See & Connect

These days I’m thinking about two statements that seem to have become my mottos (1) If we want to create a different world, we have to see and connect differently with our selves, each other and the creative process (2) Social change is a collective creative process. While both these statements were definitely nurtured by my internal personal change journey, I know they also have roots in my experiences as a community mediator.  The second statement emerged when I was writing a paper to prepare for a conversation I facilitated on Spirited Activism (Hosted by The Praxis Project) last month. This statement/motto excites me because it helps reinforce my shift from seeing social change as struggles, battles, fights, winning of hearts and minds to seeing social change as dances, dynamisms, practices, journeys, a watering of seeds, a nurturing of relationships, play, risks, happenstance, intuitive choices, patience, collective power, brilliance, unleashing of potential, animation, active listening, understanding, opening-expanding-connecting hearts and minds.

I am currently reading Walk Out, Walk On. This collection of tales repeatedly reminds me (mind you, these days, most books I read and experiences I have remind me of this one!) that social change requires a shift in consciousness – an expanding of our awareness, of how we understand ourselves and our relation to the world around us.  As my tagline for this See & Connect blog says, I am drawn to the importance of rooting social change in the art of awareness.  

I am writing this post and I’m wanting to tinker with my first two mottos. I’m also wanting to add to them and describe a cycle, the stages of the journey we are taking together. Here is where I am right now – here are five inter-linked beliefs that guide me in my work to contribute to creating a better world – a world (what I mean by ‘better’) where individuals and communities are deeply connected to their selves, each other and our creativity though a beautifully woven tapestry of love, compassion, integrity, authenticity, intuitive wisdom, insight, inspiration and play:

1.     We are all creators and creative – we are all constantly bringing thoughts, beliefs, words, behaviors, material objects, inter and intra personal dynamics into being.

2.     Our relationships, cultures and systems emerge from our individual and collective creative processes.

3.     Who and how we are being during our creative processes defines the nature of our creations and fuels their on-going impact.  

4.     If we want to create a different world, we have to be different –  we have to see and connect differently with our selves, each other and our creative processes.

5.     A crucial step in changing who and how we are being and what we are bringing into being is to expand our individual and collective awareness and insight – to expand our consciousness.

What ties these five beliefs together for me is spirit – which literally means breath.  What are we breathing into/giving life to in our selves and the world around us? Are we giving life to and growing greed, defensiveness, competitiveness, hoarding, insecurity, disconnect, rage and adversarial positioning?  Or are we giving life to and growing collaboration, sharing, connection, compassion, and unity? What spirit – life force – are we connected to, and creating from, within our selves?

Who and how are you being in the world? What spirit – life force – do you bring to your different communities –  Your family? Your friends? Your workplace? Your sports league?  Your house of worship?  

What spirit do you bring to your relationship with your self?

Wow. So much I want to write about this week. Since my last post, I spent a week in the Bay (San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland – California).  While there, I facilitated a conversation – courtesy of The Praxis Project – on Spirited Activism. I also spent time at Casa de Paz in Fruitvale, Oakland. And I went to and Ecstatic Dance session as well as a class with a Dancing Freedom group.  All these experiences were very rich/enriching, expanding and grounding. Yet, I’m inclined today to write about a dance I had a few days ago – after returning from California. This dance was one of those dances that arises and passes in the course of daily life. It is a dance with the rhythms of love, compassion, forgiveness, security, anger, frustration, authority, authenticity. I say that I ‘had’ it, but really I think I am in this dance day in-day out. Sometimes, I find this dance tiring and confusing. Sometimes, I find it totally liberating.

This summer, I have been re-connecting with an old friend. I’ll call her Janet. The other day we were in a group talking about mundane stuff and she got snarky. She made a slightly sarcastic comment and just said things that I felt were a little bit harsh to our friend Andy.  I reacted to this with feelings of irritation and anger. Had I allowed these feelings to manifest in words, I would have been snarky back. In previous conversations, I have done just that – created a snark-fest. This time, I kept quiet. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t open my mouth until the feelings had subsided, moved through me. Even then, I didn’t comment on the snarkiness. I did, however, talk about it later with a mutual friend. Sally pointed out that Janet was kind of just dishing out what Andy has given to her in the past. I nodded somewhat in agreement – with recollections of Andy’s own snarkiness. But I also said to Sally – “Well, then, you would think that knowing what it is like to be on the receiving end of such comments, she wouldn’t want to do that to people – even Andy.” Sally’s response: “Yeh, I guess so, but you know what people are like. And you know, Janet’s carrying a lot of stuff – who can blame her?”

Indeed.

Later, as I was walking, I was reflecting on the incident and felt a wave of sadness flow through me.

