1.1 What’s the Problem?

The problem of peace dwelling as suggested by Hegel and Heidegger is that it is more than having a roof over our heads or building structures for habitation. Without disavowing the need to have a roof over our heads, for both these philosophers, the desire to make oneself at home in our world is constitutive of what it means to be human. The desire to feel secure from any threat of danger and being surrounded by a familiar, understood, and understandable world, appear to resonate with the different images of being-at-home as presented earlier. However, unlike Gadamer’s formulation of the philosopher Hegel ‘where one can feel free of anxiety’, for Heidegger, anxiety or what he calls ‘restlessness’, by virtue of being a human condition, means that we are not and cannot be ‘free of anxiety’. To be free of anxiety is to be free from what it means to be a human being. This does not mean that as human beings we are simply condemned to a life of restlessness. Dwelling in peace within the context of being-at-home and being-not-at-home means that we need to begin by acknowledging that we dwell in an in-between space of restlessness (being-not-at-home) and feeling like we belong (being-at-home). If we accept this then the problem and question of dwelling in peace is a matter of addressing a question that is rooted in our human condition: How can we dwell decisively and imaginatively in this in-between space of being-at-home and being-not-at-home?

1.2 A Shift in Thinking

The problem of peace dwelling, as it is reflected in this question, differs from what we learn from scholars within our emerging field called peace leadership. For example, in an interview with Reference MexinerMexiner (2006), a well-respected leadership scholar Dr Jean Lipman-BlumenFootnote ¹ raised the question ‘leadership for ‘what?’ It was a question that was already raised by Reference BurnsBurns (1978) whom some consider as the father of leadership studies (Reference Barbour and BurnsBarbour, 2006): ‘Leadership for what end?’ (Reference BurnsBurns, 1978, p. 457; emphasis original). This question presupposes a genuine interest in claiming the purpose of leadership. For Lipman-Blumen,

A story is also told that Lipman-Blumen answered the ‘leadership for what?’ question at an International Leadership Association (ILA) Conference: ‘Leadership for what, if not for peace’ (Reference McIntyre MillerMcIntyre Miller, 2016). If we stayed with Lipman-Blumen’s formulation of leaders as problem-solvers (‘it is what leaders have to solve’), it could appear as if peace leaders are being called upon to be problem-focused by solving or fixing the problem of violence. This may be how problem-solvers make whatever they want to make better in society. If this is indeed so, then dwelling in peace would become a technical and logical operation – an activity that may be more appropriate for electronic machines rather than the human brain – to solve an ‘unhealthy’ problem like restlessness. But is this what’s really at stake? Reference Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer’s (1996b), formulation of the ‘enigma’ of health, may help us understand the problem differently.

This understanding of well-being has also filtered into political life in Greek literature. As Reference Gadamer, Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996b) shared,

Restlessness and anxiety especially amid human conditions of violence suggests that the ‘well-being’ of the whole is disturbed, and that everything is not in accord. It is indeed revealing to also note that the World Churches Council (2012), also talked about peace from the perspective of ‘wholeness’ and to the well-being of the whole (p. 26). Gadamer’s formulation of the ‘enigma’ of health offers us another way of understanding the problem raised in this Element. As he shared, well-being by virtue of being well, expresses itself through a condition of not noticing, of being unhindered, and of being ready and open to everything. In being well or healthy (or being-at-home), we are unhindered by thoughts of illness (or being-not-at-home). When we are in good health, we are genuinely absorbed in what we are doing. Being undisturbed, being healthy, or being well, offers us the gift of ‘not noticing’ illness or restlessness. Health offers us the gift to freely participate in our everyday lives and engage with others in ways that are unhindered by illness (or feeling restless). In being well or healthy, the gift of health – of not noticing and being unhindered by illness or restlessness – however, does not mean that we forget about illness or restlessness. Instead, for Gadamer, well-being is received as preparing us to be ready and open to everything. Paradoxically, the ‘enigmatic’ gift of well-being, and in our context, being-at-home is that it while it frees us from not noticing and being unhindered by concerns of being-not-at-home, it also prepares us to be ready and open to noticing in times of disturbance.

