The June Conversation: From Revenge to Restorative Justice

The Second Story: From Revenge to Restorative Justice

In this moment of a national uprising against racial injustices, this second step in our New Story Journey - moving from narratives of violent retribution to ones of restorative justice - is even more timely. We are honored to welcome our friend and teacher Melvin Bray—an activist, storyteller, father, husband, and mentor to many—as he guides us in a discussion on overcoming our societal addiction to racism and structures of injustice, replacing them, instead, with beloved community.

Join us this coming Tuesday evening, June 9, from 7:00-8:30pm (Central), for a journey of recovery from our social addiction to the false narrative that some lives are worth more than others. Together we will learn practical tools for change, as Melvin introduces us to his 12-Step Model Toward Beloved Community through which we can acquire four key behavioral gains: critical analysis, self-awareness, cultural competence, and better practices.

We'll also be joined by one of our favorite New Story performers, transcendental folk musician K Stellar Dutcher, for a moving musical performance.

When

The interactive webinar including a live conversation will be offered on Tuesday, June 9, from 7-8:30 pm CDT. A replay of that recorded video, together with live follow-up conversation among participants will be offered Saturday, June 13, from 1-2:30 pm CDT.

How it Works

This Conversation has two components:

1. An online discussion group hosted right here on this event page within our New Story Community social network. Simply click on the Activity Feed link to the left. There you can post status updates, comments, links, articles, images, and more. Or use the event's dedicated Chat Room where you can chat in real time with any of the other participants. We encourage you to use these features to connect with your fellow community members before, during, and after the event itself.

2. A 90-minute interactive video event hosted on Zoom, a video conferencing service you can use on your computer, tablet, or mobile device. Once you've registered for this event (or for the whole New Story Journey) you will find the Zoom links by clicking on either the "Live" or "Remix" sessions on the Event Details page. Then simply click the Zoom link at the designated time to join the Conversation.

Our Guides

Melvin Bray is an Emmy® award-winning storyteller, social entrepreneur, and author who lives with his 1 spouse, 3 teenagers, 2 dogs, and garden in southwest Atlanta GA. Author of BETTER: Waking Up to Who We Could Be, Melvin helps communities of goodwill find better stories and scripts that move them toward equity, diversity, and inclusion (collabyrinthconsulting.com).

K Stellar Dutcher is a musician, facilitator and activist based in Austin, TX. They are the founder of transcendental folk band The Seventh String and have led workshops in human potential, interpersonal connection and systemic self-awareness since 2005. They care about unlearning oppression, a long view of history, and liberation for everyone. You can find them at www.patreon.com/stellarsings.

DESIRE LINES

The Irish peace activist, theologian and writer Glenn Jordan died suddenly on June 4th, 2020. Glenn was a dear friend and colleague of New Story Festival co-founder Gareth Higgins; and part of the wider New Story and Porch community. With gratitude for Glenn, and because many of us need to read words like these, we're publishing the last article he wrote for The Porch.

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My dogs like to run so the more open space they have the better. Mary Oliver wrote

...of all the sights I love in this world—

and there are plenty—very near the top of

the list is this one: dogs without leashes.

and I get to see that truth every day we’re out. Mostly we spend time in the abandoned sports grounds of a local school where we have several acres of overgrown rugby and hockey pitches, tennis courts and cricket creases and they can run in wide circles around me as if we are connected by some invisible centripetal tie of relationship.

In the summer the grass grows to hip height and I can lie flat on the ground, hidden from view, while they hunt me down, bounding through the meadow drawn by whatever scent it is which signals me. In the winter months though, when the grass dies back the fields reveal the tracks left by our small community of dog walkers. Around the edges of the pitches, sometimes following the long erased sidelines, sometimes cutting across the field, are the paths we have worn into the earth.

I remember, from some distant place in my brain, that these are known as desire lines, the shortest and most navigable routes between an origin and a destination. It intrigues me that we human beings are such creatures of habit. More often than not, rather than cutting our own way across the fields, we follow the trails left by others who went before. So much so in fact that the patterns we leave are clearly visible in wilderness trails and urban parks and the worn steps of old cathedrals.

