. Franjo would walk into a Serb village unarmed and ask to talk to the mayor and anyone else who would listen. His objective was always to open communications, reassure the inhabitants of the village that they had nothing to fear from their Croat neighbors and then formulate plans for maintaining lines of communication. As a result of his visits, the mayors of the Croat and Serb villages communicated regularly throughout the war. If one heard a rumor of an attack on a member of his own ethnic group, rather than believe it and climb the ladder of inference, he would call the mayor of the village purported to be the site of the incident to check out the facts. As a result, many misunderstandings were avoided.

Franjo also made another big contribution during the war. He opened a School of Peace for youth of the region. There, at a time when war fever ruled the Balkans, Franjo and his teachers taught non-violence and conflict resolution skills to their students.

Nada Glad, as station manager of Radio Delnice, the regional radio station, contributed daily to building peace. When other radio stations were playing the kind of martial music that one often hears in time of war, Radio Delnice played music more likely to soothe the soul. Glad refused to give airtime to extremists who would have called for violent expulsion of Serbs whose families had lived in Gorsky-Kotar for generations. One of her tools was humor. When Serb planes were seen flying over, she would report the sighting of some strange silver birds by local bird watchers. At times she had to listen to the rants of extremists who would call the station to complain of the station’s obvious bias for peace.

Eventually Mrs. Glad, who had worked for Radio Delnice for 20 years, was fired as station manager by the nationalist government in retaliation for her peacemaking efforts. But she will quickly tell you that her sacrifice was negligible when compared to the price paid by the Serb commandant and sub-commandant of the army base. Tragically, they were tried before a court martial in Serbia for deserting their post and were sentenced to prison. After four years of imprisonment they were released. Within weeks of his release, the commandment was found dead under very suspicious circumstances.

All of us at ROM 2007 were inspired by the stories of these unsung heroes. As you travel through the Balkans, in village after village, you will find monuments to the heroes of the wars of the 90s. No one has thought to raise a monument to Horvat, Glad, Starcevic or the two Serb commanders who were responsible for saving countless lives in Gorsky-Kotar. But, once again seeking to avoid being placed on pedestals, Horvat, Glad and Starcevic told us that their efforts would have been useless if a critical mass of citizens of Gorsky-Kotar had not also wanted peace. When asked by participants at ROM what led to so many people in Gorsky-Kotar wanting peace, they could only shake their heads and profess not to know. Finally, with a twinkle in his eye, Starcevic said that maybe it is the high altitude of the region. It makes the people a bit closer to the stars or to God.

You know, we spend a lot of time and money researching what went wrong in areas of violent conflict. Seldom do we hear of anyone studying what went right. We intend to have Mr. Horvat’s book, Oasis of Peace, translated into English so the world can hear the story of a community in which a critical mass of leaders and citizens took a stand and worked for peace. We are also seeking funding for a team to conduct a research project in Gorsky-Kotar so we can understand the precursors to peace with the hope that they might be replicated elsewhere.

I had the chance later that morning to tell Mr. Horvat that it was hearing him and his two peacemaking confederates first tell their story in the summer of 2006 that led me to launch the Institute for Sustainable Peace. He was visibly touched upon hearing this. He responded, “That is why we keep telling the story. So others can learn that it is possible to build sustainable peace.”

ROM 2007

2007-08-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

I am reporting from the ROM 2007 Leadership Development & Peace Gathering in Fuzine, Croatia. The most significant thing that I heard said today came from Todd Becker, Ambassador of OSCE to Croatia. Actually it was first said by one of our mutual friends from Sudan, during a conversation with Todd at the Institute for Sustainable Peace’s Leadership Development Workshop in Colorado. Todd asked her for an African perspective on Radical Forgiveness as a means of ending cycles of violence and intractable conflict. Our friend from Sudan said that radical forgiveness is a vital step toward “making whole that which has been rendered asunder.” What caught my attention was the premise inherent in her statement.

That premise makes vivid a fundamental difference between our western materialistic point of view and the worldview of Africans (at least as reported by our friend). The premise inherent in her statement is that all human beings are interconnected. In her view of the world, we form a whole that destructive conflict has torn asunder. Do you see the fundamental difference?

In our western materialism we start from the premise that we are all separate individuals for whom there is no “whole” to be restored post-conflict. This is huge! Somewhere along the way we have lost all conception of our interconnectedness. What are some of the consequences?