I recently learned that Janet was a victim of child abuse.  She’s thirty-eight years old and, until last year, had never told anyone about the abuse. I was thinking about this. The sadness that flowed through me was sadness for that wounded little girl who is very alive in Janet. It was sadness for the adult who is carrying much pain and rage. It is sadness for a lost childhood that turned into an adulthood full of much struggle and anguish. It is sadness for person who – as a child – disconnected from her emotions in order to prevent herself (presumably) from being overwhelmed by them. 

I found myself thinking that snarkiness is Janet’s learned behavior – part of a web of defense mechanisms borne out of the abuse she experienced as a child. Does it make it right/give her permission to be snarky? No. And nor does her behavior give me the right to be snarky – to reflect back at her what she is putting out into the world. I thought to myself that if I react with anger and frustration to her when she gets snarky, I am – in some ways – perpetuating the abuse.  I’m feeding the demons that live with her and push her to be snarky – demons that were created when she was a child. I thought to myself: if I were to meet a child who I knew was being abused or had been abused, would I get mad at them for acting out in certain ways, for being defensive and a bit aggressive? No, I wouldn’t.

I would want to show that child love and compassion, wouldn’t I? 

What if, I wondered, I responded to Janet the adult – snarkiness and all – with the love and compassion I would be inclined to give a child?

A lot of questions arose with this pondering. How do I balance setting boundaries and challenging snarkiness with expressing tenderness, understanding and forgiveness? And thinking about the situation with Andy, I wondered: Who am I to decide that someone is being inappropriate in their behavior towards someone else? Are people not allowed to express their anger towards other people? If I feel uncomfortable with how someone is expressing their anger do I really have a right to say something? Isn’t that censoring them/their expression?

The incident had different layers to it – for example, Janet’s tensions with Andy and his treatment of her over the years, as well as Janet’s childhood history. To me, these layers also raise questions about responsibility – when and how do we draw lines? It isn’t healthy or constructive for people to spend their whole lives acting out the wounds of their childhood. When is it okay to say ‘enough is enough’ to someone and call them out on their destructive behaviors, their past experiences notwithstanding? Take Janet – she’s only just coming to terms with what happened to her as a child? What is a realistic time frame to expect her to ‘let go’ of the past. How do we be firm while also empathizing with each other (regardless of whether or not we know what is driving someone’s behavior – because often times we do not).

I’m sharing these reflections here, in this space, because I think that in social activism – as changemakers – we are often in analogous situations professionally. I am wondering: How do we decide when it is appropriate to stand up for others – to call people out on their behavior towards someone else? Is it always appropriate – because we have an obligation to protect one another? Or is it sometimes none of my/our business? Whether we want to challenge someone’s behavior towards others our toward ourselves, how do we balance such boundary setting/standing up with compassion and forgiveness?

Such questions, it seems to me, flow into wider reflections (and more questions!) about what we mean by, need from and aspire to when it comes to justice, reconciliation, conflict resolution, authenticity and integrity – and not just in social activism, but in our all our relations.

After writing the above and then stepping away to do something else, I’ve just come back to these words. And it strikes me that really what I am writing about is a form of dancing freedom. Because what I think I’m grappling with – if I distil it down – is how we free ourselves and each other from cycles of abuse and violence – that manifest in obvious and subtle forms. We move with and feel the rhythms of  love, compassion, forgiveness, security, anger, frustration, authority, authenticity. What does such movement look like? Feel like? How can we manifest all of these energies/qualities in ways that are nurturing and healing?

How do you determine when you our going to challenge someone’s behavior? What do you do to connect with the different – sometimes seemingly contradictory – rhythms involved? What is your attitude towards forgiveness? How do you set your boundaries? What do you fear most about this dance?

This week, I’m thinking a lot about authenticity. My focus on this word first emerged when I was talking with a friend – a fellow awakening consciousness activist. Darci is organizing a fundraiser in November for Challenge Denver. The event will center around their anti-bullying work. When I was talking with Darci, I asked her “What do you aspire to for this event. By ‘aspire’ I meant what life affirming qualities and energies does she want to give rise to/breathe into the event?  Together, we considered compassion, forgiveness, love and authenticity. Why authenticity? Because bullying often manifests insecurity – people being uncomfortable with who they are. The reaction to such discomfort is to be aggressive towards others – undermining others in their attempts to be who they are. Having worked twenty years in social change, I don’t recall that I have often heard the word authenticity. This is a shame – because social change is a creative process and being authentic is crucial to expanding our collective creative potential.   