There are paths which we build and routes that we groove into the landscape.

I commute to work on the train from the seaside town of Bangor, Co Down in Northern Ireland, into the city of Belfast. On the approach between Titanic train station and Lanyon Place in the city centre, the train climbs a short steep rise which gives the traveller a view over a vacant city lot that falls down to the Lagan, the river that traces a wide arc on its way through the city. It’s the site of the old Sirocco factory, sixteen acres of post industrial landscape that has lain derelict for more than ten years.

One morning last winter, as I made that journey, the air was icy and sharp and I was already gathering my stuff to exit the train at Botanic, in the University district. I looked down on the Sirocco site, overgrown with tired grass and weeds, and I noticed how the frost had disclosed a pattern of trails across the waste ground.

These were the paths that people had worn into the ground as they nipped across the site taking short cuts into the city. The width of those tracks, and the depth, reveal the levels of traffic. I find it amusing that sometimes our desire to walk the straightest path means we disavow, or disobey, the signs which tell us not to walk this way, and even those which warn us to keep out.

Architects and planners are all too aware of desire lines and, when building something new on former empty spaces, they will often build proper paths along the desire lines. Occasionally, perhaps in the interest of aesthetics, a designer will lay out the most pleasing route through a site, but walkers will continue to use the desire lines. There is a small urban park in Belfast with gates at opposite corners. In the middle of the park is  a beautiful lawn with formal pathways laid out in a square around it. But a diagonal route has been worn from gate to gate, across the grass, ignoring the paths and drawing a seam across the grass.

There is wisdom in a desire line. 

It is often the simplest and most direct route through the things we have constructed between us. As few as fifteen passages across open ground are enough to create a way to be followed, to wear a groove into the ground for others to follow.

But this city of Belfast is a city of anomalies. Through the many years of our violent conflict we have ended up building high walls blocking routes and paths between communities which claim different allegiances and identities. These walls, known bizarrely as Peace Lines, sometimes cut through parks, schools, even churches. It seems a contradiction but it’s true that more of these high walls have been built since the peace agreement was signed than were ever built during the height of the conflict.

They may be an indication that while we are no longer in the midst of a violent conflict we still have not managed to create the desire for true reconciliation, nor removed the fear of difference which might enable us to establish new routes towards relationships of peace.

Recently, with a group of ordinands for the Anglican priesthood, I stood shivering in the shadow of the oldest Peace Wall while tourists scribbled their names and motivational comments onto the concrete. We then moved to the other side of that same wall and viewed it from the upper floors of a Catholic monastery in whose rooms politicians once met, having arrived secretly through separate doors in order to craft the agreements that ultimately ended the fighting. The wall snaked its way across the landscape, making visible the awful truth that there are two communities here in the one place and we have built a wall between them which is higher than the homes of the people on either side.

Priests and congregants from this Redemptorist monastery continue a long-established tradition of pilgrimage, leaving their sanctuary each Sunday morning and traveling across these literal and figurative walls which separate us, to worship with those who would otherwise remain strangers. In doing so they make new routes, new paths which indicate their desire to break down these walls that interrupt the connecting roads across difference. In tracing these new ways they give hope to us all that we can navigate around walls of division; that through persistence and good courage we can wear new ways into the earth which defy the signs that tell us there is no way through here.

So I marvel at the boldness of the pioneers who are the first to walk over neglected ground to make a way from one place to another. Not just in the landscape of a city, but from one human heart to another, creating new routes through the things we have allowed grow up between us.

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Words by Glenn Jordan.

"Never doubt that a small committed group of citizens can change the world..."

I often think about the following words, usually attributed to the anthropologist and sage Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small committed group of citizens can change the world. For indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

This is true. The transformative movements toward a fairer, safer, less violent world are almost always animated by small local groups - Gandhi's Salt March began with him and just 78 followers, and culminated in the independence of an entire country. It was handfuls of people sitting at lunch counters or taking the bus across state lines who grounded the Black Civil Rights movement in local activism. The Northern Ireland peace process was fertilized by individuals and small groups across my homeland, engaged in the long term work of loving their neighbors, and their enemies; often risking their own safety to engage in dialogue with people who might have done them harm.

We might bear in mind that the transformative power of small groups applies to the shadow as well as to medicine. The three largest genocides of the twentieth century began in the minds of three men (Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Pol Pot) and a small group of adherents. 

But most of us, most of the time, are somewhere in between. Not evil enough to be Hitler, not brave enough to be Gandhi. I know that's where I am. However, if we wait for a charismatic hero figure to save us, we will have missed the truth that even charismatic hero figures need the rest of us to work with them to achieve their goals. And if we do nothing, then we give up responsibility to people whose shadows are running the show, continuing to operate out of the old stories of domination and violent retribution.

As we witness the current outpouring of resistance to the violence continually inflicted against persons of color in the United States, we may wonder how best to lend our energy to these movements. We have learned from wise and experienced teachers that the most important thing any of us can do is to participate in building a beloved community, non-violently dismantling the supremacy of anything that isn't rooted in love. It’s really as simple as that.

The first step is to ask two very important questions: 

1) What resources and privilege do I have, and how can I use them to serve the common good?

2) What lack do I notice, and who are the communities from which I can ask for help?

We want the New Story Community to be the kind of space where both of those questions are both asked and answered.

So this week, let's be in conversation together about how to serve from the privilege we each may hold, and how to share solidarity and support in the places where any of us is experiencing lack.

Practical and poetic ideas are both welcome. Join us over at the New Story Online Community (it’s free to sign-up) - share your questions and your wisdom, and let’s move forward together.

Join the May Retreat: The First Story: From Domination to Servant Leadership

The First Story: From Domination to Servant Leadership

Click here to register

In this first of seven monthly online mini-retreats in our New Story Journey, we will delve even more deeply into the first of the six shadow stories that shape our lives and our world. Through a half-day of interactive online workshops, along with headline sessions with author/activist Brian McLaren, we will explore the Domination Story of "us over them," which instead of bringing the promised safety and security, typically produces only violence and oppression instead. Through this retreat we will discover together how to move beyond this destructive shadow story to the kind of genuine servant leadership necessary for the common good.

When

The May Mini-Retreat will take place online via a series of Zoom video conference sessions on Saturday, May 30, from Noon to 5 PM CDT:

• 12:00-1230 PM  -  Opening Session

• 12:45-2:15 PM   -  Workshop Session 1 (Two Options)

• 2:30-4:00 PM   -   Workshop Session 2 (Two Options)

• 4:15-5:00 PM   -   Headline Session w/Brian McLaren

How it Works

This Mini-Retreat has two components:

1. An online discussion group hosted right here on this event page within our New Story Community social network. Simply click on the Activity Feed link to the left. There you can post status updates, comments, links, articles, images, and more. Or use the event's dedicated Chat Room where you can chat in real time with any of the other participants. We encourage you to use these features to connect with your fellow community members before, during, and after the event itself.

2. A five-hour interactive video event hosted on Zoom, a video conferencing service you can use on your computer, tablet, or mobile device. Once you've registered for this event (or for the whole New Story Journey), visit the Retreat Details page for the complete schedule and click through on the session titles to find details and Zoom links for each. Simply click the Zoom links at the designated time to join the Sessions and Workshops you are interested in.

Workshops

There will be two 90-minute workshop options offered during each of two Workshop Session Blocs (12:45-2:15pm CDT & 2:30-4:00pm CDT). Sessions for the May Mini-Retreat include:

Taking Action With an Open Heart: Authentic leadership and the art of receiving feedback - with Danny Morris, a trauma informed awakening and embodiment coach based in Austin, Texas. 

Moving away from the story of domination, what does it mean to be a leader who needs to take action, but keeps their heart open to their impacts on who they are leading? Leadership, at its core, is being attuned to what is in service to the whole and guiding others in that direction, though any kind of leader (a teacher, a parent, a group organizer, a facilitator, a boss etc ...) can let their own shadows and blind spots get in the way. In this session we will explore authentic leadership and what it means keep your heart open while receiving feedback about your leadership in real time.

Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Circle -  with Amina Haji, co-founder of the Austin Health Commons, and THRT facilitators Undrae Fairly and Rene Renteria 

Austin Health Commons will present a shortened version of the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Circle, which allows us to develop a deeper understanding of our shared humanity by telling our truths. When we share our stories, we find common ground with those who we perceive as different and build connections that transcend the perceived hierarchy of human value.

Beyond Our Scripts: Expanding the containers of our conversations - with Licensed Professional Counselor Tamara Hanna Feightner & her husband Greg.

We all follow scripts, subtly and constantly, whether in the assumptions woven in the questions we ask ourselves and others, the way we answer, or the things that are beyond the container of the words being exchanged. Scripts that don’t allow or invite the expansiveness of who we are, nor aid in our becoming. Join this session to explore the scripts you may be carrying about yourself, others, and your role in the world. Consider what has become familiar but no longer serves the “you” you want to become or the world you hope to co-create.

Authentic Relating Online - with Authentic Revolution founder Sara Ness.

Can online connection be as deep and intimate as in-person relating? Let's find out! In this workshop, Sara will share some relating games with us that specifically thrive online, and teach you how to bring them to your own life and communities.

Workshops sessions will be recorded and available later for individual purchase in our online store, or for free to New Story Journey subscribers in our Video Library.

About Our Headliner

Brian McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is on the Board of Advisors for the New Story Festival, is a faculty member of The Living School at the Center for Action and Contemplation, and co-leads the Common Good Messaging Team with Vote Common Good. He has published numerous books, including The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence and the illustrated children’s book version called Cory and the Seventh Story, both of which he co-authored together with New Story co-founder Gareth Higgins.

Welcome to the Community

Click here to register for the May Mini-Retreat

Registration for the May Mini-Retreat also includes membership in our dedicated social network, The New Story Community. 

As part of this Community, you’ll be able to post status updates, links, articles, images, and polls. You can also join the group chat room or direct message your fellow members.

The main Activity Feed for the entire New Story Community network is where you can see everything going on. In addition, every Event you register for and Group you join has its own separate Activity Feed as well. Don't worry though, all the posts from each of your sub-groups or Events will also be visible in the main Activity Feed - so you can keep track of all of it all in one place.  .  

Click here to join the Journey

Note too that by clicking on the Journey Events link in the left-hand column of the main Activity Feed, you can find out about all of our other upcoming events or subscribe to the full New Story Journey online experience. 

Welcome to the conversation. We're glad you're here!

Join the May Conversation

From Domination to Servant Leadership

Join author and activist Brian McLaren for an interactive discussion on the first of the six “shadow” stories we are exploring as part of the 7-month New Story Journey. These deep cultural narratives shape our lives and our world as they attempt to meet legitimate human needs. The first story, one of Domination - "us over them" - fails to bring the security it promises, typically producing violence and oppression instead. It is the shadow side of the kind of genuine Servant Leadership that is necessary for the common good. Alongside this stimulating and provocative conversation, Brian will also be joined by the magnificent Nikki Lerner for a barnstorming musical performance.

Brian McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is on the Board of Advisors for the New Story Festival, is a faculty member of The Living School at the Center for Action and Contemplation, and co-leads the Common Good Messaging Team with Vote Common Good. He has published numerous books, including The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence and the illustrated children’s book version called Cory and the Seventh Story, which he co-authored together with New Story co-founder Gareth Higgins.

Nikki Lerner is a nationally recognized culture coach, speaker, artist, and author empowering others to be reconcilers through music, love, and conversation. Nikki has released 4 studio music projects - including a self-titled EP, Longings, and The Things We Never Say (2016) - authored 2 books, and is the host of the Culture Coach Podcast

Come Along for the Journey

This Conversation is just one part of the 7-month New Story Journey, an online experience of creativity, courage, and the common good. Subscribers get access to all seven Mini-Retreats, as well as seven monthly Conversations with well-known speakers and musicians, our free Video Library from past events, free offers from our New Story community leaders, and much more. Subscribe to the full Journey for $199, or in monthly installments of just under $30 each.