Two consequences immediately come to mind. One result of our inability to sense our connectedness is that we see destructive conflict as inevitable and even desirable. If one cannot see his connectedness to another person, whether that person is across the street, on the other side of the city or the other side of the world, it is all to easy to see that person as alien and therefore a threat. We are primed for manipulation by “the powers that be” who often have much to gain from our seeing that person as a less than human enemy to be dominated, vanquished, and even annihilated. As we succumb to that manipulation, we are interlocked with our enemies in a perverse communion of mutual distrust, hate, oppression, victimization and counter-victimization. Our connectedness cannot be broken; it can only be distorted, corrupted, and perverted. Yet there is a remedy. Jesus said that we should love our enemies and seek to do good to them.

Another result of our inability to see our connectedness is that we just do not get that the systems of which we so often complain are not “out there” existing apart from us and impacting our lives from the outside. My African friend’s worldview enables her to understand more easily than I that we are the system and that if the system is to be changed it must begin within me. As Gandhi once said, we must be the change we seek. Or as Jesus once said, we must first get the plank out of our own eye before attempting to pick out the speck in the eye of another. If I want to change the system, I must start inside myself.

Here at ROM 2007 we are working to correct our misapprehensions about our connection to one another. We are affirming our connectedness and working to build sustainable peace by first working to change our own outdated “maps” for navigating relationships. We are creating a safe space where deep transformation can occur, both individually and collectively. We are co-sensing and co-creating a future of sustainable peace.

Reflections on "Leading to A World Without Genocide" Leadership Development Workshop - The Institute for Sustainable Peace

2007-06-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

It may not be possible to put into words an experience that was co-sensed in community at levels other than that of the logic trains of the cerebral cortex. "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal. And I would not mislead, for what we learned together was far from soft and indeterminate. In truth nothing could have been less vague, but I am getting ahead of myself.

We were diverse ethnically (two African-Americans, seven Africans, one Asian, one Hispanic, one Albanian and eleven Caucasians among the participants), diverse nationally (six Sudanese, one Albanian, one Ugandan, two Germans, one Italian, one first generation Mexican-American, and the rest Heinz 57 Variety Americans inclusive of the speakers) and religiously (three Muslims, one Buddhist, several agnostics, one atheist, and followers of Jesus from Roman Catholic and several protestant denominational persuasions). We also represented multiple disciplines (three lawyers, a public health Ph.D., a current Ambassador who specializes in helping emerging democracies build civil society, a former ambassador with a degree and 30+ years experience in international relations and international banking, the founder of a mutual fund company with degrees from Swarthmore, MIT and Harvard, a marriage and family therapist, a bible study leader and mentor of young women, an expert in international relations, a school teacher, several student activists, a Young Life leader, a seminarian, a policing and security consultant and a former United States Senator with a PhD in English Literature who is a national hero in Burundi where he worked daily in his role as US Ambassador to save the lives of hundreds and called the attention of the world to the genocide and survived an assassination attempt for his trouble. And we were cross generational - ranging in age from 17 to 70.

In just ten days we moved from pseudo-community (“How are you? Oh, I am great”) to breakdown in the system (“don’t you get it that the government is the problem and we can never sit down and talk to them”) to reflective dialogue (no, I am not sure I do understand – help me see how you got to this position”) to generative dialogue – co-sensing, co-presencing and co-creating from the future that is emerging, to quote C. Otto Scharmer.

Eleven speakers (plus yours truly) traveled to Estes Park Colorado to spend at least three days/two nights making themselves available for conversations and dialogue with the participants. Several of our speakers invested five and even six days participating in every activity, including a very high ropes course the only exit from which was a zip line, and staying up late for those impromptu life changing conversations.

We also took the opportunity to open ourselves to learn from nature in all its splendor in the Rocky Mountain National Park, even when the conditions were not the most ideal. We took one hike into the mountains where it snowed, the wind gusted at 40 mph and the temperature dropped to 36 degrees. We managed to turn even that hike into an “empathy walk” in which everyone paired off and told each other their “life stories.” Later on another hike, one of our speakers even made his presentation near the highest waterfall in the National Park after a 3-mile hike in.

Each speaker provided key insights on the question we asked over and over again: “What are the qualities and skills the leader of the future must have in order to build sustainable peace?” But perhaps more importantly, each speaker fully embarked on the journey as a co-learner and not as an expert. For it quickly became clear to us all that no one has all the answers on how to build sustainable peace. To the contrary, we realized early in our effort that the complexity of the problems at both micro and global scales are beyond the known (if not worn) solutions of the past and will require a new means of co-sensing and co-creating systemic solutions.

