Believe Women.

Overcoming Hate - Christians learning to Love

Every year when I teach about the Shoah (the Holocaust) and on issues of Genocide, I start every class session with my encouragement that this course will change the lives every person.

I encourage every person to become an advocate for peace who will engage in actions of care & concern among the diverse matrix of human persons around the world.

I tell persons to be peacemakers, to be upstanders, and to be rescuers.

I was enlivened to view this 15 minute Ted Talk by a former member of the bigoted Westboro Baptist Church.  A daughter of the church's leader.

Megan Phelps-Roper shares details of life inside America's most controversial church and describes how conversations on Twitter were key to her decision to leave it. In this extraordinary talk, she shares her personal experience of extreme polarization, along with some sharp ways we can learn to successfully engage across ideological lines.

The last lines of her powerful talk end with this:

. . . .we're all just human beings . . . . we should be guided by that most basic fact, and approach one another with generosity and compassion. Each one of us contributes to the communities and the cultures and the societies that we make up. The end of this spiral of rage and blame begins with one person who refuses to indulge these destructive, seductive impulses. We just have to decide that it's going to start with us.  (emphasis mine)

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d. 

Virtue Among First Peoples

European settlers in America treated the First Peoples as "savages" be pushed out or killed. 




The First Peoples engaged in diplomacy for their territorial rights to land their ancestors had used for millennia. They were people of character.


Did First People's kill "white men"? Yes. As white men killed, too, and with greater impact  due to the diseases and gun-powder the white-men brought with them.


While all violence is complex and conflicts emerge in escalating forms of retaliation leading to battles and wars, it is good to remember that First Peoples in the America's were advanced in human care and discerned societal values which shaped communal character.

At this link you can read more about the Lakota Values.

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.

Changing Lives - Minds & Hearts

"If you want to change lives, speak to people’s feelings, not just to their minds. Enter their fears and calm them. Understand their anxieties and allay them. Kindle their hopes and instruct them. Raise their sights and enlarge them."  

~ Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Ha’azinu 5779)

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.

Ideas win peace.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:  "Wars are won by weapons but it takes ideas to win peace."

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.

Mastery of One's Personal & Professional Life

We develop a life of generosity and care when we have a sense of mastery in our own life. 

When we feel whole, complete and capable in who we are and what we do, we can offer help to others.

Tracey Dawn offers what she labels "15 Personal Goals for Work to Make You Stand Out from Your Coworkers."  If I were posting her list here, I'd label it "Habits for life that achieve eupan."  Her "personal goals" that might make a person "stand out," effectively enable a person to be a coworker who cares for others, who manages dissent, and who models a work ethic where eupan is achievable.

Read her insights including these from her list:

1.  Practice self-mastery
2.  Be grateful for where you are
4.  Celebrate each others’ differences
6.  Manage conflict effectively
9.  Show humility
10.  Model work life balance
13.  Ask for help
14.  Offer help 

Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.

Hate is no joke. Hate is not funny.

We do not have to joke about hatred. Ever.

I hope to have been habited out of hate.

I have been shaped by many important perspectives in social and psychological sciences, neuroscience, and the history of religion and culture to realize that our habits (rituals & daily practices) shape who we are - personally and socially. 

Team rivalries can be more problematic that persons realize even while some literature suggests they may also provide necessary anthropological "relief valves" for aggression.

Even if rivalries in team sports are "fun" and provide avenues for anger to find outlet, I find it offense and problematic to see persons wearing their "team sports" gear professing their hatred. 

Shirts like this one that I saw this morning are offensive to me. 

We can work for a world in which people do not take seriously - nor joke about - their hate.

I am working for a world where anger, resentment, hurt & hate can be transformed toward caring kindness among all persons.

We can do better.

We can be better. 


Toward eupan ~

~ marty alan michelson, ph.d.