photo credit: ASAP Pang
Most people I have been asking about peace in 2024 respond with similar words:
overwhelmed, angry, hopeless, scared.
I noticed a handful of years ago that rhetoric in my circles began to elevate peacebuilding as a concept, though not always as a committed practice in their lives. This is understandable; it is hard, slow work! Just because a problem has urgency does not mean the solution is quick. Quite the opposite here. If peacebuilding is a priority in your life, I do not recommend leaning on sound bites or social media to help you or the world out in making a difference for the better.
Yet more recently, I have ceased to hear even much talk about the importance or timeliness of dialogue. I less frequently hear an elevation of peacebuilding as an idea. Instead I hear rhetoric like, "It's time to stand up for what is right." "I'm tired of listening. I'm tired of talking." I get that, totally. So many of us are weary and exhausted, confused or grieved. Some of us, at this stage, are just plain shutdown. Done with the whole conversation about any given news-related concept in particular. In many cases, folks are just trying to care for their mental health and survive in the individualized difficulties around us, much less the political and systemic ones.
It is clear that HOPE -even just conceptually- has taken a nosedive in the realm of nurturing peace against the backdrop of our political election and international wars and strife, suffering and injustices.
Hope is key for being fully alive. In all regards. Let's talk about Hope.
The Church Lab (TCL) is committed in 2024 as a witness to Hope that cannot be snuffed out, regardless of how broken the circumstances are.
TCL is distinct by its primarily spiritual pursuit of dialogue. We exist for the future of faith practice. We believe anyone, with any entrypoint into a conversation around spirituality and beliefs, can both have their journey dignified while also actively supporting others' spiritual growth, even as we exist in various traditions and on different paths.
Most importantly, we believe that our work hinges on that which is Greater than ourselves. We believe that there is something beyond ego, beyond the individual, that acts to draw us to our concept of God and/or common humanity, which deeply connects us one to another. It is slow, beautiful work. It does not hesitate in the face of hopelessness.
We don't have to manufacture hope in the dialogue community; we simply bear witness to its movement, again and again.
TCL wishes to invite you into this experiential work of Hope this year by welcoming you to our dialogues, to our hangouts, to our theology nerd nights, to trainings or workshops which may pique your interest. If you're not ready to join, you are always welcome to observe and not participate. If you're not ready to observe, we hope you'll subscribe to our mailchimp (at the bottom of any page of our website) to be updated on blogs like this, as well as our activity, as a source of inspiration to you.
We are excited to get to work this year, bearing witness to the Hope we witness in and among our dialogue work and our various spiritual journeys.
And who knows where Hope might show up otherwise.
Let's get to work in keeping our eyes, minds and hearts open to goodness that may rise up despite our finite individual lenses' odds. May our collective lenses, offered to one another, offer our communities something greater than ourselves. May it allow us to notice Hope rising that much more.
Regardless of what you feel ready for with or without TCL, please allow us to share these tips for peacebuilding in your own world in 2024. May it offer even a seed of help and Hope as we begin our 2024 together.
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11 Tips to Get Started on Reflecting Hope for Peacebuilding in 2024:
Expect yourself and others to be fully human. This is not a synonym for making mistakes. Being human presumes mistakes; move beyond this to consider richly what we will do with that presumption. What is the role of forgiveness and grace in your life, of empathy or repair, for yourself and for others? How does an awe of human resilience factor into your daily life? How can this ongoing consideration affect your life for the better? Forgiveness and grace breed resilience, safety, vulnerability, which breed mutual transformation.
MULTI-PARTIALITY, a concept I picked up from an excellent organization called BuildUp (howtobuildup.org), is a great 2024 lens. It is a commitment to default to any given viewpoint's legitimacy in that people's journey has brought them to that viewpoint for good reasons worth having curiosity about. We can be better peacebuilders when we give dignity to our journeys, and engage with unloaded question asking for our own learning and understanding purposes, rather than for the primary purpose of tearing down the viewpoint itself. Gaining a more textured understanding of viewpoints gives humans more texture. It is the opposite of dehumanizing. It is foundational to peacebuilding. It is a refusal to dehumanize by leaning into -perhaps counterintuitively, initially- the presumption that there is a path to understand how someone got somewhere. This does not mean we have to no longer own our own paths and opinions and stances; they can both be held simultaneously.
Seek to understand before being understood (from the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi). This is a muscle which our culture does not often ask us to exercise, if ever. What does it mean to see if all involved in a particular conversation, whether 1:1 or in a group, are game to mutually agree to practice understanding everyone else in the conversation, not as a means of gaining your own defense against their viewpoint, but as if you were about to be commissioned to live in this world according to that other person's viewpoint. A full dedication to it. What is incredible about this process is that if everyone puts forth a good faith effort into this, the result more often achieves what actors individually "defending" themselves does not: all are heard, all have a voice. Learning commences. Change within each of ourselves is born.