There were multiple breakthroughs, both personal and collective, at the workshop. Among them were:
• Rapprochement among the members present of the Sudanese Diaspora from the north and south of Sudan;
• The creation of a coalition of organizations within the Sudanese Diaspora;
• A decision by our Sudanese participants to have a similar workshop for leaders of the Sudanese Diaspora;
• Commitment by the participants to continue to maintain the intentional action learning community begun at the workshop; and,
• Commitment by most, if not all, of the participants to continue the intense reflective process of suspending mental models, redirecting away from inadequate mental models to newly perceived truths, co-sensing with the eyes of the heart and not just the head the future that seeks to emerge, letting go of our fears and all that would hold us back, opening our will to co-presencing with and connecting to the Source, and co-creating the future of sustainable peace that seeks to emerge.

It is interesting that as we went deeper and deeper it became so natural to talk of the death of the old self and the emergence of a new more authentic Self. Our instrumentalities became an open mind, an open heart and an open will. The people who emerged on June 12 are not the same as those who embarked on June 2.

How are we different? We are quite a bit closer to claiming an identity that transcends nationality, race, ethnicity, and religion.

We are more likely to live in the question than to immediately download our mental models from the hard drives of our minds. We are less likely to re-enact the past – more likely to slow down and sense with the eyes of the heart what the Source seeks to call into existence through us.

We are more likely, having conducted the experiment successfully, to be comfortable in a truly open, free forum of ideas and ideals where no one ideological or religious group controls the conversation and everyone is truly free to speak of their own spirituality and faith traditions. We are far more likely to at least attempt to stand in the shoes of the other instead of succumbing to the voice of judgment and exclusion.

We are far more likely to see ourselves as vital parts of living socio-ecological systems in which we are each part of the problem and therefore also part of the solution.

We are far more likely to arise early each day for prayer or meditation as a centering exercise to maintain our connection to the Source (who many of us name as God or Spirit of Truth and are ok with those that don’t) and do so because we know that only in this way can we co-create, prototype and embody the future of sustainable peace that seeks to be called into existence.

In the words of Gandhi, we realize that we must become the change that we seek. It is not so much that we cannot be the same again. Rather we realize that we must not be the same again for sustainable peace to have a chance.

not just party animals

2007-04-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a bumper sticker on a full size Hummer that nearly ran me down as I was coming off the freeway. The bumper sticker said: “My kid fought in Iraq so your kid could party in college.” I wanted to catch up with her, roll down my window and shout back, “Lady, you don’t know my kid and her friends at all!” I am not saying they haven’t done some partying. (And I bet her kid has too.) What I do firmly believe is that there are huge numbers of kids in my daughter’s generation that do not fit the stereotype in that bumper sticker at all! And I have evidence.

Just a few weeks ago, I spoke at two regional conferences of STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition. I was impressed! STAND is indeed a student activist organization run by students for students. Started two years ago at Georgetown, it has expanded to over 700 chapters across the nation and most recently even the world.

And they don’t just meet together in regional conferences eating pizza and talking about how terrible genocide is. They are doing something about it.

At their regional conferences they teach their members how to effectively lobby their congressmen and senators to vote for anti-genocide legislation. They teach their members about divestment campaigns to put pressure on the governments of countries that are committing or permitting genocide of their own citizens. They teach their members how to write a press release and obtain news coverage of their interventions. And I marveled at the number of students who were willing to sit indoors from early in the morning until late at night learning how to make a difference and then going on to put the new found skills into action.

These kids may or may not party but I know that they are making a difference. Lobbying days with coordinated call-ins to legislative offices. Rallies on and off campus to raise awareness. Giving legislators grades for their support or lack thereof for Darfur related and anti-genocide legislation. Issuing and then publicizing the report cards on legislators and then challenging citizens to let the legislators know what they think of their grades.

And this is just one example of student activism and social action. I know a lot of college kids who this year skipped the mayhem of spring break at the beach resorts and instead took mission trips to less developed countries to work side by side with the poor.

So, I don’t want to hear a lot of criticism of this newest generation of young adults. They are going to put my generation to shame.

...through a glass, darkly...

2007-04-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

...through a glass, darkly...