My focus on authenticity deepened a few days after I talked with Darci, when I had a reunion with my junior high Language Arts teacher, Mary Ann Leigh (please do check out her website – she now makes beautiful pottery). Mrs Leigh told me a story of how in her final year of teaching this class – which she taught for ten years – she asked her students each to write for her a letter telling how they experienced the class. Each letter, in one form or another, said to her that what students really loved about the class was the way that it encouraged each student to “Be who I am.” As you can perhaps imagine, when she told me this story, I bounced up and down in my seat and squealed: “Of course – Authenticity!”

A few days after talking with Mrs Leigh, I was talking with Christian David Flores-Carignan who works for Rebellious Truths out in Southern California. Last month, in collaboration with World in Conversation Project, they held a Sounds of Truth Festival (which I intend to write about soon). As Christian and I talked, I mentioned authenticity. I was saying how I’m increasingly seeing that an important dimension of being Spirited is being authentic. And, of course, the more authentic we are as individuals, the more expansive our collective creative potential becomes – assuming we respect, value, embrace one another’s authenticity.

At some point I said to Christian “You know – that’s the thing here in the US. We talk about being the land of the free, the brave, the land of the INDIVIDUAL.  But the cult of individualism here in the US shouldn’t be confused for an endorsement of authenticity. We love conformity, which is at odds with authenticity, no? I am fully aware I’m making sweeping statements here – the US is diverse and we have all sorts hugely creative, vibrant communities and individuals scattered across the country doing their own thing – trying to live authentically. But I think it is fair enough to suggest that generally we are a pretty conservative culture that discourages true individuality. Instead, it promotes individualism, which tends to mean ‘being out for yourself’, looking out for number one, getting ahead of the Joneses – rather than meaning be the unique human being you are.

And what do I mean by authenticity? I mean being true to your Spirit – but that doesn’t really clarify, does it? Authenticity has origins in Greek authentikos –  “one acting on onte’s own authority.” I love this definition – it means if I am being authentic, I’m writing the script that I am following – not using a script written by someone else, not going by a sense of how I think I should be acting. If we are acting from our own authority, we are consciously manifesting our truth- our Spirit – through our actions and in distinct ways. We are also being respons-able (rather than re-active – behaving compulsively, without consciousness). In this way, authenticity – for me – is intrinsically a life-affirming and energizing quality.  

We claim that the United States is a country where you write your own destiny – but how attuned are we really to being authentic? Growing up in the seventies and eighties (notwithstanding having Mrs Leigh as a teacher) “Be all that you can be” was something I associated with an ad slogan for the US military – with regiment and conformity!  And certainly, I felt that I was often receiving the message:  “Don’t be the unique human being you are, at least not if it is going to interfere with your success. Be who you are means do what it takes to SUCCEED – to gain material wealth and social status.” 

Bullies get created when people feel uncomfortable with who they are – when they feel insecure. Bullying reflects a lack of courage. Bullying creates prisons – for those being bullied and those doing the bullying. 

In this land of the free and brave, what is the role of authenticity in our culture?  How much more free and how much more brave might we be if we became more committed to growing a culture of authenticity? What kind of collective creative potential could we have – could any community (large or small) have, if it/they/we embraced authenticity for the life-affirming, energizing quality that it is?

How authentic are you in your life? How authentic are you in your social change activism? What would it take for you to live more authentically? What would be the advantages be of living a more authentic life?  

I regularly exchange letters with Olivia Sprinkel about our intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual journeying. Recently, my correspondence with her collided with work I’m doing to develop a concept of Spirited Activism. The resulting ‘bang’ made me jump. This is one of those posts I’m writing as I bounce a bit in my seat. As I think the thoughts I’m thinking, I feel energized. I feel excited because I have a sense that I’ve just gone one level deeper into my understanding of Gandhi’s dictum: Be the change we want to see in the world.

Firstly, I now realize that Spirited Activism is emerging for me as a concept rooted in an assumption: social change is a collective creative process. I shouldn’t be surprised to realize I have this assumption. After all, a guiding motto for me is: “If we want to create a different world, we need to relate to our selves, each other and the creative process differently.”

Secondly, I have clarity that social change comes not from winning hearts and minds, but from opening, expanding and connecting them in ways that create internal shifts/transformations. In turn, through the creative process, this internal movement drives external shifts/transformations.

Thirdly, I now more firmly sense the importance of understanding that being precedes doing. Who/how we are being in the world determines what we do in the world, our actions, our creativity. If we are being hateful, insecure, disconnected, reactionary our creations, e.g. social, economic and political systems, institutions, policies, relationships will reflect and perpetuate this way of being. Equally, if we are being Spirited – which I take to mean loving, compassionate, fueled by integrity and wisdom (the intuitive kind), our creations will reflect this way of being. I have no doubt that the latter way of being is what will enable us to heal, create and live together in greater harmony with each other and the earth.

What does all this mean in practice?

