This day finds me filled with sorrow for all those men and women whose lives are forever changed by the horrors of war. The men and women who we train to carryout war. The men and women who give their lives in that pursuit and those left to live their lives struggling with the wounds; physical, mental, psychological. It doesn't matter if I agree with the cause of the war. It doesn't matter that I believe that war is wrong. Today, what matters is that these untold thousands made incredible sacrifices doing what they believed was the right thing to do. Tears run down my face as I lift their unknown names in prayer.
I am filled with sorrow for the devastation that war wreaks, not only on those fighting that war, but on the people; the innocent bystanders. Could it be that we are all innocent bystanders? That in some small way we all bear the scars of war? We are, after all, connected by our very DNA. How can one feel that kind of pain without it affecting another?
I will never forget one day, when my youngest daughter was serving this country as a Marine in Iraq. I Had gone out to do some shopping. As I returned home, I prepared to turn on to my street. I could see my home, my driveway, and in my driveway was parked a late model navy blue sedan. I felt panic rise in me. The thoughts that stormed through my mind went from terror to wanting to flee so they couldn't tell me because somehow if I didn't know it wouldn't be true, to the knowledge that if it were true it was inescapable - surrender. You see, I knew that car was exactly the type of car that would arrive at my home with two officers inside to tell me that my daughter was no more. I continued to my home and found, to my great relief that the car belonged to police officers checking on a domestic dispute. I was so grateful! Nonetheless, I carry that pain, deep within me, of what could have been - what almost was. The knowledge that thousands of other mothers are not so lucky. I know I will never forget the pain and fear that I felt. It drives me ever harder to help find ways in which we can all live in peace.
As an individual I believe that we, the human race, have at our disposal the means to seek peace rather than promulgating the terrors of war. I pray that we can accept that as a true possibility for once we do we will find the way.
The fact that I actively seek peace is not meant in any way to dishonor those who feel sure in their hearts that they are called to serve. I honor their belief and the sacrifices that their beliefs force them to make. I know that for them it is a mark of their love for country above all else. I hope that they will come to understand and honor the beliefs that I hold - that peace is possible. Turning the tide - finding our way to peace, will require sacrifice, and some may die in its pursuit. A world at peace will require immense courage and strength of will and character. Qualities that already exist. Can we choose another way: if not for ourselves for our children and our children's children?
Monday, May 28, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Sakartvelo 2011 - last day
It's a gray, chilly day here in Tbilisi; drizzling off and on. Our time here in Sakartvello has been full of many joys, times of intense discussion and learning, and definitely blessings.
Our time doing AVP workshops, working with facilitators here as well as during the youth forum fills my heart with joy and hope for the future. There is still a huge amount of work to be done; particularly, new facilitators to be trained so that there will be enough who can dedicate time during the week when the younger facilitators are either at their jobs or at University.
I had been looking at meeting with representatives at the US Embassy as simply a courtesy call but was pleasantly surprised to find their willingness to connect us to NGO partners and to be available to us as we move AVP forward.
Our meeting with other Georgian officials were warm and cordial but it's apparant that it will take a great deal more work to show them that AVP is important to add to their offerings. My personal feeling is that until there are more AVP facilitators to do the work, a delay may be well.
We continue to search for funding to translate the balance of the AVP basic manual and the remaining three manuals into Georgian.
My Elder and co-facilitator on this trip has shown an amazing capacity for language! She has learned the Georgian alphabet and frequently sounds out words on various signs along the way. Because Georgian is written purely by sound, she is also able to write some words. I am now challenged to step up my own work - beyond the many words that I have learned to at least semi-fluent level before our return. Having Turtle traveling with me is definitely one of the blessings of this trip.
Our time doing AVP workshops, working with facilitators here as well as during the youth forum fills my heart with joy and hope for the future. There is still a huge amount of work to be done; particularly, new facilitators to be trained so that there will be enough who can dedicate time during the week when the younger facilitators are either at their jobs or at University.
I had been looking at meeting with representatives at the US Embassy as simply a courtesy call but was pleasantly surprised to find their willingness to connect us to NGO partners and to be available to us as we move AVP forward.
Our meeting with other Georgian officials were warm and cordial but it's apparant that it will take a great deal more work to show them that AVP is important to add to their offerings. My personal feeling is that until there are more AVP facilitators to do the work, a delay may be well.
We continue to search for funding to translate the balance of the AVP basic manual and the remaining three manuals into Georgian.
