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July 2002
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July 2002 e-Newsletter
News from the Office
by Leah Green
These past months have brought new meaning to the word "tragic" vis-a-vis the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Along with the daily death toll, we in the Compassionate Listening community have shed many tears and felt our hearts break over and over again. We are doing our best to hold the vision of a peaceful future for our brothers and sisters who are suffering the unimaginable grief of daily life. These words hold true for me now more than ever, and my commitment to the work of Compassionate Listening grows on a daily basis:
"To develop the drop of compassion
in our own heart
is the only effective spiritual response to hatred and violence."
-Thich Nhat Hanh
We've been busy this past year building our Board of Directors and focusing on our organizational mission and structure. A heartfelt thank you to our fabulous Board for all of their work and support, and a special welcome to our new board president Eryn Kalish. Eryn, along with fellow board member Linda Wolf are currently with our Project Director Andrea Cohen Kiener on our 18th citizen delegation in Israel and Palestine. Welcome also to Gabe Cohen who served as an advisor for the past 2 years before joining the board, and to Victor Azar, our first Palestinian board-member, who inspires us all with his deep commitment to peace-building.
Perhaps our biggest news is the decision to change our name. This summer our non-profit is legally becoming The Compassionate Listening Project. This decision reflects the fact that Compassionate Listening as a tool for conflict transformation has become our primary focus. Requests for our generic trainings/workshops are coming in from all over the world. We have spent a lot of time developing curriculum, and now offer a trainer certification track to help meet the world-wide demand. Our citizen delegations will still be offered under Mid-East Citizen Diplomacy as a program of The Compassionate Listening Project.
Our Training Director Carol Hwoschinsky has been
busy with the new edition of her Compassionate Listening guidebook, Listening
with the Heart which is working its way into the world and selling
very well. She is on staff this summer teaching Compassionate Listening
at Jean Houston's summer institute
for Social Artists in Ashland Oregon.
Carol has volunteered countless hours this past year to The Compassionate
Listening Project, training Israelis and Palestinians in January in two
intensive workshops. She also developed a certification track for our Compassionate Listening trainers. 16 of
us gathered for 5 days in May for advanced certification training - many
of whom are already teaching workshops and introductions.
Carol sees this work as her service to the world. Thanks to her guidebook,
Compassionate Listening is spreading as a grassroots movement. We get
calls and emails from all over the world, telling us they are using the
guidebook to start groups and initiate community projects. We are now
marketing Listening With the Heart
to conflict resolution programs at universities across the United States.
Thank you Carol for your incredible service!
As this newsletter goes to "press" we are grateful to learn that we've received a grant from the Threshold Foundation to train Israeli and Palestinian Compassionate Listening trainers. We will be sending over Jewish-Palestinian facilitator teams throughout the coming year. With the violence spiraling out of control and no end in sight, this feels like the most important work we could be undertaking in the region. Our deepest thanks to the Threshold Foundation for supporting our efforts.
Our new video Crossing the Lines: Palestinians and Israelis speak with The Compassionate Listening Project, will be ready to ship in late-July. This video includes highlights from interviews on Compassionate Listening delegations in 2001 and 2002. The video is just under 1 and 1/2 hours, and contains a wide spectrum of perspectives, including: Zoughbi Zoughbi, Sari Nusseibeh, Father Elias Chacour, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Devorah Brous, Captain Peter Lerner, Sarah Kaminker, Daniel Seaman, families of Israeli and Palestinian victims of terror, Judy Balint, Hisham Sharabati and Rabbi David Zeller. We will send out an announcement with an order form soon. Thanks to Peter Hwoschinsky, who shot and edited the video, for his dedication to this project. And thank you to the Firedoll Foundatio for their generous grant to start the video and to the Fond du Lac Area Foundation - Virginia L. Duncan Sophia Fund for their generous grant to complete it. We also thank the many individuals who contributed to this project - especially all of you who volunteered for the tedious job of transcribing.
(Congratulations also to Peter on the release of his 2nd CD. Exposed is beautiful, personal, and highly influenced by his years with The Compassionate Listening Project.)
