So-called Adversaries:
Meeting to
change, Needing to love
02 August 2019
You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build
a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
"They look at each
other,
each waiting for the other
to offer to do that which
both desire but neither
wishes to do."
~Martin Buber (1878-1965)
Ascribing meaning to a poignant word of "primitive" Feugians
"We must love one
another or die."
~W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
Loving one another in today's reality of separation means
first knowing each other.
Each human being deeply needs a sense of belonging and to be understood:
"Recognize who I am."
We can do that for one another.
Maya Angelou reminded us: ""There is no greater agony than bearing
an untold story inside you."
Each of us can do the simple act that "both desire but neither wishes to
do."
Invite one another, sit together, propose: "Tell me your story. Who are
you? What is important to you?"
Listen-to-learn, then inquire and listen some more.
Experience -- for the first time, or for the thousandth time -- that "an
enemy is one whose story we have not heard."
This is how we can cause small miracles, sometimes big ones.
Now appreciate citizens who are living this life, and how.
TODAY
1. Looking at Each Other Across the Meal Table, Loving to Eat, Eating
to Love in the U.S.
2. Loving to play, Playing to love, Together in Jerusalem
3. Looking at Each Other Across Oceans and Face-to-Face, Loving by
Listening to Stories in Myanmar
ENRICHMENT
4. Just Listen
= = 1 = =
Looking at Each Other
Across the Meal Table
Loving to Eat
Eating to Love in the U.S.
Muslim
Palestinian-American, Hanan Rasheed,
knows how shared meals help us enter a safe place, sit together, and transform
conflict into community, beginning with face-to-face relationships (and food).
In 1973, 14-year-old Hanan emigrated from Palestine to the San Francisco Bay
Area, in California.
In 2019, now a mother of five and grandmother of eight, Rasheed is a graduate
of the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City who uses her talent to
teach others about Palestinian culture and cuisine, and about "hummus
diplomacy."
Undeterred by the failure of diplomats to bring peace and security to
Palestinians and Israelis, Rasheed in the 1990s helped begin a
Palestinian-Jewish Living Room Dialogue and right away applied her hummus
diplomacy, believing that peace can be achieved when ordinary citizens on
both sides meet face-to-face, eat together, and listen to one another.
"The healing table," Rasheed explains, is where the dishes --
like people -- have the same ingredients but different flavors, where so-called
adversaries can meet as equal humans longing for similar rights and
needs.
Chef Hanan Rasheed believes a beautiful meal has the power to unite.
At a time when the world faces unprecedented distrust and division, Mrs.
Rasheed insists that the culinary arts may prove the start of a healing
conversation.
Our Healing Table
Hanan Rasheed
TEDxFSCJ - Spring 2018
16 min. video
= = 2 = =
Loving to play
Playing to love
Together in Jerusalem
"Come play with
us" challenges Zaki Djemal, a participant in Kulna
Jerusalem (We Are All Jerusalem) -- https://kulna.org/en/our-projects/
-- maximizing arts and games to naturally and powerfully help people
want to finally connect.
Bold, interested Palestinians are experiencing that "playing
together" face-to-face is an ancient, powerful,shared
human experience and entry point to relationship, trust, empathy, and
community.
WATCH and HEAR:
Game Changer:
How Backgammon Will Bring Peace to the Middle
East
Zaki Djemal
TEDxWhiteCity - January 2017
12-min video
= = 3 = =
Looking at Each Other
Across Oceans and Face-to-Face
Loving by Listening to Stories in Myanmar
In January 2019, U.S. citizens
maximizing Zoom video technology shared their stories and vision across oceans,
while facilitating diverse, motivated university students in Myanmar for
experiencing authentic Dialogue and listening-to-learn about one another.
Hearing and being heard, the young women and men discovered an unprecedented
sense of community, while experiencing that "an enemy is one whose
story we have not heard."
Distance-Facilitated Myanmar Student Dialogue
Using Zoom Internet Webcam Technology
January 2019 - Kyaukse
Technological University - Myanmar (Asia)
https://traubman.igc.org/myanmardialogue2019.pdf
= =
4 = =
ENRICHMENT
Just Listen
Simply listening and acknowledging another person's
grief and pain is one of the great acts of love.
This attentive listening has great healing power and is easily accessible and
doable by any of us.
We -- especially so-called adversaries -- can be one another's best doctors.
"There is no greater agony than bearing an
untold story inside you."
~Maya
Angelou (1928-2014)
Being Heard Helps
Megan Devine (Grief educator,
psychotherapist)
4-min video
https://www.facebook.com/597771523939856/posts/720198178363856?sfns=mo
and
This
message is on the Web at https://traubman.igc.org/messages/719.htm
Hundreds of other success stories are preserved at https://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm