Thinking
Essays from the ILI newsletter
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New Ways to Speak for Peace
I suspect those arguments that feel like battles happen because the arguers are afraid, or enraged, or heartbroken – or all three.
Circles of Action
With few exceptions, no one is powerless; everyone has a circle of action. The only question is how to use it.
A Task From Which We Cannot Flinch: Remembering Dr. Zee
Szabi insisted on the possibility of a more just world, and at the same time unstintingly facing its ongoing violence and injustice. He held those two realities with equally insistent grace.
To Choose Between?
If I close my eyes I can see that river. I can also see boats on fire. I don’t have to choose, I mustn’t choose, between tending the river and the fire.
Liberating Relationships
Some of the best work for a more equitable and less violent world is in relationships.
What to do about populism??
I’ve been reminded this week: I can start (again and again) with myself.
Troubling Questions
When questions spark fear, it feels like trouble. When questions are forbidden on pain of punishment, we’re in trouble.
Good Reasons for New Questions
A story of deep breaths is as good a reason to think differently as I have ever heard.
Practicing Complexity
Resisting the impulse to dismiss complexity is very, very hard, most of the time. So it’s a practice; I’ll keep trying and failing and trying again, but it’s a critical practice.
Politics, Laws and Policies
The reason it’s dangerous to focus so much on politics, laws and policies as the most important leverage points for change is that they are not enough.
What Are We Laughing At?
The cartoon seemed to us an invitation to stereotype, create and isolate a whole demographic group as “other”, and then to make fun of them. Is this a good strategy for change? does it need to be?
A Time to Think Differently
Prevailing ideas clothed in righteous certainty have many times ushered tyranny through the door, from all parts of the political spectrum.
An Idea Is Only a Tiny Thing, but…
. . .bigotry thrives on social-supremacy, I’m talking about an ideology that has morphed into something systemic, a forest not seen for the trees.
Underlines
In the midst of the many million words of news filtered down to headlines every day, there are stories that promise profound systemic change
When I am Tired
I’m tired this week. I imagine some readers of this post are too. Weary of pandemic-driven limitations and differences with friends, colleagues and family. Worried about climate change. Deeply despairing of war and its impact. Exhausted by the relentless loss of livelihood and life to hate and bias. ….. and even when I’m this tired, there are three things I can do to respond to the urgency of the moment.
Questions Instead of Answers
I don’t believe ideas like freedom can be beaten or convinced into submission. … Questions though, sincere and open-hearted questions, can and have caused ideas to stand down, or shift enough to make more room for more people to thrive.
The Power of Loving Attention
But what does it mean to meet anguish, especially anguish that looks like resistance to the change we seek? How do we meet it well-enough to mitigate deepening harm, to shift change in the direction of increasing equity and decreasing violence?
On Righteous Anger
If anger is not reducing harm, and especially if it is causing harm, then anger is no friend to liberation. Righteous anger though, and anger strengthened by tending to other emotions, provides essential energy for doing the work that needs to get done.
Just Dance
When my stepchildren were young, they enrolled in a hip-hop dance class. After the first class, their mom asked my stepdaughter if the instructor had added context to the class. Had they learned about the history of hip hop? Its importance in African American culture? My stepdaughter, who was 9 or 10 at the time, sighed. “Mama,” she said, “we just want to dance.”
Responding to Fear
Fear lights matches every day, touches them to gas, and sets the world on fire. We’ve got to put out those fires, and fiercely resist the lighting of the match. We’ve also got to learn to respond effectively to fear itself.