1.3 Enigma of Peace Dwelling

We could also say that herein lies the ‘enigma’ of peace dwelling: that is only through a disturbance of the well-being of the whole or a disturbance in harmony where everything is not in accord, that we can become genuinely conscious of the problem of peace dwelling and show a genuine concentration of thought upon peace. Within the context of peace dwelling, Reference Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996) could be interpreted as saying that what is really at stake is that we are all called not to solve the problem of disturbance/restlessness, or to think that the task before us is to eliminate disturbance/restlessness, but rather to reflect upon and be thoughtful about it means to dwell decisively in this in-between place of peace (being-at-home) and disturbance/restlessness (being-not-at-home). While a distinction is made between being-at-home and being not-an-home, this does not mean that they are dichotomous. This distinction surfaces instead a reality that draws us into a delicate balancing act.

Undoubtedly, this question, problem, and reflection belong to all who find themselves in the middle of being disturbed. In being disturbed by violence, decisions and choices need to be made. Allow me to revert to the ‘incident’ which I offered in the opening pages of this Element. In retrospect, a critical learning is that the decision to step away from that space of noise, acrimony, and restlessness enabled the presencing or the appearance of a ‘pleasant surprise’. Returning to Reference Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996), he could now be heard as saying that well-being or being-at-home, could potentially prepare us to be open to the possibility of being surprised in times of disturbance. Does this mean that such ‘pleasant surprises’ are guaranteed? No. Why? Because we don’t know what will happen when we initiate something new. We simply cannot know. Such is the nature of any initiative. We may be surprised. We may be disappointed. As the lyrics of a song, Que Cera, Cera goes: The future’s not ours to see … what will be, will be.

At the same time, while the future consequences of our initiative may not be ours to see, can we not give ourselves the gift of imagining alternatives and possibilities other than shouting and finger-pointing, (blaming) in moments of restlessness and disturbance? What is for us to see, then, are choices and decisions that we can make from the perspective of our imagined alternatives and possibilities amid disturbances. With regard to the personal story shared, it is only in retrospect that we come to know that the actions taken at that disturbance (‘incident’), opened that dwelling space to evolve from a ‘normalcy’ of how we are supposed to act in an acrimonious state, to confusion, to a charge of ‘being crazy’ – a charge that takes its own bearings from what it means to act normally under such conditions of disturbance – to the surprise of others joining in and embracing such a ‘craziness’ for the sake of peace dwelling. What is important to note is that the experience of ‘surprise’ and being open to being surprised cannot take its bearings from what reacting normally to disturbances has come to mean. It is indeed the decision to step out of this normal-crazy socially constructed convention that enables the possibility of being surprised.

If peace is indeed the purpose of leadership, and if this is expressed as a concern for what we ‘want to make better in this society’, then this desire is interpreted as being deeply connected to the problem and the question of what it means to dwell decisively in our in-between space of being-at-home and being-not-at-home by being open to being surprised by the appearance of new possibilities. To suggest that we need to make something better, presupposes that we have not done a good job in responding to this problem and question. Said differently, we may not have done a good job in preparing ourselves to stay open to the surprise that there may be possibilities other than reacting to violence with counter-violence. This is a theoretical, philosophical, and practical problem confronting peace dwellers. Practical, not in terms of ‘how-to’ and rather as ‘practice’ which is understood as a ‘choice and decision between possibilities’ and as ‘always [having] a relationship to a person’s being’ (Reference Gadamer, Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer, 1996c, pp. 3–4).

Restlessness and the suffering or pain that it inflicts change in character when they are no longer accompanied by the certainty or expectation that restlessness can be eliminated or that peace leadership is about solving the problem of restlessness. What is at stake in the presence of restlessness is that peace dwellers are called to be decisively imaginative in terms of choosing between different possibilities including a decision with regard to who one chooses to be in times of disturbance (relationship to one’s being). Consequently, it is not a matter of condoning violence, reacting to violence, solving violence, or giving violence the last word. It is a matter of being open to being surprised by new possibilities amid conditions of disturbance and restlessness.