Recently, in response to an invitation to participate in a Leadership Development Workshop with the theme of "Leading to a World Without Genocide," a young man questioned the efficacy of seeking to build sustainable peace. He quoted Jesus as saying that He did not come to bring peace but a sword. Matt. 10:34-35. He concluded with: "World peace and unity are great, don't get me wrong, but the Bible is very clear that that will never happen until the end times. Sin has such a grip on the world that we are forever cursed into a world of disharmony, violence, war, natural disasters, disease, and famine until the final return of Jesus, and even then there will be much violence as He slays evil in a final war. The peace that Jesus speaks of is an inner-peace that believers share in the face of persecution, trials, and among each other. Instead of seeking after broken wells (world peace), why not seek to preach the gospel with boldness and let that truth be a devisive [sic] issue, for the glory of God?"

My young critic raises an important question and I will attempt at least a partial response. First, I must note that even my young critic recognizes that the peace that Jesus brings is not just an inner-peace in the face of persecution for he also referenced peace "among each other." And he is right about that.

In Ephesians 2 we find: 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Here Paul tells us that Jesus died not only to reconcile us to God but also to each other.

Let's also look at the OT, the Bible that Jesus knew, read and quoted:
Isaiah 59:8 The way of peace they do not know;
there is no justice in their paths.
They have turned them into crooked roads;
no one who walks in them will know peace…

14 So justice is driven back,
and righteousness stands at a distance;
truth has stumbled in the streets,
honesty cannot enter.

15 Truth is nowhere to be found,
and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.
The LORD looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.

16 He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm worked salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him

I have been told that this is the only place in the Bible where it says that God was appalled. I find it significant that it was because NO ONE in Israel was advocating for the oppressed and seeking to correct injustice.

And see Amos 5:7 You who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground
8 (he who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns blackness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the LORD is his name-
9 he flashes destruction on the stronghold
and brings the fortified city to ruin),
10 you hate the one who reproves in court
and despise him who tells the truth.
11 You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.
14 Seek good, not evil,
that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say he is.
15 Hate evil, love good;
maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
on the remnant of Joseph…
21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

And Micah 6:8
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
And then Jesus references the same passage when he jumps the Pharisees. See Matt. 23:23 -
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others."

In his book, Good News About Injustice, Gary Haugen begins his analysis with "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Would you not want someone to seek justice for you if you were the victim?

Jesus also said that we are the salt of the earth. I don't think his definition of saltiness is being very good at only preaching the truth about who Jesus is. Why do I say that? Read Matthew 25:31-46. What does Jesus say about the folks on his right hand who enter into the reward prepared for them? He does not say a word about preaching. He speaks of their meeting the physical and emotional needs of others.

Jesus kind of sums it up for me when he said "Blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called sons of God."

No question that we will not see ultimate peace until the new heaven and a new earth. We live in a fallen world and we will always be struggling against evil. And yet the paradox is that Jesus expects us to keep up the struggle - to do justice and mercy. By this time you should be asking yourself why I seemed to shift so easily from peace to justice and back again. What is sustainable peace? Could it occur where justice and mercy come together and prevail for at least a time?

...glimpses of where God is working...

2006-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

...through a glass, darkly...
Update: Global Institute for Sustainable Peace

For the past several weeks, in my personal study and prayer time, I have been working my way slowly through the “Experiencing God Workbook,” by Henry Blackaby. His major premise is that instead of praying for God to bless our plans, we should pray that God would show us where He is working and how we can join in. About three weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, I read his premise for the umpteenth time and then something Blackaby wrote jumped off the page at me. Too many times we pray for God to show us where He is working and how we can join in but then it as if we close our eyes and ears and miss His response. Blackaby advised that we should pray that prayer and then be alert for the next thing that happens. After reading that I thought, “Well of course.” Why pray for such guidance if I am not going to be looking for it when it comes.

So I did. I asked God to show me where He is working and how I can join in and I committed to be alert for His response. I told Him I particularly wanted to know because I had been cooking on this idea of launching an Institute for Sustainable Peace that would equip young leaders to engage in a collaborative discourse, prevent destructive conflict, and build sustainable peace. But I needed to know if I was just running off half-cocked on my own or could this be related to where God is working.

Then the fun began. All the rest of that Tuesday I began to watch and listen expectantly wondering what form the answer would take. If anything happened during the day, I missed it. But that night my wife and I went to a dinner party at the invitation of some friends who have been very supportive of the idea for the institute. At the dinner I met David Jones, a self-described liberal, who, with his lifelong friend, Gary Polland, a self-described conservative, has a local monthly program on Channel 8 in which they seek to find common political ground. David and I talked and I told him about my work with the ROM peace project in the Balkans and my idea for the Institute. He was intrigued and I was reminded that yes there are other folks out there working on finding common ground.

