April 2009
Dear Friends,
Yesterday several of us marked the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq by attending a peace and non-violence conference in Contoocook. It was exciting to see the number of young people there, high schoolers who care enough about becoming effective peace activists to devote a Friday night and Saturday morning to learning new skills.
One of the things we leaned was that the Rand Corporation has published a new study that documents the reality that the war on terror is increasing violence, not decreasing it.
Two of the young people volunteered to role play, one taking a pro-war on terror role, and one taking the opposite position. Their conversation did not go well.
“We (the United States) need to show we’re strong.”
“That’s what started it.”
“No, 9-11 started it. They attacked us first.”
“But we’d been violating them for years, exploiting their workers, building up military sales.”
“There’s no way you can talk sense to a terrorist.”
“They need to be heard; we’re being hypocrites.”
“We’re superior to them, besides they all look alike.”
As we debriefed on the quality of the conversation – or lack thereof – one teenager observed, “It all sounds like little kids in the playground.”
In two weeks we will be hosting a non-violent communication workshop here at the church. In preparation, I’ve been listening to a tape of Marshall Rosenberg’s book on the subject. He points out how violent our communications often are; that we are enculturated to communicating in ways that shame, blame, guilt-trip and judge others, making them responsible for our unacknowledged feelings and unmet needs. He offers painstaking examples of how we can learn to listen to the feelings behind the words of another, how we can learn to identify and express our own feelings and needs without blame, shame or judgment.
When we learn to listen to the feelings and needs of others, and to express our own clearly, we build a platform of mutuality on which we can build a strong bridge to understanding and resolutions to conflict that actually meet our needs.
It’s hard to learn a new way to communicate, particularly because it requires that we share our vulnerabilities, and that’s always scary. Still, it seems to me that if we could do this well, we would be rolling away the stones from the tomb of misunderstanding, bringing about a new life of respect and affirmation.
Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mutual respect and affirmation is the change every UU wants to see in the world. The challenge is that it won’t come if we expect it to happen only in everyone else. The challenge is to learn how to be that respect and affirmation ourselves.
In faith, Olivia |
