August Reflections

Thanks to the heat, I have definitely been in the summer doldrums. After the spring madness of Community Building, Common Ground, and White Privilege, I have had a difficult time bringing up energy for anything other than the work I have had to do to earn a living and playing with the kids over summer vacation. Hope all of you have been able to remain relatively cool and have taken some time to enjoy the wonders of summer on your vacations or with your little ones.

Despite the slowdown, HEAL continues to be involved in some activities which you may find of interest, including the some multicultural and restorative justice happenings in July.

Multi-Cultural Gathering in St Louis
Over the past several years the Mankind Project, an international men’s group, has been attempting to create a safer, more inclusive community for its own members and with other nonmember groups and individuals. This goal has been pursued by adopting an initiative to increase our individual and group awareness of our many differences like gender, skin color, economic position, education, and even age, just to name a few. We have looked at how these differences result in unearned privilege for some and a loss of power for others based on the difference, resulting in some form of an ‘ism’, like racism or sexism.

An important development of this initiative has been the formation of a Multi-Cultural Council and an annual gathering of a small, diverse group of Council participants who have been willing to meet once a year to do personal and institutional work around a variety of ‘issues and isms.’ This year people who represent various MKP, WW and other communities came together in St. Louis to do this work. Here is a small sample of what happened this year’s gathering.

This year’s Keynote was Bruce A. Jacobs, author of Race Manners for the 21st Century. A recent graduate of the MKP New Warrior Training Adventure, Bruce’s passion and mission brought his book and work to life. From his perspective as a well educated black man, with a middle class American upbringing, he succinctly outlined much of what he believes is at the core of current racism and many of the choices available to individuals and communities for positive change.

In addition, to specific ideas for dealing and healing racism, he reminded us to keep the struggle in historical perspective. The damage from slavery and the practice of racism in America has happened over 400 years. We are only beginning to honestly and sincerely figure out how we can come to terms with these past and present realities. Actually moving away from the old and embracing a new, more authentic society of equality and celebration is a slow, difficult process. There is a paradox. Injustice cannot be undone fast enough while healing and healthy relationship building are processes which require time and patience. As activists we may be called to do both at the same time.

One of the goals of each gathering is to offer the representatives from the various MKP, WW and public communities some information and training that strengthens their connections as representatives to each other and can also be brought back to our communities. The Saturday session this year was a Marshall Rosenberg based, nonviolent communication workshop called Connecting Across Differences: Speaking Peace With Compassionate Communication presented by Jeff Brown and Rhonda Mills, two excellent local trainers.

Time limited the presentation to a brief intro during which Jeff and Wendy modeled and played out this very different way of sharing information about our feelings and needs with each other. Noticeably absent from the exchanges was any judgments about each other, which is an intentional part of the NVC process because our ‘thinking’ judgments are believed to separate and distract us from what is trying to be communicated.

There were many similarities between this Nonviolent Communication Process (NVC) and the tools and techniques we use in MKP to do clearings and to deal with conflict. This method, although difficult and challenging to learn and use, does offer a desirable alternative to our old ways of communicating. What many of us consider communicating, especially during a conflict, can be more readily seen as subtle and frequently not so subtle attempts to fix, change, convince, or in some other way dominate others into accepting our own causes, needs or perspectives.

Learning and practicing more compassionate and mindful processes that do not continue or maintain the wounding or inequities of a particular ‘ism’ is at the core of multi-cultural healing and progress. These techniques and skills are also reflected in our MKP, WW, Community Building, AA, Al Anon, Restorative Justice, and Healthy Relationship ways and circle processes. The healing and spirituality that happens in these circles is a direct result of communicating in more conscious ways that creates the safety and trust needed to bring people together and to help them engage at more empathetic levels needed for deeper, more lasting healing.

This year’s conference also provided all in attendance a chance to witness the culmination of many years of evolution and work by the women of Woman Within to create their own multicultural initiative and reconnect with the MKP Multi-cultural group through a new, even more common ground called the Community House. The significance of this was not only the progress they have made personally and institutionally, but they can now choose to come to the multi-cultural table as full equals in contrast to their previous status as invitees of the men.

Multicultural work, like healthy relationship work, depends on real equality and that means different people coming together to do the work out of their own volition and in their own integrity. This is different from a connection created when one group invites the other, especially if it is the non-target group (the one with the privilege and power) inviting target groups (the one without the same power and privilege) to a meeting.


Imagining and striving to create safe, connected communities is a dream many of us share. One of the reasons I go to sit in circles, go to conferences and attend these gatherings is because I need to live today in more mindful, intentional communities. That’s why I will be back next year too.

Restorative Justice
As part of an effort to bring a Restorative Justice (RJ) philosophy, process, and practice to the Department of Child Services (DCS) for the State of Tennessee, Jean Handley of Turning Point Partners, Cori and I have been doing support circles for the staff and students with at the Wilder Development Center in Somerville, TN. We have also been working with Jean to help Onie Johns bring a RJ process to Caritas, an intentional community with a center, the Village, located in the Binghampton area of Memphis.

For me restoration is not only a justice issue but a relationship one. Healing our relationships is about returning or regaining our wholeness and integrity as individuals, partners and groups. Likewise, restorative justice is about returning individuals and groups to a state of wholeness and completeness.

Our past hurtful experiences with the world and people can diminish us with their less than loving and nurturing experiences causing us to be wounded and hurt and to experience various kinds of loss. This is especially true of behavior that breaks the law and results in some form of harm to people or property.

Rather than further the loss of relationships because of harm, abuse and violence, by separating and vilifying the offender, RJ attempts to ultimately recover the relationships that have been damaged or lost as a result of the harm. In many cases the RJ process offers the offender a way to understand the negative impact of their choices and to actually meet with those individuals directly and indirectly affected, in a way that acknowledges the harm and explores ways to make an amends or restorative action.

These choices include listening to those impacted, apologizing and developing specific make ups that address the consequences of the harm constructively. There are many options for relating to each other in healthy ways that can serve as a process of restoration healing old wounds and nurturing our relationships back into states of wholeness and integrity.

The process for reducing or reversing this damage and harm attempts to restore us to the more whole and healthy beings and communities we were before the harm occurred. This may sound like an oversimplification, perhaps it is. For me, it seems to be what is happening on a very simple basic level. Seeing and understanding that restoration is the recovery and healing of relationships helps me transcend the drama, pain and confusion of many experiences I have had and get right to the heart, literally, of what is going on.

Right now these instances of restoration are the exception rather than the rule. Given time and ‘catching’ young offenders earlier in the process, the hope of RJ is that more and more restoration can occur, earlier in the life cycle of harm and abuse, and that this will reduce the overall amount of problems and ultimately more serious crime. RJ work in some places has dramatically reduced repeat offenses by people released and may prove an even more powerful preventative tool.

There are reasons for the amount of harm, violence, crime and incarceration occurring in the US. The current prison population, 2 million people, is a sure indicator that something is wrong with the system. If it is an indication the system is working as it is supposed to work, then we need a new system.

The real question to us as a society is do we want to rationalize crime and our current expensive programs for dealing with it, or do we really want to know the ‘why’ what is going down and the ‘what’ it is going to take to create real, positive change. With that information we can formulate better, more effective strategies and programs for dealing with this growing challenge. We know what we are doing currently is not working or is working in a way that reinforces the problem with its current trends and inequities. Restorative Justice philosophy and practice offers a new alternative for real change.

Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan