2009 Thanksgiving for individual
women and men
with vision to engage, lead the way
27 November 2009
There are those who would quickly love each other
if once they were to speak to each other;
for when they spoke they would discover that
their souls were only separated by phantoms and
delusions.
-- Ernest Hello, 19th century French
philosopher
"An institution is the lengthened shadow of
one man (or woman)."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
TODAY
is the 2nd National Day of Listening -- http://www.nationaldayoflistening.org/
-- Friday, 27 November 2009 .
In 2008, the sponsor StoryCorps -- http://www.storycorps.org/ -- launched
the first annual National Day of Listening to help create a nation of
listeners.
Loved ones, neighbors, and even adversaries are
encouraged through schools, libraries, and service organizations to encouraged
people to share personal narratives that humanize and bind us as one.
YESTERDAY, Thanksgiving 2009 reminded us to have
gratitude for each one of us -- each with a (1) story that matters and (2)
capacity to hear and give voice to the narratives of others.
Our future is with youth and adults with the will
and skill to listen, and thus the Power to transform the relationship while
elevating (never diminishing) the Story of the "other."
This quality of Power and Responsibility comes as we
surrender the childish thought we're weak or unable, asserts Maririanne
Williamson.
Williamson says: "There's nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. . .We
are ALL meant to shine. . . It's not just in some of us, it's in ALL of us.
And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others. So it's Holy work, to move past your own fear.
It does not just help you, it helps the world."
OUR DEEPEST FEAR
5-min video
Excerpted from, "A Return to Love" produced by
Wisdom Films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSQs5VgaKM
DOWNLOAD the video
to show and inspire others locally where you live
http://www.wisdomfilms.com/downloads/
Stories
of individual citizens with vision, courage, and endurance show us what
to do.
"People become the stories they hear and the
stories they tell," explains Elie Wiesel.
Here are four citizen-exemplars to emulate.
To become.
-
L&L
== 1 ==
AN AMERICAN IN LEBANON
Young journalist giving
voice to diverse stories
One
young San Franciscan woman Brooke Anderson ( brooklynsf@hotmail.com ) in
her youth was rather quiet but with a burning interest in the Middle East and people.
Today she is a skilled, independent journalist living
in Beirut and publishing in the San Francisco Chronicle, IslamOnline.net, and
more.
During 2009 Brooke wrote brilliantly about the lives
of Jews and of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.
Today, Thanksgiving 2009, she e-mailed this
story of international empathy.
Greetings from Beirut,
I want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.
Just to assure you I didn't spend the holiday sad and alone
as I'd feared, I want to share a story with you:
I was walking down the street today, and saw a man I'd met
while doing an interview several months ago.
He was sitting at an outdoor table of the restaurant he
owns, and he asked me to join him for lunch.
So I did.
After lunch, he said, "Now you're going to have a
pumpkin pie!"
I laughed, assuming he was joking.
A minute later, the waitress came out with a big piece of
pumpkin pie for me, and as she handed it to me said, "Happy
Thanksgiving!"
Wishing you
a spontaneous Thanksgiving.
Yours, Brooke
== 2 ==
SEEDS OF PEACE
One man's vision
brought to life
One U.S.
journalist, John Wallach, at a dinner party seventeen years ago challenged
high ranking Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian officials in attendance to
send fifteen kids from each country to a summer camp in Maine.
He was convinced that the lack of opportunity for
young people to interact, become friends, and do what teenagers do together,
was contributing to the hatred gripping the region.
Six months later, SEEDS OF PEACE - http://www.seedsofpeace.org/ - was
born in 1992.
John Wallach succumbed to cancer.
Today, the camp is still going strong.
Nearly 500 young adults from regions of conflict
each summer attend the leadership training camp, in the hope of planting peace
one seed at a time.
After 17 Years, 'Seeds of Peace' Still Running
Strong
Voice of American News
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-08-14-voa17-68659637.html?moddate=2009-08-14
VIDEO (4 min)
== 3 ==
HANDS OF PEACE
A motivated mom
endures
One
IIllinois woman, Gretchen Grad ( Hands-of-Peace@comcast.net ) of Glenview
Community Church, in Spring 2002 conceived of HANDS OF PEACE - http://www.hands-of-peace.org/ -
an interfaith effort to begin the process of developing leadership skills in
young people from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship so that
one day they will play a positive role in promoting peace and reconciliation
between their peoples
Grad was joined by her dear friend and next-door
neighbor, Deanna Jacobson of BNai Jehoshua Beth Elohim Synagogue, then by Nuha
Dabousseh of the Islamic Cultural Center, all located in the Northwest suburbs
of Chicago.
The combined efforts of "motivated
moms" and growing community sponsorship have flowered.
One of their models was the Irish Children's Fund,
which was bringing Protestant and Catholic teens from Belfast to stay with
American host families to experience tolerance and understanding during their
month long stay.
"My vision was to get young people in their
formative years, out of their home base, in a neutral place," Grad says,
"where they could meet the enemy, and have conversation guided with an
adult."
"It was my hope that by meeting face to
face," Grad adds, "they'd realize they're not that different after
all, and that they have hopes and dreams very similar to their own."
VIDEO
http://www.hands-of-peace.org/pages/vmedia.html
HANDS
OF PEACE 2009 brought together 21 Holy Land teens -- Jewish Israelis, West Bank
Palestinians and Arab Israelis -- hosted in local homes, and joined by 18
suburban teens.
Thirty-nine strangers and adversaries became
the best of friends and grew together.
Naazish YarKhan ( NaazishYarkhan@literatihall.com )
another motivated mom, NPR commentator and Huffington Post blogger, writes that
"although Israelis and Palestinians have been meeting and communicating at
a grassroots level to better understand one another and work toward a more
peaceful future, the initiatives that bring them together do not receive the
recognition that they deserve."
" Until a comprehensive solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is found, these grassroots initiatives remain vitally
important."
Naazish YarKhan and others report more about HANDS
OF PEACE.
Israeli, Palestinian teens talk peace
by Naazish YarKhan
Common Ground News Service - 01 September 2009
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=26205&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0&isNew=1
Israeli, Palestinian teens meet on neutral
territory- the suburbs
The Daily Herald
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=308077
Making Room For Peace
Israeli, Palestinian Teens Return To Village Next
Week
Journal Online -- Wednesday, July 15, 2009
http://www.journal-topics.com/gv/09/gv090715.4.html
Israeli, Palestinian Teens Complete Two Weeks of
Coexistence in Chicago Suburbs
Chicago Tribune
http://www.triblocal.com/Glenview/Detail_View/view.html?type=stories&action=detail&sub_id=85838
Hands of Peace Program
By Mary Mumbrue
Evanston Roundtable
http://www.evanstonroundtable.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&subsectionID=5&articleID=602
==
4 ==
TEXAS DIALOGUE
Inspired woman planted
seed that continues to flower
One
music composer and professor, Sharon Joy ( SharJoy@earthlink.net ) in 2004
returned from a conference with a dream she couldn't set aside.
She spent a full year of step-by-step planning and
finding interested partners one-by-one.
Fall 2009 marked the fourth birthday of the
vision-come-true -- THE HOUSTON PALESTINIAN-JEWISH DIALOGUE GROUP - http://www.joysounds.net/interculturaldialogue.html
.
These Jewish, Muslim, and Christian women and men
are committed to listening to each other with open, caring hearts to form
relationships and begin to understand each other's experiences.
They have met monthly or bi-monthly since September
11, 2005 in the homes of dedicated participants.