The way I’ve started looking at it is to work with the dictum directly. For example, what does it mean to ‘be the change’ if the change we want to create is fewer prisons. We can’t be fewer prisons, can we? It doesn’t really mean anything, does it? At least not when put that way. It does come to mean something when we distill what wanting fewer prisons reflects – says about who/how we want to be. The ‘fewer prisons’ outcome has its roots in forgiveness and compassion. It reflects a desire to nurture human potential and to be optimistic about human nature – doesn’t it? So, being the change with regards to this issue really means being more forgiving, compassionate, optimistic and nurturing. Manifesting these qualities, we are likely to be able to come together and create alternatives to prisons and our hyper-punitive, Spirit-crushing justice system.

Some people are doing this – for example, by advocating for practices such as restorative justice. I’d like to see more of us advocating for the alternatives to prisons. Again – what does this mean? The change I’m saying I want to see is: ‘more of us advocating for alternatives to prisons.” How do I go about being that change? I know that if I thought about making or advocating for that change, I would be inclined to try and persuade people of the value of restorative justice. I might make the case for it socially and economically.

But what about if I am being that change? If I distil it, the change I want to see has many dimensions. It is about changing how I understand punishment and justice. It is about – as said – being more forgiving, compassionate, optimistic and nurturing. Thus being the change means that I must consider how I approach to punishment and justice in my own life. It means being restorative. It is means being more compassionate, forgiving and nurturing in my own life, including in what I put into the world – in everything that I create (from relationships, to ideas, to projects to campaigns etc).

By doing so, by being the change, I start to influence how others are being. I start to open, expand and connect hearts and minds with a particular kind of spirit. I also open myself up to new forms of creativity, as I relate differently to the world around me – I will see creative opportunities I previously could not have imagined. I write all this, thinking “Okay, I’m repeating myself here.” Whether it is fewer prisons or more people advocating for alternatives, I’m saying that being the change means me opening, expanding and connecting my heart and mind.

You might be, at this stage, wondering: “What’s her point in relation to social change and the creative process? My point is I’d like to see us be guided by the question: “How do we become catalysts for internal shifts in ourselves and in others that then influence, re-direct individual and collective creative processes?

As ever, more questions follow: “What if we approached – as is already being done around the world in many different ways (large and small) – social change as an unfolding, emergent creative process? And what if we accept that a crucial dimension of this process is awareness of how/who we are being while we are creating?” We can observe and ask ourselves: “Are we being fearful and coming from place of lack and loss? Are we being adversarial and disconnected from one another? What assumptions guide our behaviors? Are we being self-serving? Are we being cynical or optimistic? Are we being spiteful and vindictive? Are we being judgmental? Are we being compassionate? Are we seeking to bring out or crush the Spirit in each other?”

The world we create reflects who/how we are being. In the US, we’ve created a country full of prisons – we have 2.2 million people imprisoned! It might sound cliché, but let’s face it – it isn’t just the people in jail who are imprisoned. This mass incarceration reflects that we are being distrustful, cynical, pessimistic about human nature, dis-compassionate and unforgiving. I have no doubt that being this way is harmful in subtle and obvious ways, at the individual and collective level. If this isn’t who we want to be, who we think we are, then the main issue is we are being passive. After all, we aren’t coming together in droves to reject the mass incarceration endorsed by politicians who are scare-mongering and corporations that are profiteering. We aren’t coming together in droves to create alternatives.

Is this really who/how we want to be? Not me. Is this who/how you want to be?

Our creative collective process is way too constrained and constraining. Yet another question arises: “How do you think we expand it – how do we open up the possibility of our collective creative process?” My response to this question brings me back to the repeat theme here – We open up the possibility by shifting who/how we are being – the emotions, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions fuelling our creativity. We open up the possibility by expanding our consciousness. 

In turn, I repeat a question I posed earlier: “How do we each become catalysts for internal shifts in people that then influence, re-direct individual and collective creative processes?   

Last week, I posted on this subject – and unfortunately, the post has somehow become corrupted. Sadly, this was one of those times I didn’t have the text saved in word! Will be time soon, in any event, for a new post in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I’m inclined – in the name of expediency – to draw your attention to a lesson one social activist recently shared with me, and which I had shared in the original post: “The key to creating positive working relationships – especially in a high-pressured, emotive and challenging work environment – is that I have to love everyone. Really love everyone. Because if it isn’t real, people know.”

And I put to you the question: “What does it mean to love everyone and in what ways can you – particularly as a social activist – strengthen your practice of loving everyone?”

