CIVIL CONVERSATIONS
Returning to Peacemaking
April 14, 2016
When I went to Poland last
August for four months to join my wife, Jill Bystydzienski, on her research
Fulbright, I lost my Google password, and without US phone service, could not
recover it. A radio broadcast last
weekend triggered me to resume blogging, now that Jill and I are back home in
Ohio:
Last weekend in her NPR program “On
Being” (during the local station’s fundraising), host Krista Tippett introduced
her Civil Conversations Project (CCP), at http://www.civilconversationsproject.org/
. It reminded me of an article turned
chapter on A Criminologist’s Quest for
Peace on “Cultivation Community in Conversational Circles” (free download
at http://critcrim.org/critpapers/pepinsky3.pdf
, references at http://critcrim.org/critpapers/pepinsky8.pdf
, complete volume at http://critcrim.org/?q=article/criminologists-quest-peace
).
This is just one example of the
fact that there are many words and phrases for the process I call “peacemaking,”
the subject of this blog. Peacemaking is
a balanced conversation. Peacemaking occurs in circle processes. It describes
conversations as I tried to facilitate them in victim-offender mediation. Krista Tippett’s work is grounded in theology,
just as I find peacemaking to be grounded in all religious traditions. CCP homepage features a variety of interviews
with people who have in many ways, many contexts, and many terms have told
stories (aka “narratives”) of peacemaking in practice. Peacemaking actually happens a lot in all
walks of life, as the CCP demonstrates all by itself, if only we notice and
try. It pays not to get hung up on what to
call it. Thanks, Krista, for giving me
great material to share, to inspire me to resume this blog. Here’s to civilizing our conversations. Love and peace, Hal
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