| Respect
and Responsibility
For Children K-6
This
is a lesson built around myth and stories. I develop themes
of empathy and compassion. Stories include Stellaluna, Horton
Hears a Who, The Six Blind Men and the Elephant. Stories and
activities would be tailored to the specific age group and
time allotment.
Pursuit
of Happiness
For older children through adults.
I begin
with pursuit of happiness as one of the founding principles
of our country. I develop the idea that each of us came to
the planet with passion and gifts that we came to contribute.
Dr. Christiane Northrup has cited that children know by the
age of 11 what their passion is. I give examples of people
who have developed their gifts, and then used them to contribute
to the betterment of our world. My examples include people
as young as Samantha Smith, who at the age of 10 reached out
to the Soviet leader Andropov, and spent her short life working
to bring understanding between Russians and Americans; Warrick
Dunn, a football player who buys homes each year for single
mothers, in honor of his own mother. I invite the participants
to explore their own “happiness” and brainstorm
ways in which they can contribute their individual talents.
Interior
Journey
This is a more spiritually-focused workshop. People like Gandhi,
King and Peace Pilgrim taught the importance of the inner
journey as a “pre-requisite” for the way of peace.
We explore the idea of peace, not as a goal, but as a power
that is, in the words of Thomas Merton, “perhaps the
only really effective way of transforming human beings and
society.” We will look at the lives of many of the world’s
peacemakers and tie their spiritual journey to their journey
in the world.Theme
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Pursuit
of Peace: The American Dream
This workshop aims at reclaiming peace as an “orgainizing
principle” in American society.
In this
workshop we trace the seeds of peace that were sown at the
beginning of our country, from the Quakers, with the example
of John Woolman, among others, through George Washington,
who suggested the creation of peace academies, along the lines
of the military academies, through Thoreau, and King. Peace
is an American ideal, as strong as any of our other founding
ideals. We will focus specifically on the Department of Peace
and how it can be the instrument for reclaiming peace as our
organizing principle.
The
Third Way
This would be aimed at church & spiritual organizations.
It is
based on the works of Walter Wink, among others, and focuses
on the teaching of Jesus. We explore ideas like “Love
one another” and “Turn the other cheek”.
We have often been taught that our two options to resolving
conflict are “fight or flight.” This workshop
invites us to explore the creative response that nonviolence
provides.
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