Last week I wrote about violence in inner-city Chicago. I repeatedly posed the question: “Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence plagued communities?”  This question plagued me back in March after seeing segments from The Interrupters for the first time. In May, I watched the film in its entirety – just over a month after a really intense therapeutic eight day workshop (The Hoffman Process). I watched it in a fairly awakened state – very aware of my own vulnerabilities and the behavior patterns that have created struggle throughout my life. The first time I watched the film, I was nudged to wonder about how people in surrounding areas reacted and responded (or not) to the violence.  The second time, by the end of the film, I was completely absorbed by a powerful sense that reduces down to: I am they.

 I mentioned last week that I imagine the majority of people like me  – meaning people not living in an inner-city violence-plagued community – think of the people that do live in such communities as ‘them’ or ‘they’ over there. The violence problem is ‘their’s’ taking place in their community. After seeing the film the first time, sensing this is probably how things are, I was frustrated. The second time, it’s like I went deeper. It’s what I think of as the difference between having intellectual understanding and experiential knowing. That is, the first time round, I was intellectually playing with the significance of breaking down ‘us and them’ ways of living together in the world. The second time I saw the film,  I viscerally – dare I say, soulfully –  felt the breaking down of the ‘us and them’ divide. 

I watched and listened to the emotions and beliefs being expressed and manifest by various people in the film. I repeatedly kept noticing that – despite our radically different lives – I had a lot in common with the people in the film – I felt it. I understand it in my heart, for example, when the CeaseFire staffer Ameena says there was “always something inside me that was constantly saying that I have to do better…I just knew.” I understand it in my heart when Ameena asks a young woman (whose name I don’t want to spell incorrectly, so I’m not using it) “Do you deserved to be loved?” and the young woman says “No.” 

I understand that ‘No.”  

I know I have not come even close to experiencing what residents of Englewood (the neighborhood depicted in the film) have experienced in terms of violence. I have never been close to living in a war zone type environment. Yet, in listening to these people talk about the emotions and beliefs alive within them, I empathize. I feel connection.

I feel compassion.

When I watched The Interrupters a second time, I felt a slightly sick in my stomach while I thought “This can’t be right. I have been to a place of deep pain and to a place of ferocious rage – both of which I can simply describe as hell. The pain I saw inklings of in the film is no doubt stronger, the rage more ferocious than what I’ve experienced – a deeper hell – and it just isn’t right that anyone should live through this or if they live through it that they have to struggle alone and isolated, as individuals or as a group.”

I’m no expert on urban violence or gun crime or policing or gangs. The only thing I truly feel I have expertise in is my own life.  I am wondering if ending cycles of violence in a community is similar to ending it a single individual – and actually it is done individual by individual, isn’t it? Based on my own experience, I’m thinking we address violence by working with changing behavior patterns rooted in beliefs, attitudes assumptions about self and the world around us. We work with the present and past. We work with intellect, emotions and body. We work to help one another to reclaim what I think of as the Spirit of who we are – loving, compassionate, wise and creative. We work with all sorts of tools, e.g., sport, meditation, talking therapy, movement, art, to support each other with awareness, expression, release, forgiveness and inner change. We work with love.

For anyone reading this in the UK, this might sound like the beginnings of a  ‘Hug-a- Hoodie’ agenda –  you may remember that this was political soundbite used by Labour to deride David Cameron back in 2006.  I’m certainly not advocating a ‘Hug a gang member’ campaign. What Cameron was trying to point to was the human being underneath the ‘hoodie’ and behind the label of ‘gang member.’ Similarly, the Chicago CeaseFire team seems clear on the idea that violence comes down to relationships between people (inter-personal) and the relationships people have with their selves (intra-personal).  The violence we see in urban areas ultimately is people being people – it is one way of expressing anger, pain and rage, responding to feeling vulnerable and threatened.

We are talking about relationships people have with their selves and with each other – intra and inter.

As ever, I’ve got questions – which apply to both inter and intra-personal dynamics: What kind of relationships support people to leave gangs? What kind of relationships keep people from joining gangs them in the first place? What kind of relationships support people to respond consciously to anger and pain, rather than compulsively react. 

As said before, I am in awe of the work CeaseFire is doing in Chicago and glad the model is spreading to other cities. I value Dr Gary Slutkin’s influence in getting policymakers to think of violence as a public health issue – a disease – and his ongoing scientific work in this area. Nevertheless, I’m inclined to think violence is the symptom. The disease is disconnect from our own humanity. I’ve experienced that disconnect in my own life – and in that disconnected state when I felt pain, when I felt anger and rage – I reacted over and over again in destructive ways. 