My Elder and co-facilitator on this trip has shown an amazing capacity for language! She has learned the Georgian alphabet and frequently sounds out words on various signs along the way. Because Georgian is written purely by sound, she is also able to write some words. I am now challenged to step up my own work - beyond the many words that I have learned to at least semi-fluent level before our return. Having Turtle traveling with me is definitely one of the blessings of this trip.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sakartvelo – Sunday, October 23, 2011
Today was the last day of the Youth Forum. On Wednesday, we were present at the forum but did not have an active facilitating role. Yesterday we did one exercise in the morning and today, was the final day. When we agreed to be part of this gathering I had some concerns around the focus because of its subtitle “Intercultural and Inter-Religious Dialogue as a Tool for Combating Hate Speech and Hate Accidents (we learned this was meant to be “Incidents”) in Europe”. As we moved into the work it was clear to Turtle and me that part of our role at the forum was to open way for questions about using a term such as “Hate Speech” and what happens when we create “the other”. In the closing today there was talk of needing to find a term that came from a positive place – looking at, and talking about using our positive energy to combat that which is negative; acknowledging that negative energy cannot overcome negative energy. There were times when I almost heard Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words in the room. It felt good to know that our presence was part of what moved this conversation forward.
In our time at the Forum, we built a warm and wonderful relationship with Natia Giorgidze, the primary facilitator of the Youth Forum who, it turned out was a former AVP facilitator and friend of Maia’s with whom she had lost contact. They swore that they would not loose track of one another again!
It appears that what is left of our time in Sakartvelo will be a bit quieter than we’d expected. Tomorrow morning we will go to Maia’s daughter, Natulie’s home so that Maia will have access to a piano and be able to teach us a Georgian song. From there we’ll travel on for a meeting at the US Embassy at 2:00. The following day we’ll do a training workshop for AVP facilitators. Wednesday we’re promised a day of sightseeing. I’m really looking forward to being out in this beautiful country. I suspect that we may go to places that I’ve seen before like the first capital, Mtskheta. It feels like I just can’t get enough! On the other hand, my bed, and Max the cat, are beginning to call to me.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sakartvelo - First day at the Youth Forum
Today was the first day of the Youth Forum. The day was devoted to using AVP exercises to bring people into community; to understand violence as a means of beginning to understand how to work toward non-violence; and to practice using the skills that we'd built during the day. Maia and Turtle and I worked together to facilitate the day. Feed back at the end of the day was quite positive with the great majority sharing that they had moved past a place of national identity to a place of seeing one another as human beings and friends. Many of the participants are from countries where they are traditionally at odds with one another so this was wonderful feedback to receive.
Tomorrow we will return to the conference as participants for the day - being available to talk and share our experiences. The following day we will do an exercise called "Building a New Society" in the morning and our part will be complete. The coordinators of this conference are very young, predominantly women who have done a fantastic job of bringing together, in 25 participants, an incredibly diverse group and a program that leads them to, and through the problems of hate speech, hate actions, and discrimination. I am very impressed!
Both Turtle and I are working to keep colds at bay so earlier nights than we have had are welcome!
Next week, our last here, is beginning to fill up with a visit to the American Embassy to talk about AVP and to attempt to elicit their support, will take place on Monday afternoon, and a meeting with facilitators to work on their skills will happen on Wednesday evening. Still to be scheduled a meeting with the Abkhazian High Council in Exile and a full day mini-workshop for the South Ossetians. It seems we will be busy until the very end!
Tomorrow we will return to the conference as participants for the day - being available to talk and share our experiences. The following day we will do an exercise called "Building a New Society" in the morning and our part will be complete. The coordinators of this conference are very young, predominantly women who have done a fantastic job of bringing together, in 25 participants, an incredibly diverse group and a program that leads them to, and through the problems of hate speech, hate actions, and discrimination. I am very impressed!
Both Turtle and I are working to keep colds at bay so earlier nights than we have had are welcome!
Next week, our last here, is beginning to fill up with a visit to the American Embassy to talk about AVP and to attempt to elicit their support, will take place on Monday afternoon, and a meeting with facilitators to work on their skills will happen on Wednesday evening. Still to be scheduled a meeting with the Abkhazian High Council in Exile and a full day mini-workshop for the South Ossetians. It seems we will be busy until the very end!
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Sakartvelo: October 19, 2011
The last two days have been a whirlwind of activity. We began Monday with a meeting with Elguja Gvazava, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia (now in exile), and another member of the Supreme Council to speak about AVP. Both men seemed quite enthusiastic and asked if we would meet with the full Supreme Council which we will do next week. I was presented with a book about Abkhazian artists which Elguja Gvazava inscribed for me.
Next we met with Dmitri Sanakoev, President in exile of South Ossetia. I had met with him on my first visit to Sakartvelo in 2009. He remembered our visit and our discussion about the Alternatives to Violence Project and asked if we would be able to do a workshop for Ossetians during this visit. We decided to do a full day mini-workshop during our last week here.
Our hosts treated us to dinner out - Kinghali, some filled with meat and others filled with cheese; Megrulian Katchapuri, baked mushrooms, Shishkabob (a fire roasted meat with salt and herbs), and Georgia's own Kesbegi Beer. Then, back to the flat to collapse into bed.
