Becoming A Peacemaker Conference

[Averbuch]

Julie and Chris and Michael and Judi,
Thank you for making a better world and letting us/me know. This is
beautiful!
much love
your close friend from afar
Tova
Israel

PS
 I am working at the moment in my hometown', Holon', on designing a process
for something like "Holon as an educational cradle - what is our dream and
how will we bring it to life" still wondering, thinking OST and AI. Being in
the midst of it and reading you words give me strength and hopes and ideas.
thank you again
T


----- Original Message -----
From: Julie Smith <jsmith at MOSQUITONET.COM>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 9:53 PM
Subject: Becoming A Peacemaker Conference


> Greetings ~
>
> In so many ways, the Fairbanks Becoming A Peacemaker conference was
> birthed from this list.  For me, that has everything to do with the
> quality of conversation that happens here.  The conversations we had
> following September 11, and the next series of conversations (the ones
> that ended up in the user's non-guide) have had a dramatic impact on my
> life.  It's like this wave of OSLIST energy met up with me and blew me
> (quite willingly) into a new relationship with my world.  It somehow
> resonates with what Peggy said:
>
> "An invocation connects the material world, the heart and the spirit.
> We humans are a bridge for linking matter and spirit.  An invocation
> moves in, through and from us, making spirit matter.  What is invoked
> must ultimately be dispersed in order to serve.  So opening an OS is an
> invocation for spirit to move in, through and from us in service to a
> higher purpose.  Closing a space is a dispersion of that service into
> the larger space of the world."
>
> I don't have the right language here, but I feel like somehow I was
> breathed in here (and played for a time with you during that long
> inhalation), and then exhaled (with many others) the Fairbanks Becoming
> A Peacemaker conference.
>
> When Chris closed our final OS space last week, he asked us to stand and
> turn our backs to the circle, reminded us that we were now each facing
> Open Space, and invited us to enter that space knowing we had each other
> behind us, supporting us along the way.  That's exactly what the
> Fairbanks conference felt like to me, like I had turned my back to this
> OSLIST circle in order to give my attention and energy to the circle
> that was emerging in my community, knowing that all of what I had
> experienced here remained behind me and continued supporting me.
>
> All of that is a very long way of saying that I won't feel a sense of
> completion until I come back to this place where it started for me, to
> tell the story of what happened on my journey out of this circle and
> into that other circle.
>
> Leaving the OSLIST circle started for me when I first began talking to
> people in my community about creating an OST event in Fairbanks.  I was
> suddenly leaving the space of this secure group of people who have
> developed a common understanding of this way of being in the world, and
> entered into a much bigger and more complex world where this
> understanding had not even been named, much less talked about or
> explored. What I found was an initial healthy skepticism followed
> rapidly by curiosity. During this period of curiosity I had many allies.
> Some were trusted friends I knew would quickly come on board, some were
> people in high places who surprised me by their immediate understanding,
> and some were people I didn't even know who emerged through chance
> connections and lent credibility to the idea.
>
> The turning point between curiosity and acceptance came in the telling
> of the story of Michael and Judi and Chris.  When I started describing
> each of them to the group who would ultimately decide whether to take a
> chance on the OST process, I began seeing smiles and sparkling eyes.
> There was a shift in energy, a new feeling of possibility, a collective
> sense that with their help, we could do it.  There became this sense
> that we could push the envelope without falling off a cliff, that with
> these three on board, we would be safe enough to take this risk.  The
> group said Yes.
>
> Looking back, all of that was the easy part. The hardest part of the
> journey for me was the theme and invitation.  This was the part that
> challenged me to take risks and grow in places that were still blocked.
> Michael was a catalyst for me when after countless e-mails he asked me
> to think about what I would want people to remember about me at my
> funeral.  Naming the conference Becoming A Peacemaker reflected a very
> long personal affinity with peacemaking as well as acknowledgement of
> recent world events.  Naming the theme in this way was a risk for me
> because people have always discouraged me from using the words peace and
> peacemaking.  When I used these words in the past, I usually ended up
> feeling shut down, shut out, and misunderstood.  The many conversations
> about peace and peacemaking on this list gave me courage to name the
> theme I have passion for.
>
> I'm not sure how the process of naming and describing felt to others who
> were also responsible for the theme and invitation.  It felt to me like
> a long, intense, confusing, and convoluted process, all of which
> reflected my fear of authentically expressing my self in my community.
> My experience of that time was that everyone else ended up stepping away
> from the question, and it became my choice.  I had this feeling of the
> universe opening up to me and saying "Okay, you asked for it, now what
> will you do with it?"  In that moment of truth, I was tempted to hold
> back a little, to not ask the question my life was asking, to hide
> behind what I thought others wanted.  In the end, I stood up and asked