The next morning (Wednesday) I met with my friend Robins Brice, a lawyer in Houston that I hold in high regard for his commitment to professional and ethical excellence. When Robins heard my idea for the Institute, his advice was that our institute should serve other existing organizations with a mission that aligns well with our own. His thought was that existing organizations already have a constituency and a network for marketing. I immediately thought to myself, “OK, God, I think I saw that one.”

That night my wife and I went to the home of John and Ann Montgomery for a dinner party where we met Pete and Charlotte Berkowitz. Pete is chairman of the board of the Houston Holocaust Museum and Charlotte is a noted author whose work includes a remarkable linguistic analysis of the creation story in Genesis through which she earned her Ph.D. Charlotte spoke of her spiritual renaissance as a result of her study. Pete talked of the work of the Holocaust Museum and particularly the desire to do more to educate people in order to prevent genocide in the future. Once again I found myself saying, “You mean we could potentially serve the Houston Holocaust Museum?” while thinking of Robin’s advice.

Another guest at the dinner party was Rev. Celestin Musekura, a pastor who spends half the year at Dallas Theological Seminary and the other half in his home country, Rwanda. He is CEO of Africa Leadership & Reconciliation Ministry (ALARM), through which he works with hundreds of pastors who lived through the genocide in Rwanda. Celestin moved us with his account of his own experience of forgiving the family members of those who murdered his father and brothers in retaliation for his own reconciliation efforts. This time I found myself saying, “God, it would be such a privilege to serve such a faithful man as Celestin and his organization, ALARM.”

That night I also met a remarkable young man, Mark Hanis. Mark and three other Swarthmore Students, while still undergraduates, decided they had to do something substantive to stop the genocide that has been ongoing in Darfur for years. They created the Genocide Intervention Network. They have raised over $1.5 million to support their efforts sending a large portion of the money to support peacekeeping troops sent by the African Union to Darfur. They have successfully lobbied Congress to push through legislation to address the genocide in Darfur. Partnering with a student organization begun at Georgetown University, STAND (originally Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) they now have 300 university/college chapters and 400 high school chapters. I thought to myself, “OK I’d have to be blind and deaf to miss this one.” As we left the Montgomery’s house, I asked Mark if we would be willing to give me some feedback concerning our institute. He said yes.

We met at Starbucks the next morning (Thursday). For two hours Mark gave me feedback and we brainstormed the concept of bringing young potential leaders to a place like Estes Park Center in the Colorado Rockies for an interactive dialogue project. We would have teachers/mentors who were established leaders like former Senator and Ambassador to Burundi and later Malawi, Bob Krueger: former Ambassador to Uruguay, Christopher Ashby; John Montgomery, successful business man and social capitalist; and Jack Modesett, businessman and current chairman of Christianity Today. Our mentor/teachers would not just fly in for a couple of hours of lecturing and Q & A. They would take the time to invest themselves in relationships with the participants. The participants would be ethnically, racially and religiously diverse. They would learn to collaborate to solve problems through generative dialogue and principled negotiation. They would learn how to organize grass roots movements. And they would have fun in the process. We left Starbucks committed to work together experimentally. I will come to speak at one of the next regional conferences and we will work together to launch the leadership development gathering. By Thursday at noon I was pretty excited. It had been only one and a half days since I had promised God that I would pay attention if He would show me where He is working and how I might join in.

That night I met and then heard Samantha Power speak at a meeting co-sponsored by the Baker Policy Institute, Bridgeway Foundation, and the Houston Holocaust Museum. Samantha Power won the Pulitzer for non-fiction for her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Samantha committed herself to doing something about genocide when she was a journalist reporting from Bosnia during the war and genocide there. As I had her sign books for my daughters Lauren and Mary Katherine, I could not help myself but told her that I would love for her to come to the ROM Leadership Development and Peace Gathering in Croatia and hoped that I might be able to speak to her about it sometime. She said to give her a call. By the way, she is chairperson of the board of directors of Genocide Intervention Network.

On Saturday evening, as I was reporting all this to one of our founding directors, I told him I had to go to a fundraiser for the Zina Garrison Tennis Academy that night. He asked me whom I thought God might bring into my path that night. I brightened up and told him I did not know but I bet there would be somebody. I was kind of hoping it would be former President Bush, because I knew he was to be honored. It wasn’t.