This is exercise. This is ongoing work to be integrated into life more and more deeply over the span of our lives. This is not a one-time effort. This is just like any other muscle: it needs practice, and it gets stronger and more deeply solidified with ongoing practice.
Become self-aware of stereotypes, whether they feel acceptable to you or not. Do you have stereotypes about people who vote differently than you? Who make particular social media statements or noticeably abstain from them? Who live in areas with which you're not familiar, or areas you associate with past harms to you? Do you have stereotypes about people being particularly uneducated, or ignorant, out of touch, or impractical, or heretical? Whether you are in a place to shift those assumptions, it's good to develop an awareness of all the stereotypes we carry around with us, and to register that it does impact how we engage with ideas and the world.
Be wary of the use of "they" to refer to people or institutions doing something you aren't in favor of or that hurts you or someone you love, or even the opposite. Boycotting "they" as a group plural in such situations can help speaker and listener(s) alike to develop a more precise sense of who is doing what, how or why we came to believe that. It keeps us from catastrophizing or creating empty conspiracies that fuzzier narratives tend to breed in and among us. Instead of using "they" in this context, try using specific names or organizations, a person or people. Try to be precise about numbers; is it really "everyone" that "always" or "never" does something? That is rare indeed. Is it actually 500 people or 50 or 5 or 1? The often invisible "army of they" can escalate not only conflicts, but our own emotions about it, whether or not it's a real army.
Pause when feeling hate or spite or other negative emotions toward someone. Get curious. We can ask ourselves: "Where is this coming from? What are my beliefs about this person and what they are saying? How is it connected to previous experiences I've had that may make my feelings -including fear or anger- even stronger? Is there a power dynamic at play? Do these feelings exist because I feel threatened or tired, because this person may try to exert some kind of authority or power over me?" Understanding where negative feelings toward others come, and getting curious about them, can often soften them or direct them in more constructive ways. It often takes the oxygen out of a negative -or potentially harmful- feeling around someone or something that can otherwise snowball very easily.
Take dehumanization seriously, particularly with jokes, as they can serve as a signal that it's ok in your social circle to dehumanize. I know, that sounds like such a strong claim! It can seem like being a party pooper to refuse to joke or make fun of someone or a group of people, but data shows that being willing to crack jokes about a group of people in an insulting way (even if it seems harmless) is an entry point into normalizing dehumanization. This is where it starts, friends. If we make jokes about groups of people with whom we have serious issues, we can pause and ask yourselves to what extent it's a positive coping mechanism, or if there are other jokes we could make that are not implying an entire people group has less value, voice or dignity than ourselves. We don't have to lose our sense of humor; it's just about being more intentional. Harmless-seeming humor has been shown to play an active role in taking increasing amounts of dignity away from people, including groups of which you may be a part. We can make minor shifts in what we crack jokes about in order to make a major shift in humanizing all those around us.
Be aware of what you stand for. You can stand for particular opinions and policies and still carry a high -or even highest- value of giving dignity to all humans, to letting people be people. You can have conviction on various issues and exercise a conviction of compassion, kindness…not only to those who agree with you but in general. As a muscle which begs for practice day in and day out. Peacemaking itself IS a stance. A tough one, and a worthy one. It is one Jesus modeled and stood for again and again.
Be in your own world. Individual relationships -the time they take, the intention, the understanding, even the laughing together- have a spiderweb effect that ripples out into bigger systems. Quick change is often empty; it dissipates. Be a worldchanging peacemaker by changing your own world: Find a friend in your vicinity who you know is different from yourself. Don't begin by jumping into the deep end and talking about all the ways you're different. Begin by learning about one another's lives, enjoying common ground, building one another up as people as much as possible. Once y'all have become people you deeply care for and trust, and vice versa, move to trickier ground only then. I highly recommend getting practice and training from The Church Lab or other dialogue practice ground, whether religious or not, while pursuing this.
People will tell you -you may even tell yourself- that peacemaking is impractical, illogical, impossible. It is made that way when it is a low value in our lives and the lives around us. Practicing peacebuilding, the slow and good work of it, not only breeds Peace; as its possibility unfolds as a reality in your own life, it builds up Hope for others who may move from wishing for a better world to participating in one. It is not illogical; it is vital. The more of us who practice bridge building, the more practical is becomes.
Please join us for our own dialogue muscle practice! Subscribe to TCL's mailchimp at the bottom of any page on our website to keep up with upcoming events and to access RSVP links! Or email Rev. Carrie Graham at carrie@thechurchlab.org with questions or thoughts on how we might be able to be a resource and support to you in your own peacemaking endeavors.