What if ?

By
Excerpted from:  bethechange2012 blog.

What would happen if one day we all suddenly started to feel fully empathetic with the victims of violence—and not just gun violence, or military violence, but also rape, domestic violence, violence against animals, violence against the forests and the waters of our planet? . . . 
What if I, and other Americans like me, started to actively fight the conditioning that has made us believe that the healthiest, sanest response to ubiquitous violence is to turn our gaze away and keep moving?
What if we began to lean in to the deep wellsprings of compassion and empathy that are our birthright as human beings, and act out of the power we find there? 
What if instead of accepting the constant static of violence as a given of modern existence, we began to actively tune in to it, in order to serve—each one of us—as antennae capable of picking up the signal and disrupting it, transforming it from cacophony to an entirely different, new form of activist harmony?

Full entry at this link.

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Stages" for understanding Conflict

By
Image
The following five stages for discerning conflict are explained in detail here: Conflict, in general, builds through five stages - Discomfort , Incident , Misunderstanding , Tension and Crisis , although it can begin at any one of the first three stages. The earlier a conflict is identified and deal t with, the easier it is to resolve This is the html version of the file http://www.amfanational.org/images/pdf_docs/ps_training2_understanding_conflict.ppt.  ( Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web. )  Conflict Resolution & Understanding Conflict  Understanding Conflict     Conflict is all around us.  It is not something that we can choose to have or not have.  It just is.     It may center on something as seemingly trivial as who leaves their dirty cups in the sink, where to go eat lunch, or whether or not to buy that new piece of stereo equipment.     Or it may be more complex, such as whether we should invest in stock or bonds,  or w
Read more

Positive Peace

By
I'll be honest.  The past years, at least for me, it's been hard to believe that peace can prevail.  The categories of verbal strife that exist between persons, levels of discordant perspectives, and the egregious wealth disparities that exist make it difficult for me to believe we're getting better. Blatant ignore-ance (ignoring) of ways to care for others with SARS-CoV-2 are truly hard for me to discern. Noting that, I want to be a caretaker and advocate for peace - and a better world. If you want to read more about actual metrics that mark issues of peace, let me refer you to the Institute for Economic and Peace - an agency I've been fortunate to work with as an Ambassador. In the link I'll share they advocate for peace with these words: Peace is the prerequisite for the survival of humanity in the 21st century. Without peace, it will not be possible to achieve the levels of trust, cooperation and inclusiveness necessary to solve these challenges, let alone empow
Read more