Story is Power -- Listening is Power
21 October 2017
"We should all know this: that listening, not talking,
is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.
And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic
than the talker, and is more effective and learns more and
does more good."
~ Brenda Ueland (1891-1985)
"The one with the will and skill to listen first
has the power to transform the relationship."
~ 2017 Commencement Address
Notre Dame de Namur University
"Story is the shortest distance between people."
~ Pat Speight
"Stories transform the future!
They go ahead of societal change in order
to open space for new attitudes to take root and grow."
~ Paulette Stevens
Wars -- including
withdrawing from each other -- are divisive acts of violence, predictable
failures.
They violate relationships, and destroy human beings, creativity, hope, and
physical and emotional infrastructure -- the spirit of both perpetrators and
victims.
Civil engagement -- listening and story sharing -- humanize, close
distances, equalize, and release creativity.
Story + Listening Together = Power = Choosing life.
Here are living examples for us to emulate.
Today
1. Bridges to Peace Listening to Japanese and Filipino Stories that
Heal
2. Citizens Creating Their New Story of 1000s of Palestinian and Israeli
Women Finally Being Together
3. Diverse U.S. Citizens Engaging Civilly, Creating Their New Story
4. Enrichment Resources
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Bridges to Peace Listening to
Japanese and Filipino Stories that Heal
Ms.
Naoko Jin is a Japanese social entrepreneur, wife, and mother who has devotedly
videographed hundreds of Filipinos and Japanese --
World War II victims and perpetrators -- with stories of grief, guilt, regret,
and also forgiveness.
This 5-minute NHK World News report from October 2015 tells her own narrative
of dedication to story sharing -- the telling and listening -- that can help
heal both violators and violated.
Bridges to Peace:
Seeking Japanese and Filipino story sharing that heals
NHK World News --Thursday 01 October 2015
5-min video
= = 2 = =
Citizens Creating Their New Story of
1000s of Palestinian and Israeli
Women Finally Being Together
During
October 2017 thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women left their homes to be
together.
Facer-to-face they met, and shoulder-to-shoulder they expressed themselves
seeking, insisting on agreements for living together fruitfully as equal human
beings, beyond war.
These Palestinian and Israeli women demand only one thing: Peace.
Al Jazeera - 09 October 2017
2-minute video
https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/videos/10156096601978690/
The Women Wage Peace
Story Re-told Globally
in Words and Images
http://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/journey-to-peace-int-media-coverage/
One
social outcome
is the powerful, unprecedented Piece for Peace Quilt Project illustrated
at http://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/piece-peace-call-action/
and http://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/piece-peace-photo-gallery/
To contribute your original quilt square, write to Aliza
Erez at WomenPeaceQuilt@gmail.com
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Diverse U.S. Citizens
Engaging Civilly while
Creating Their New Story
In
divided 2017 post-election America, vastly disparate citizens are urgently
engaging, from North Carolina -- https://www.momentsoftruth.info/testimonials
-- to northern California -- http://traubman.igc.org/sanmateocrossinglines.htm
Kern Beare is a creative U.S. citizen quickly discovering
how to circle up traditional adversaries for civil communication -- listening
to one another's stories and world views in a divided nation.
Pop the Bubble is Kern's new initiative for disparate women, men, and
youth to experience powerful principles and strategies that allow for
face-to-face engagement in meaningful and productive dialogue with anyone
regardless of economic, social and ideological differences.
The free workshops unleash each one's capacity for compassion,
collaboration, and imagination to help create a nationand
a worldthat work for everyone.
Difficult Conversations:
Becoming the people we need to be
to have the conversations we need to have
A Pop the Bubble Workshop
https://www.popthebubbletour.org/workshop-overview/
PHOTOS at
https://www.popthebubbletour.org/workshop-photo-gallery/
REQUEST a free Pop the Bubble Workshop anywhere in the U.S.
https://www.popthebubbletour.org/contact/
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Enrichment Resources
Evolution
has wired our brains for storytelling -- our power.
READ
why and how.
Why You Need To Use Storytelling For Learning
by Connie Malamed
http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/why-you-need-to-use-storytelling-for-learning/
The Science of Storytelling:
Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains
Leo Widrich
A new 2017 book describes theory and face-to-face practices of successful interreligious dialogue, education, and public activity in Israel and Palestine, largely with inspirational, instructional stories of unforgettable human engagement and reconciliation. It provides practical tools and models of interreligious, civil discourse for people around the world.
The Other Peace Process
Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem
Ronald Kronish
Hamilton Books, September, 2017, 210 pp.
https://www.amazon.com/Other-Peace-Process-Interreligious-Jerusalem/dp/0761869336
and
Storytelling:
A Peaceful Power
to change the world is championed by Kiran Singh Sirah, president of the International Storytelling Center,
Jonesborough, Tennessee USA.
Sirah clarifies:
"We can be the story we want to see in the world.
And we can help others, too, just by listening."
Storytelling: A Peaceful Power
Kiran Singh Sirah
TEDxNashville -- 18 May 2016
15-1/1 min video
Summer
2017, Sirah was invited to consult at the
Pentagon for the Collaborative and Adaptive Security Initiative (CASI) -- https://my.nps.edu/web/ccmr/-/the-collaborative-adaptive-security-initiative-cas-1
-- an arm of the Department of Defense's Center for Civil-Military Relations.
The wildly diverse group from military strategy and training, academia, and
think tanks met with peacebuilding, faith-based, and
other nongovernmental initiatives to consider a better way of enacting our
shared future.
This meeting, itself, was surely part of a new story of our shared future.
Sirah reports:
Saving Lives Through Story
Summer 2017
http://www.storytellingcenter.net/news/saving-lives-through-story-1/
- - -
This message is on the Web at http://traubman.igc.org/messages/708.htm
Hundreds of other success stories are preserved at http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm