The Medicine We Need is Respect Guest Post by Paula Green
Paula Green, long time trainer and teacher of conflict transformation, responds here in an Op-Ed exchange with a conservative reader of the Hampshire Gazette, about the deep polarization in the US between Democrats and Republicans. Read on, for a sane and powerful teaching from Paula.
Seeing Ourselves in the Eyes of Others
www.paulagreen.net
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Thank you for Paula Green’s response. I also have several good friends who are
part of the political divide from me. We’ve avoided the Trump/conservative
talks. Yet, I keep thinking we can only get stronger together if those of us who
like and respect each other will have open, respectful talks, if we work to find our
common concerns, issues we could both support. Maybe a start======
This is a very thoughtful article and Hands Across the Hills is an amazing effort.
Here is a link from Gratefulness.org for those who might like to know more.
https://gratefulness.org/grateful-changemakers/grateful-changemakers-hands-across-the-hills/
Thanks for sharing Paula’s writing. Important words that touch me deeply as these divisions are frightening and disheartening.
Thanks for your work, Ms. Green. It is deeply important. I hope we all can learn to interrogate our own biases. A dear friend nspires me, as you do with your own work. My friend grew up in a hell-and-brimstone family in rural Indiana. Her parents and closest family members are Trumpsters. Yet she loves them all, and reaches across the deep philosophical divides to find the common ground that enables them to continue to belong to one another. Perhaps if we can each find a role model like my friend, like you, it will be easier to learn to do the needed work we need to heal as a nation. If each one of us who longs for such healing can listen and learn, I want to think we will find our way. Blessings to you and your new friend.