We rose early yesterday morning (Tuesday) to prepare for our meeting with Alexandra Kalatozishvili, Director of Youth Union or Public Movement Multinational Georgia, one of her coleagues and Natia Giorgidze, a Board Member and Trainer for the Non-Formal Education Youth Center. We were surprised and delighted to find that Natia had been an AVP facilitator and so was familiar and very supportive of our work. We reviewed time slots and scheduling and were clear that it would not be possible to actually do a full workshop and so, on the first day we will do a series of exercises and light and livelies including an introduction of ourselves and AVP and the transforming power talk. We will then have a day when we do not present and the third day of the Youth Forum we will do one more exercise "Building a New Society". The Youth Forum runs for four days total and we have been asked to attend all four days - The full (very long) title of this conference is "We Do Not Have Time for Silence: Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Dialogue as a Tool for Combating Hate Speech and Hate Accidents in Europe". The organizers have limited the number of participants to 25. Those 25 will come from Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the UK, Russia, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Georgia.
Today we asked out hosts to please not schedule meetings for us. Instead we took the day to rest and to prepare for the Youth Forum. I worked on the schedule and timing and Turtle created the Mandala in English. It's been decided that I will do the cooking when we eat in the flat, so I prepared a local winter squash stuffed with rice, onion, cheese, and dill, cooked in a mushroom broth and spinach sauted with garlic and butter. We have been invited out to dinner again tonight but won't leave until 8:30PM or so.
I find myself wondering about how AVP Georgia will survive without more support than my yearly to 18 month apart visits. Many, many more facilitators need to be trained here and Georgian facilitators need to reach the point where they feel competent to do that training. They need translations of the full manuals (they now only have part of the basic manual). They need to experience and be able to lead advanced workshops.
Before I came to Georgia this year I had begun questioning if this year would be my last, or perhaps next year. I have health concerns and I know that the lack of sleep and the fast pace while I am here create physical stresses for me.
Each morning for 45 minutes to an hour, Turtle and I spend time in silent worship. As I sat in prayer yesterday morning asking for guidance it came to me that I am one person: a person who for years, in prayer, has said to God "All that I am and all that I have you have given to me. I give it all back to you to dispose of according to your good will......." I realized that I have dedicated what remains of my life to the work of peace making as I believe God has called me to do. How then can I say no to the work that I am given?
Next we met with Dmitri Sanakoev, President in exile of South Ossetia. I had met with him on my first visit to Sakartvelo in 2009. He remembered our visit and our discussion about the Alternatives to Violence Project and asked if we would be able to do a workshop for Ossetians during this visit. We decided to do a full day mini-workshop during our last week here.
Our hosts treated us to dinner out - Kinghali, some filled with meat and others filled with cheese; Megrulian Katchapuri, baked mushrooms, Shishkabob (a fire roasted meat with salt and herbs), and Georgia's own Kesbegi Beer. Then, back to the flat to collapse into bed.
We rose early yesterday morning (Tuesday) to prepare for our meeting with Alexandra Kalatozishvili, Director of Youth Union or Public Movement Multinational Georgia, one of her coleagues and Natia Giorgidze, a Board Member and Trainer for the Non-Formal Education Youth Center. We were surprised and delighted to find that Natia had been an AVP facilitator and so was familiar and very supportive of our work. We reviewed time slots and scheduling and were clear that it would not be possible to actually do a full workshop and so, on the first day we will do a series of exercises and light and livelies including an introduction of ourselves and AVP and the transforming power talk. We will then have a day when we do not present and the third day of the Youth Forum we will do one more exercise "Building a New Society". The Youth Forum runs for four days total and we have been asked to attend all four days - The full (very long) title of this conference is "We Do Not Have Time for Silence: Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Dialogue as a Tool for Combating Hate Speech and Hate Accidents in Europe". The organizers have limited the number of participants to 25. Those 25 will come from Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the UK, Russia, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Georgia.
Today we asked out hosts to please not schedule meetings for us. Instead we took the day to rest and to prepare for the Youth Forum. I worked on the schedule and timing and Turtle created the Mandala in English. It's been decided that I will do the cooking when we eat in the flat, so I prepared a local winter squash stuffed with rice, onion, cheese, and dill, cooked in a mushroom broth and spinach sauted with garlic and butter. We have been invited out to dinner again tonight but won't leave until 8:30PM or so.
I find myself wondering about how AVP Georgia will survive without more support than my yearly to 18 month apart visits. Many, many more facilitators need to be trained here and Georgian facilitators need to reach the point where they feel competent to do that training. They need translations of the full manuals (they now only have part of the basic manual). They need to experience and be able to lead advanced workshops.
Before I came to Georgia this year I had begun questioning if this year would be my last, or perhaps next year. I have health concerns and I know that the lack of sleep and the fast pace while I am here create physical stresses for me.
Each morning for 45 minutes to an hour, Turtle and I spend time in silent worship. As I sat in prayer yesterday morning asking for guidance it came to me that I am one person: a person who for years, in prayer, has said to God "All that I am and all that I have you have given to me. I give it all back to you to dispose of according to your good will......." I realized that I have dedicated what remains of my life to the work of peace making as I believe God has called me to do. How then can I say no to the work that I am given?
Sunday, October 16, 2011
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