Which brings me back to my main point. In my anger did I pick up a gun or any sort of physical weapon to harm other people? No. I tended to stick to harmful words and emotionally malicious behaviors against myself and others – though once (I’ll be honest) I was in a situation where I came very close to getting seriously physically violent towards another human being – for a split second I had that urge to lash out and do physical harm (I’ll never forget it). I’m inclined to think that if had grown up in a different environment with the same emotional issues that have plagued me and these were combined with my innate people and organizing abilities – I would have joined a gang or even set one up myself. I would have become a gang leader – if not the leader (I am often a behinds the scenes kind of person), the deputy.

I am they.

I don’t know what concretely follows from what seems like a big shift in the way I look at urban violence: I am the same as the people who are committing the acts of violence. We are similar in ways that are core to our shared humanity.  

My first instinct is to share the experience of going through the shift – which is what I’m doing in conversations and in this post. What happens next, I don’t know. Though, today I came across the work of Jorja Leap and I now feel a little less alone with this experience. A little less kooky for thinking and feeling what I’m thinking and feeling – and now sharing.  I’m very excited to read her book that came out in the Spring: Jumped In. I’ve seen two different video clips of her speaking about her experiences of working closely with gangs for three decades and it seems – much more deeply, no doubt – she has had a similar experience to me, has jumped and landed in a similar place: I am they. 

When I first talked about this shift with a colleague and friend, his response was: “So what? It’s like when a preacher goes to a country full of starving people and says to them ‘We are all one.’ What does that wisdom or recognition have to do with ending their starvation?”

He’s got a point. 

What do you think is the significance of this breaking down of the ‘us and them’ way of experiencing the world? In what ways have you experienced such a breaking down? How does it help us create a better world? Specifically, how might it helps us eradicate violence in our communities? 

The nation is shocked and horrified by the recent random shooting in a Colorado cinema that left dozens of people dead and nearly sixty people injured. My sympathies go out to their families and friends. I’m also deeply sorry for us as a nation. I am sorry that we live amidst violence – daily. I’m currently based in the north suburbs of Chicago (where I grew up). Chicago news headlines frequently shout out about inner-city violence, particularly shootings. Today’s Chicago Tribune front page headline (print copy) read: “Deadly Reversal of Fortune” followed by, “Killings in a swath of the Southwest Side dropped dramatically last year; this year they’re up by 156%.” The other morning (23 July), a headline read “6 hurt in overnight shootings across the city.” The article explains that the previous weekend dozens had been wounded and seven people killed in gun crime. A spring 2011 NPR documentary reported that in summer 2010, over 700 children were hit by gunfire in Chicago, an average of almost two a day. Sixty-six of them died.  I’m wondering: “Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence-plagued communities?

 I know, I know – the Mayor is working with the police and organizations like CeaseFire to try and stop the violence (CeaseFire, by the way, is struggling with insufficient funding). I could write dozens of posts on the difficulties of such partnerships. But this isn’t what is on my mind. 

Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence-plagued communities? 

People do care. I know they do. People who have lost family and friends care a lot about this issue. People who live in these neighborhoods take action to show they care, like Bruce Wilson – see Dawn Turner Price’s recent Chicago Tribune article about him). People from outside these neighborhoods care – people who want to do something to provide equal opportunities for children and communities that we tend to call disadvantaged or in-need. In fact, one day last week I found out the mother of a friend – from the suburb where I grew up – is involved with an organization that supports Catholic schools in inner-city Chicago’s disadvantaged neighborhoods. Two days later, I met a young man who is a volunteer with that same organization: Big Shoulders Fund. 

Hats off to all these people – to the people who are taking time and giving energy to supporting people, of any age, to survive in these urban war zones. Respect and gratitude. Yet, I keep coming back to this question: 

Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence-plagued communities?

Here’s how I arrived at this question.

In the last six months, I’ve seen the film The Interrupters twice. This documentary is about CeaseFire and its work to mitigate and mediate violent conflict in Englewood, a Chicago neighborhood. I saw this film first with my Common Ground colleagues in London, where I’ve been living for the last seventeen years.  We are community mediators and we took one of our film nights to talk about this documentary. Watching it in London, I wanted to know “Who lives around this violence-plagued community in Englewood?” I’m ignorant about it; I’ve never been there. I don’t know the lay of the land. I wondered about the area surrounding the streets depicted in the film – how mixed up is it? Are there, for example, pockets of thriving, safe, perhaps more middle class neighborhoods nearby? If so, how do people in nearby neighborhoods relate to residents most directly affected by the violence? How do people in other parts of Chicago relate to residents from Englewood’s violent streets? How do they react and respond (two different dynamics) to the violence? Are people in the surrounding areas thinking “God, I hope this doesn’t come to us” and then quietly praying? Are they watching it on the news and going “Those poor people, how horrible” and then forgetting about it, until the next headline? Are they hearing about it and asking “Why can’t the police do something?”