As I looked at the silent auction items at the gala, I was despairing of finding anything to bid on when I came upon a donation by a pianist of two hours of piano playing at the winning bidder’s private party. The pianist had a Ph.D. from Rice and had debuted at Carnegie Hall and in Los Angeles. Her name is Loreta Kovacic and she is from Croatia. I found my wife and told her that I needed to speak to meet Dr. Kovacic. She said it was not a problem and promptly found her friend that had asked Dr. Kovacic to play at the VIP reception and to make the donation. Her friend introduced us and we had a great time visiting about the ROM project in her home country. She ended up sitting with me at dinner. And I was the only bidder for her donation. I can’t wait to have her play at a party to raise support for ROM and our new Institute.

I guess I ought to send Henry Blackaby a note of thanks. Yes, we see through a glass darkly. Yet there are times when God chooses to give us a glimpse of where He is working in the world and how we can join in. we just have to keep our eyes open.

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

2006-08-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

...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.

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

2006-08-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

...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.

...an update on the ROM peace project.

2006-08-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

...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.

2006-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

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.

...through a glass, darkly...

2006-08-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

...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.

...through a glass, darkly...

2006-08-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

...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.

Invitation to Peer Together...Through A Glass, Darkly

2006-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

As I inaugurate this experiment in personal expression, finally joining thousands of bloggers as one who came late to the party, I suppose I should offer some explanation for the name I chose for my blog. One of the signs of the times is that so many are so willing to express their beliefs and opinions with so much conviction that they are in possession of the TRUTH. Our radio and television airways are full of strident voices confidently proclaiming that their conclusions are correct and that all voices to the contrary should be shouted down, drowned out by a cacophony of ideological certitude. “If you are not with us, then you are against us. Others may spout their foolishness, but we will remain pure, our hands firmly covering our ears, able only to hear our own voices frantically filling the ether with our truth.”

We live in the midst of endless debate. We do not seek to persuade but to overpower all opposition with the force of our pronouncements and the bite of our sarcasm. And when these will not do, we vilify and demonize those that we portray as the enemy, those who have the temerity to speak out against our ideas, and therefore against us.

Sadly, many of the most strident, those most caught up in this spirit of advocacy, identify themselves as conservative Christians. Boldly they proclaim the TRUTH, unabashedly telling others how to apply the teachings of Jesus and the rest of the Old and New Testaments to the details of their lives. They do not hesitate to attempt to remove the splinters from so many other eyes, while squinting and peering past the two-by-fours in their own. And there was a time when I took my place among them.

I was so sure when I was thirty that I had all the answers. I was so secure in my doctrinal understanding, so certain of the rightness of my views and the righteousness of my cause, almost I came to believe that any means were justified by my exalted ends.

Now, twenty plus years later, I realize that not only do I not have all of the answers, I have not even begun to learn all of the questions. Which brings me back to the name of my blog.

If it had first appeared on the Internet, I would say that the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is one of the most beautiful blogs ever written. Almost 2000 years later, Paul’s view of love stills slows us down, challenges and inspires us, and raises our hope for a kinder gentler age.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

“Love never fails.”

And when the chapter is read, we usually take a mental time out as the next sentences are read, checking back in at the last verse: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” And then we sagely nod and enjoy the warm feelings engendered for a moment or maybe two and then remind ourselves that this is an ideal that few can reach, maybe a Mother Teresa or a Florence Nightingale and we remind ourselves that we live in a cold, hard competitive world. And miss a pathway to discovery of such a love in our own experience.

For before his summation, Paul reminds us “where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” When will our knowledge become complete? When will we know fully as we are fully known? Not in this life.

Or as the translators commissioned by King James put it, for now we see through a glass, darkly… And I need to be reminded of it each time I come here to record my reactions to the events of our days, to add my thoughts and ruminations to this new tower of Babel that we call the Internet. When I am tempted to criticize the President, lampoon the politicos, and deride the special interests I need to be reminded that all of my knowledge is fragmentary, all of my perspectives limited, all of my ideas influenced, if not completely determined, by the mental models and images imbedded in the hard drive of my brain.

As Mortimer Adler wrote in The Great Ideas, there is Absolute Truth but there is not one of us who can claim to know it absolutely. Not even me. Could St. Paul’s recognition of the limitations on our knowledge be the place of beginning for the generosity of spirit, the graceful consideration, the affirmation of the inherent worthiness of others that Paul attributes to timeless love?

So come to this blog if you want to live in the question, in a spirit of inquiry. Your comments are welcome if you come here willing to voice your own doubts, your own questions, and at the same time, share with this beggar where you have found bread. I wonder how much more we will come to understand if we share what we each see as we peer together through a glass, darkly.