> my question.  That was a scary thing for me.
>
> Once that decision was finally made, the logistics fell together with
> ease.  The people who were needed were always there doing what needed to
> be done.
>
> What happened next is hard for me to fully grasp.  It feels more like
> potency, like the ending of the inhalation just before the beginning of
> the exhalation.  The best I can do is describe what I experienced.
>
> Michael, Chris and Judi arrived in Fairbanks a day or two before the
> conference.  Finally meeting these three who I already held in such high
> regard was a joy and delight.
>
> On the day before the conference we made our way to the civic center
> where the conference would be held. The Alaskaland Civic Center is a
> 3-story round building decorated on the outside with huge Yup'ik masks.
> The building holds a theatre on one side and a meeting area on the
> other. The meeting area is a half circle that rises three levels, with a
> large central open area that reaches all three levels up to the wood
> ceiling, and balconies on the upper two floors that are open to what is
> above and below.  The huge straight wall of the half-circle is a
> beautiful mountain landscape painting.
>
> When we entered the civic center that day, there were stack and stacks
> of chairs waiting for us on the perimeter of the circle.  When we left,
> there were over 220 chairs arranged in three concentric rings.  Outside
> the circle we constructed places for topics to be posted and additional
> places to post the news of the day.  Michael made posters of bumblebees
> and butterflies, the four principles, the law of mobility, and a teaser
> about surprise.  Looking at the empty circle and all that surrounds it,
> I felt my heart expand.  Even thinking about it now, I have a sense of
> power and potency, of goodness, of hope, of connection and community.
>
> I have a hard time talking about the conference itself.  I have this
> sense that more happened than I've allowed myself to bring to my
> awareness.
>
> Judi opened the space, breathing, walking the circle, connecting with
> us, helping us connect with each other.  The chairs were filled with
> over 100 middle school and high school students, and a roughly equal
> number of adults.  Almost before she had finished speaking, one of my
> dearest friends was bounding out of his chair to grab a piece of paper
> and a marker. He was followed in quick succession by a stream of youth
> and adults. Then the topics started pouring in, tumbling one after the
> other.  People of all ages walked into the circle to name the topic they
> had passion for.
>
> The rest is a blur...... circles of people finding each other and
> talking, intense discussion, deep questions, affirmation, disagreement,
> insight, acceptance, questions....
>
> Of all of that, I've only been able to meaningfully grasp two
> experiences.  The first is Rosalie's gift.  Judi has already described
> how at the beginning of the second day, Rosalie announced that our time
> together on the first day had changed her life, that she had experienced
> peace in her family for the first time in a long time that morning.
> When invited to explain what she meant by that in the closing circle,
> she told the story of telling her mother she loved her, and how that had
> changed everything for both of them.  Rosalie's courage in creating her
> story and then telling it is so simple and so profound.  It is so close
> to truth that I feel I could enter into that knowing and vulnerability
> and find a lifetime of inspiration.
>
> The second event emerged completely outside my awareness.  A seventh
> grade student posted the topic "What can we do to stop people from
> hurting themselves?"  With the support of Judi and many others, Derek
> ended up facilitating four sessions around this issue which culminated
> in a suicide prevention plan at his school and other schools in our
> area.  In reviewing the notes, I found someone had asked "how do we
> force adults and the schools to provide suicide prevention in the
> schools?"  That was a wake-up call for me.  I had no idea that students
> were seeking adult help on this issue.  This marks the first time I felt
> invited by students to participate with them about a concern they
> identified.  To have that happen over such a complex and serious issue
> jolted me.  We've already started moving forward in response to Derek's
> invitation.
>
> Sometime soon perhaps I'll give myself time to breathe through and
> experience what happened in a more complete way.  For now, this is what
> I've been able to comprehend.
>
> Already people around here are talking about what comes next.... school
> principals talking about holding in-services in open space, teachers
> talking about how to use OST in classrooms, discussions about how we can
> use OST to converse about complex community issues, thinking about our
> second annual conference to be held in open space.....
>
> And yesterday I learned that Dan and Mia and others are starting to talk
> about the possibility of other communities holding a Becoming A
> Peacemaker conference next September 11, to be held in OST.  And now
> we're thinking about what that might look like if we did it statewide,
> with proceedings pouring in from all over the state and posted on a web
> page..... and thinking that some of the 60 participants in our OST
> practice workshop might be willing to help facilitate OST in communities
> across the state....
>
> Someday soon I'm going to sit with all of this in gratitude and awe, and
> then maybe I'll be able to complete this very long exhalation.  Oh, what
> wonders I look forward to with the inhalation that is sure to follow.
>
> Much love to all,
>
> Julie
>
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