Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/non-violent-communication-nvc/page/2/)
The next time I saw those bullies,
I was at a party and I asked them to battle me…
but this time it wasn’t a fake boxing match
It was a fight in song, a fight in word, a fight in dance, a fight about
peace, and a fight about real history…
I see this as the core source of violence: the physical, emotional, and spiritual brutalization of boys and men.
After posting my recent post, I received a comment that completely surprised me, in which I was challenged about what I thought was the opposite of what I said.
When I manage to enhance my capacity to hear the contents of what people from marginalized groups share about their experiences, regardless of how it’s presented, two things happen…
In short, the practice of vulnerability has given me peace and less helplessness; it has given me more freedom to be myself in a simple way; and it has made me more accessible.
What is it that makes the existing global system continue to function with our ongoing participation, when so many of us know how close to the edge of catastrophe we are?
I wonder how I, as an impoverished American, could relate so strongly to a 17th-century French nobleman, Voltaire? Yet I felt him as a kindred spirit. I learned French, not “my” culture. I also studied Spanish and Hebrew. Come to think of it, even my English isn’t native. I should be speaking German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian. Sometimes, for mysterious reasons, people feel a strong and deep connection to an “other.” I’m reluctant to criticize all such connections. As my friend, Arlene, pointed out, Catholicism itself is a
On the other hand, if everything blends into a mush, might we lose some important legacies? Maybe we need both: cultural magpies and cultural guardians.
What does Good News Mean to Me? An Act of Contrition? Near the beginning of my 1888 Sunday School Companion, I find An Act of Faith, An Act of Hope, An Act of Love, and an Act of Contrition. Interesting order. First, faith, hope, and love, and only in the end, contrition. I like that.
We can always hear and understand each other’s deeper purpose. Once we know this and integrate it fully, I trust that we will approach confrontation differently, and I then have more hope that miracles of transformation can happen.
I have more faith in actions that arise from a context of inner peace and acceptance than in actions that are fueled by fear and anger, the hallmarks of non-acceptance.