These feel like fairly conventional wonderings. And with them I was more or less assuming that the majority of us  – we who are not from these communities – tend to think of the violence as a problem for those people (I’d love to be challenged on this, proven wrong), for their communities.

Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence-plagued communities?

I also had some thoughts/questions that felt less conventional: Do people from nearby visit the bereaved families? Bring them food? Express sympathies?  Make sure funeral expenses can get covered? Do people from outside the immediate area ask about dependents left behind who will need support, emotionally and materially? Now that I think about it, these are probably silly questions. After all, in the surrounding areas, people might not even know about a death unless it is reported in the paper.

I’m guessing that, except for those volunteers with organizations such as Big Shoulders Fund and CeaseFire, except for teachers, social workers, and other such public service figures, the vast majority of Chicagoans and those of us in the outlying suburbs do not feel very connected with Englewood residents and their struggle (again, I’d love to be challenged on this, proven wrong).  We see a headline, we shake our heads, we get on with life. We forget about the violence until we see the next headline. Repeat. I shouldn’t be surprised. Strangers tend not to get involved in strangers’ business. Especially when guns are involved.

But people are getting shot. Daily. People are dying – in one district, there were 23 homicides in the period from 1 January – 15 July 2012. I find myself thinking that maybe we – the people of Chicago writ large – should be getting more involved. 

Why don’t we care more about what’s going on our violence-plagued communities?

That first time when I saw The Interrupters, I asked a fellow mediator, “Shouldn’t we feel it when someone in Englewood dies from a gunshot – shouldn’t we feel as though our own father/son/child/brother has been killed?” I wondered: “Are we just numb?” “Is it just that we don’t think we have any power to do anything?”  More questions: “What is our responsibility – we who are not living in Englewood but are nearby – in ending the cycles of violence? What are the various roles to be played? What if we – fellow Chicagoans (if you will allow me, a suburbanite, to think of myself that way) – felt a stronger kinship, a connection with the people of Englewood? Would we be out there in droves demanding change via peace demonstrations or via a range of concrete, sustainable actions which support Englewood residents to create a healthy and safe community?”  

Dr Gary Slutkin, who founded CeaseFire, takes the perspective that violence is like a disease.  The CeaseFire method is based on this premise, with an aim to try and stop the spread of the disease (watch The Interrupters!).  While I admire the work Dr Slutkin is doing (including his more recent activity in looking at violence and brain processes –  see this article by Chicago Tribune journalist, Dawn Turner Price), I look at the situation and think:  “Isn’t violence a symptom of a disease rather than the disease itself? And isn’t our illness that too many of us are disconnected from each other and from our shared humanity?  Aren’t we who read the headlines, shake our heads and then forget about what’s happening down the road – and not just the people who pull the triggers –  plagued by disease? After all, one definition of disease is: a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people.   Isn’t our habit of distancing ourselves from the people most directly impacted by the violence playing a role in perpetuating it? 

One or two children shot everyday in Chicago (back in 2010 – and I’m guessing this hasn’t changed all that much, judging by recent headlines).  

Why don’t we care more about what’s going on in our violence-plagued communities?

A couple of months later, I watched the film a second time. I had a different – but related – reaction. New questions arose, but that’s for another post…

Last night,  a friend was talking about an exchange he had with his wife. He concluded: “Well, I just wanted to keep the peace, so I didn’t say anything.” Who doesn’t want peace? Actually, a lot of people don’t want peace and I’m sure you’ve met them. They are the flip-side of my friend who strives to keep the peace. They are the people who always seem to be catalysts for conflict. I see the conflict catalysts and my friend as being on opposite ends of a spectrum. I used to be wired to lean more towards being a conflict catalyst. Now a practicing mediator, I strive to resolve conflict. But I don’t think I’ve gone to the other end of the spectrum; I don’t subscribe to the “I want to keep the peace” mantra. I don’t subscribe to it because I believe conflict is inevitable in life – in relationships (I use this word in its broadest sense). Not only is it inevitable – it is a valuable tool, a resource. Or, at least, it can be. For me, the question isn’t “How do I avoid conflict?” but “How do I work with conflict constructively and fruitfully?” Right now, I’m playing around with thinking of peace and conflict in terms of yin-yang: the seeds of each lie in the other and we benefit by embracing both.

In my playing around, I’ve developed some new assumptions. One of them is that what my friend sees as ‘keeping the peace’ is an illusion.  In his case, keeping the peace means suppressing conflict.  What’s happening is that he is carrying the conflict within him while on the surface, in the dynamic between him and his wife, a semblance of peace is sustained. Possibly, he subscribes to what I think is a mis-guided belief: “conflict is bad.” This belief closes down opportunity because getting to a more meaningful, truthful state of peace requires engaging openly with conflict, rather than suppressing it. 

