Crisis and Enemy Mentality

Crisis and Enemy Mentality

Maybe you remember the Supertramp album “Crisis? What Crisis?” The album cover shows a guy in a lounge chair enjoying the day amidst a colorless world obviously in ruins. The album came out in 1975, definitely a time when activists were trying to wake people up to the...
The Beauty of Not Knowing

The Beauty of Not Knowing

There’s a very juicy topic that came up strongly at the most recent restorative activism workshop. It had to do with knowing the truth. I used the saying that I often use: There are three truths, your truth, my truth, and The Truth. I felt the resistance immediately....
Shame and Nonviolence

Shame and Nonviolence

How many times have we heard it? We turn on the radio or go to a protest and people are chanting a familiar refrain: “shame on you, shame on you.” It’s easy to go there. There’s a lot to be mad about, a lot of sadness and frustration. Peaceful protesters are also...
The Insanity of War

The Insanity of War

War and our willingness to use it, and our intentional preparation for it, demonstrates the twisting of the mind caused by the worldview of separateness. It is the epitome of insanity itself. The original meaning of the word insane is “not whole.” A culture and...
The Great Turning

The Great Turning

The Great Turning is my favorite way to describe the historical moment we find ourselves in. I first came across the phrase in the writing of Joanna Macy, who described it as the transition from the “industrial growth society” to a “life-sustaining society” (see...
The Historical Moment

The Historical Moment

We can all say, believe, prophesize all we want about 2012 but one thing seems pretty clear  – a historical moment in upon us. It includes a full-blown paradox of crisis and opportunity limited in scope only by our own imaginations. In other words, it’s big. On the...