General News

Holding Tough Dilemmas Together – Part 2

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In my previous post I shared two examples of how a conflict can be transformed by being held together with another as a shared dilemma: what can we do here to respond to both of our needs? Today I want to illustrate with a third example between father and teenage daughter. Sharing Responsibility with a Teenager
Bob, the divorced father of a 15 year old, was struggling with a challenge that involved both his daughter and his ex. When his daughter was with him, she went to sleep late, woke up late, and was often late for school. This threatened her mother’s continued willingness to have her stay with Bob.

Empathy

Holding Tough Dilemmas Together

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No matter what we do and where we are, life always presents us with an unending succession of things to work out with other people. Those range from inconsequentials like going to a Thai or Chinese restaurant with a friend all the way to major differences in values, worldview, or life choices. Whether or not such differences turn into conflicts depends largely on how we face them. We create conflict when we polarize and separate from the other person, because we don’t know how to hold what’s important to us alongside what’s important to the person with whom we have the differences. I derive a great deal of hope and sustenance from the growing evidence I have, through my own life and the many people I have worked with, that conflict is not the only option.

General News

Musings On Empathy

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“The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it.” ~ Simone Weil
An astonishing paradox I witness regularly is how, time and again, we long for others’ presence when we are suffering, and yet when others are suffering we reassure, offer advice, change the topic awkwardly, comfort, sympathize, offer our own experiences – anything but bringing our presence. How can we meet those moments with more presence and be in empathic connection with the other person? Pure Presence
The first step, perhaps, is to release ourselves from the idea that we have to say something.

General News

Redefining Independence

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Yesterday was the 4th of July, a national holiday of independence in the USA. I am drawn to reflecting on the topic, and especially how it plays out in the North American culture within which I live and work. Independence is one of the highest values in this culture. Its two interweaving strands of meaning appear as a rejection of dependence, of being in need of others, at their mercy. Both interfere with conscious interdependence, the practice of collaborating with others to create outcomes that work for more and more people.

General News

Invisible Power and Privilege

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Some months ago I wrote a piece about privilege and needs (part 1 and part 2) where I explored what I see as the root causes of attachment to privilege. Here I want to look again at privilege with a different aim. I want to shed some light on the way privilege operates on a societal level, and how it comes to be so invisible. I also want to speak about the challenges of invisible power relations as they play out within groups. Understanding Privilege
Privilege is a form of invisible power.

Empathy

Arresting Volunteers for Sharing Food with the Hungry is Criminal

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by Keith McHenry The City of Orlando has made over 20 arrests for sharing meals with the hungry at Lake Eola Park. The city limits the group to sharing twice a year per park. Food Not Bombs has been sharing free vegetarian meals and literature in public for over 30 years. While many believe that hunger and poverty is the result of personal failing and the solution can be found by getting closer to God, Food Not Bombs thought the solution could be found in changing public policy, economics and society. With fifty cents of every federal tax dollar going towards the military, no one in the world’s wealthiest country should have to stand in line to eat at a soup kitchen.

Empathy

No Pushing, No Giving Up

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One of the common misconceptions about the practice of Nonviolent Communication is that it’s about being “nice.” It’s probably a similar misconception to that of thinking of nonviolence as passivity. I believe both misconceptions derive from our habit of either/or thinking. Most of us don’t have models for a path that’s neither aggressive nor passive. Within this either/or thinking, if the only two models are imposing on others or giving up on our own needs, many of us will interpret nonviolence as the latter.

Empathy

Telling the Truth to Create Intimacy

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I have a close friend I walk with every week. We have been doing it regularly for about three years now. The walking and the friendship are mutually reinforcing, and as far as I am concerned, this practice could continue indefinitely. So I was shocked when, one evening a few months ago, I got an email letting me know that my friend would be taking a break from walking with me, at least for a while, starting the next day. My friend, let’s call her Nancy, asked to know my response to her message, affirmed her sense of connection with me, explained what the reason for the break was (she needed her energy for some major projects in her life, which made total sense to me), and proposed other ways of staying in touch.

Culture

A Blue/Green Revolution Led by Palestinian and Israeli Youth? Together, They Ken.

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It’s always easier for folks to prove themselves right than to change their minds. Always easier to make a mess than to clean one up. That’s the pessimists’ advantage historically. Nowhere in modern history has this been as true as in the Holy Land. On May 4, I outlined a plausible battle plan for peace focused on this September when the 66th UN General Assembly will vote to recognize Palestine.

General News

Power and Humility – Part 1

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Some time ago I wrote about submission and rebellion, the two poles that we have inherited as traditional responses to another’s power. Today I want to return to this topic from a different angle, which is whether and how we can transform power dynamics, so that the statement that “power corrupts” no longer appears so completely like a truism. Another way of asking this question: what does it take for any of us to become “incorruptible,” meaning being so strong in our inner practice that we can withstand the allure of power? I want to believe that we can operate in a way that diminishes and eventually makes obsolete the responses of submission and rebellion. I am a relatively small fish in the large order of things.