It's been an interesting week, beginning with a text message last Friday in the form of an invitation to join a friend on a trip to Kenya to have a conversation with a group of leaders about living loved and being able to help others with that so as to find the way to forgiveness and reconciliation, as they help their communities walk through some very difficult situations. It's so encouraging and humbling to hear of people who are putting love on the line, knowing that it is the only pathway to a better tomorrow, than is hate and retaliation. I'm completely convinced that I have more to learn from them then I have to offer.
This invitation has led to many conversations with my clients at work. I have been pleasantly surprised this week at the number of conversations that have actually been able to get off the ground...the kind of conversation that most often never does and in turn always leaves me sad and frustrated. But I am learning that these things can't be forced.
I have this sense that we are living in a time when many corrections are beginning to be made (or attempts to do so) in regards to offenses of the past and ongoing present. Things of economics...race...religion and so on. The status quo is being challenged and needs to be, but these are never easy times. People don't like change and people's sense of entitlement on all sides have a way of stirring deep emotions.
History and memory play such a huge role in this process and I have learned how tricky history and memory truly are. "Memory, the Self-Justifying Historian"
William Maxwell explains the difficulty in this quote: "memory ...the self justifying historian. What we....refer to confidently as memory...is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling."
I'm guessing that it has always been this way? That people always live within the telling of the stories that define them, the past experiences of the lives of the people that make up their group. The stories told in order to make sense out all that has gone into making them who they have become. But there in lies the problem. People are rarely ever honest about how things actually happened. And that doesn't mean they are lying...even though sometimes that is very much a part of the memory. The mind has a way of bending reality so that the picture painted by the story being told, looks better than it actually was/is. It's a way of sanitizing/justifying bad behavior so that we can live with ourselves.
I know of only one path that has the power to change the equation. The path defined by Love. Some might say honesty would be the answer, but to me that is as tricky as relying on memory. Without love, the kind of honesty we are in need of is not possible. Without learning to live loved and in turn learning to love the other...self preservation mode is left fully intact, and by definition, that leaves us as people who spin the story to our favor while we deny reality.
This invitation has led to many conversations with my clients at work. I have been pleasantly surprised this week at the number of conversations that have actually been able to get off the ground...the kind of conversation that most often never does and in turn always leaves me sad and frustrated. But I am learning that these things can't be forced.
I have this sense that we are living in a time when many corrections are beginning to be made (or attempts to do so) in regards to offenses of the past and ongoing present. Things of economics...race...religion and so on. The status quo is being challenged and needs to be, but these are never easy times. People don't like change and people's sense of entitlement on all sides have a way of stirring deep emotions.
History and memory play such a huge role in this process and I have learned how tricky history and memory truly are. "Memory, the Self-Justifying Historian"
William Maxwell explains the difficulty in this quote: "memory ...the self justifying historian. What we....refer to confidently as memory...is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling."
I'm guessing that it has always been this way? That people always live within the telling of the stories that define them, the past experiences of the lives of the people that make up their group. The stories told in order to make sense out all that has gone into making them who they have become. But there in lies the problem. People are rarely ever honest about how things actually happened. And that doesn't mean they are lying...even though sometimes that is very much a part of the memory. The mind has a way of bending reality so that the picture painted by the story being told, looks better than it actually was/is. It's a way of sanitizing/justifying bad behavior so that we can live with ourselves.
I know of only one path that has the power to change the equation. The path defined by Love. Some might say honesty would be the answer, but to me that is as tricky as relying on memory. Without love, the kind of honesty we are in need of is not possible. Without learning to live loved and in turn learning to love the other...self preservation mode is left fully intact, and by definition, that leaves us as people who spin the story to our favor while we deny reality.
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