We are very excited to host our Israeli and Palestinian ground coordinators for their first U.S. speaking tour this summer! Hisham Sharabati from Hebron in the West Bank will join Devorah Brous from Jerusalem, to speak about human rights in Israel and Palestine from a personal and political perspective. These two tireless, courageous workers for peace will be hosted in synagogues, mosques, churches, campuses, peace centers, Jewish Federations, and homes. We bless their tour - that they rekindle hope in the human spirit, and receive the support they need to continue their own work back home.
Our first German-Jewish Compassionate Listening delegation is set for September 27th - October 6th. Our Jewish delegation will travel to Germany, where we will learn and practice Compassionate Listening together with our German counterparts. Then we will travel to Berlin to listen to victims and perpetrators, visit with members of the Jewish community as well as Bergen Belsen before returning to our home base at the beautiful ecovillage of Steyerberg for a few integration days. At this time we have two spaces left for the Jewish team, and the German team is full.
Brian Berman, who is on our trainer certification track, co-founded a Community Listening Council model this past year and is developing plans to train others wanting to use Compassionate Listening as a healing model in their communities. For more information please contact Brian.
Project Director Rabbi Andrea Cohen Kiener will introduce Compassionate Listening in Holland this summer at the Leading to the Edge conference. The conference features leading trainers from Europe, USA, UK, and Eastern Europe.
Photographer Beverly Duperly Boos has been developing a traveling photographic exhibition for The Compassionate Listening Project over the past year. Her stunning photos were recently selected for a reception with Madelaine Albright in Seattle, and she has openings in the works for Marin County, Washington D.C., Hartford CT and Seattle. Congratulations on the fruits of your labor! Thank you also to Christine Castigliano (www.metatoggle.com) for her beautiful design work on the preview of the photo exhibition - your artist eye is deeply appreciated by all of us...
Project Director Munteha Shukralla is now a full-fledged Compassionate Listening delegation leader, having co-led her second trip this past March - a highly successful, ground-breaking trip to Syria and Lebanon. Blessings on Munteha's vision of bringing Compassionate Listening even deeper into the Arab/Islamic world in the coming years. You can join Munteha and our stellar new Syrian coordinators Hassan Ahmad and Ehab al-Khatib on our next Syria/Lebanon delegation. For more information, write Munteha at: syria@mideastdiplomacy.org
Thank you to the Seattle Peace Chorus for honoring The Compassionate Listening Project at their beautiful annual Earth Day concert in Seattle this past April 20th. It was a gift to be acknowledged for our work in our "home" community of Seattle, in a sanctuary filled with peace-workers.
Administrative Director Kirsten Jewell has brought a wealth of skills to the home office this year. Besides bringing the office to a new level of organization and efficiency, it is truly a pleasure to have her around. We are also grateful to have Amanda Stuart with us as a new volunteer. Amanda is changing career paths after 12 years with a labor union. Among other gifts, we have Amanda to thank for this newsletter! For two months this summer we are also blessed to have Chloe Pantel, who comes to us as an intern from the south of France as part of her studies in English and international relations at University of Montpellier. We wish we could speak french with Chloe, but luckily for us her english is perfect.
Thank you to our community of Compassionate Listeners around the world for your on-going support. We literally could not be doing this work without your support on all levels. With your partnership, we are widening the circle of listeners, and the ripples continue to radiate... In these challenging times, may we all be blessed with the courage to listen with open hearts. May we all find peace in the still place inside ourselves, and hold strong to our visions for peace.
"Bitter winds are howling. Let them howl. We can shelter each other and put our little flames together. Maybe then we will find ourselves better able to face adversity. Maybe then we will find that the pain we feared would destroy us rather brings us back to what gives us life...
I stand for this. If we meet the world with eyes that do
not flinch and hearts that are open,
we will find ourselves capable of what is asked of us...
I stand for this. In our connection with each other, we
are more than strong and brave.
We are humble enough to be human in this world."
- John Robbins
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