If, for example, my friend were to voice his concerns and he and his wife were able to have a dialogue about what they are both feeling, needing and valuing in them selves and each other, then they potentially could arrive a resolution to the conflict which serves them both well – leaves them both feeling peaceful with regards to a particular incident/dimension of their dynamic. And through working with conflict, they both might learn more about themselves and each other and ultimately deepen their relationship. Working with conflict becomes nurturing and peace-generating. And we have to do it over and over again in life. Oddly enough, therefore, keeping the peace seems to require regular connection with conflict.

In this way, I feel certain that the seeds of conflict are always within peace, and vis-versa:  a yin-yang dynamic is at play. With conflict and peace, neither is good nor bad and each in their extremes can be destructive. For example, my friend’s effort to ‘keep the peace’ leaves him with an internal conflict that festers away and likely does all sorts of subtle destruction. Also, we can end up working with conflict in destructive ways, e.g., physical and verbal violence.  

We – social activists and changemakers, tend to be the opposite of my friend. Like him, we say we strive for peace. Unlike him, we often want to use conflict to get there. We want to challenge people, stir things up. Yet, what happens when we lose sight of the seeds of peace that led us to wanting conflict in the first place? Or what happens when we get in the habit of generating conflict without being at all connected to the peace within? For example, what happens when we are being conflict catalysts to show that we are right or we are better? What happens when we use conflict to put other people down?  How can we work with conflict in ways that are nurturing, affirming and creative?

I am playing around with these questions and an overarching one: How can we consciously work with this yin-yang dynamic present in peace and conflict to become more effective as social activists/changemakers?  

The other day I wrote a post for a blog I write with my dear friend Olivia Sprinkel: Dancing All the Way. Until recently, I’ve tended to think of that blog as a personal one and this blog as a professional one. Now I fully accept that this is a false divide, given that Dancing All the Way and See & Connect are both blogs rooted in physical, spiritual, emotional and intellectual awakenings. And I’m in the mood to not only write about Spirit in this professional space, but also to write about spirituality and start looking explicitly at the relationship between spirituality and social activism/social change.

I used to be somewhat reluctant to bring spirituality and social activism/social change (which I’ll just refer to as social activism) together explicitly. Why?  Because talking about spirituality can be a door-closer for some activists/changemakers. People become uncomfortable around reference to it because they associate it with religion and/or God and they feel that social activism is best done through a secular bent. Or it turns people off because they associate spirituality with light and fluffy thinking – thinking that is a flimsy foundation for the change we must create with respect to building different social, economic and political systems.

I began to dabble, dip a toe in the water, joining up spirituality and social activism by writing about Spirit. This seemed a less controversial connection to make because of how easy it is to link Spirit to the words inspire and inspiration. What social activist/changemaker doesn’t want to be inspired or inspiring? I started capitalizing Spirit to bring it out more, because I think it is so important. In writing about Spirit in relation to inspiration, I found it easy to avoid linking it with spirituality.  I also consciously tried to keep from writing about Spirit in ways that seemed too ‘woo-woo’ as I often label it – new agey, hippy, talking vaguely and too much about ‘energy’, etc.

Now I’ve come to a point in the path where I feel it is time to jump – to jump into the territory of sharing honestly what I’m working with personally and professionally when it comes to Spirit and spirituality.  I’m inclined to build on the definition of Spirit I put out in March by drawing from what I wrote last week in Dancing All the Way. So, here I go.

What is Spirit?

When I talk about Spirit I am referring to energy that we all carry inside us – this energy is innate. One of its roots is the energy that created the universe – literally. I can’t explain it myself, but I’ve heard a few times from scientists that we have this energy inside us and I believe it (for example, Neil deGrasse Tyson – What we are).  This is pure creative energy.  I also think we innately carry energy that generates compassion (here’s where the woo-woo starts). Do I have proof? No. But I think of Spirit as these energies inside us – creativity and compassion. Next, I think of Spirit as containing a particular type of wisdom. This wisdom is intuition. By intuition, I mean the wisdom we all carry that is bigger than our own individual experience. It has its roots in our collective consciousness (more woo-woo) and is entwined with creativity and compassion.

I think Spirit – this vibration, this energy – connects us all; it is like a current running through us. This current – the creativity, compassion and wisdom – is infinite.  Spirit charges us up to love, connect, merge, expand (just as the universe is expanding).  

Next post, I’ll look at what spirituality means to me. Then I’ll explore what happens when we combine Spirit and spirituality together with social activism. In the meantime, the questions lingering on my mind are: “In what ways does this notion of Spirit resonate with you?” “How can each of us connect with Spirit – with our innate creativity, compassion and intuition?” “Why would you/we want to connect with Spirit?”