The experience of violence and counter-violence in the Middle East is such that discord rather than harmony is what it is because both sides of the conflict (Hamas and Netanyahu’s government) have mutually resolved to destroy each other. They are locked in and imprisoned by their reactions of violence and counter-violence. Each side of the conflict has chosen to govern and be governed by the principles of hate and revenge, disguised, and rationalized as their right to assure security for themselves. Within the context of the experience in the ‘incident’ of the personal story, participants at that workshop chose to express their anger and frustration by shouting and talking over others because of what they saw and experienced as injustice. They were disturbed by the injustice of Reference HobbesHobbes’ (1651/1977) Leviathan formulation of human life in its natural state, namely that human life is reduced to being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ (p. 100). This state of brutishness, as Reference HobbesHobbes (1642/2017) proclaimed in De Cive is grounded in mutual fear rather than mutual love. Politically, in this state of mutual fear, ‘every man is enemy to every man … wherein men live without other security than what their own strength … shall furnish them withal’ (Reference HobbesHobbes, 1651/1977, p. 100).

This ‘continued state’ of mutual fear excludes any hope that there can be new alternatives or possibilities. A life without hope is a life of constant restlessness, of mutual fear in the ill-will of others, of misery, and of feeling abandoned. It is a life that is constrained and imprisoned by a view of the other as an enemy and as an entity that is separated and disconnected from other human beings. A life without hope is a life that affirms it is indeed solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish. While Hobbes affirmed that this condition is true for a life in its natural state, namely a life without ‘society’ or ‘government’ (Reference HobbesHobbes, 1651/1977), his notion of government is interpreted as governance. In this way, hope and imagination offers one answer to our research question and problem of what it means to dwell decisively in the in-between space of violence and peace. We can choose to dwell decisively in this in-between space by surrendering ourselves to being governed by the spirit of hope and imagination.

Within the context of the ‘case’ or ‘incident ‘presented, the absence of hope and the imagination of new possibilities sustains the impossibility of being surprised by the possibility that relationships could be other than what it is between participants in that story and in the larger story between Palestinians and Israelis. This impossibility was already encapsulated in a refusal to pay attention to Jen Anders Toyberg-Frandzen’s plea. As the interim Assistant-Secretary-General for UN Political Affairs, about ten years ago, he noted:

Toyberg-Frandzen’s plea needs to be taken in context. The Human Rights Watch (2013) reported:

We notice the consequences of a toxic recursive relationship playing itself out for both Israelis and Palestinians then, and now. Reference BatesonBateson (1979), an anthropologist and systems thinker, distinguished lineal and recursive relationships in the following way: ‘Lineal describes a relationship among a series of causes or arguments such that the sequence does not came back to the starting point … . The opposite of lineal is recursive’ (p. 228; emphasis in original). Sadly, it appears as if Toyberg-Frandzen’s political plea ‘to make the difficult compromises’ and to engage in the process of developing a ‘two-state solution’ have fallen on deaf-ears and it makes peace among Israelis and Palestinians seem like an eternal impossibility. Because the actions of both parties return to their ‘starting point’ (enmity) the tensions that lay ‘never too far below the surface’ has simply bubbled over, like a volcanic eruption, and it is burning with rage. In this context, it is not the experience of ‘home sweet home’ but rather the experience of restlessness and disturbance that seems to prevail. In this context, hopelessness prevails because the no-longer questioned ‘starting point’ of a life of mutual fear, or a view of the other as an enemy, and a refusal to make difficult compromises for the sake of a two-state solution, continue to perpetuate a relationship of violence and counter-violence.

1.4 Relationship Is the Practice of Leadership

Within our ‘emerging discipline’ called Leadership Studies (Reference Riggio, Harvey and RiggioRiggio, 2011), Reference BurnsBurns (1978, Reference Burns2003) offered us a way to conceptualize the practical work and the practice of leadership in the context of peace-dwelling. To be clear, while he spoke to leadership, he did not directly address peace dwelling. Reference BurnsBurns (1978) distinguished the practice of leadership from the action(s) of any one person. He viewed the practice of leadership from the perspective of ‘a relationship between leaders and a multitude of followers’ (Reference BurnsBurns, 1978, p. 30; emphasis original) where ‘leaders take the initiative in mobilizing people for participation in the processes of change’ (Reference BurnsBurns, 2003, p. 25). Second, he conceptualized transforming leadership within the context of such a mobilization. He outlined his ‘core agenda for transforming leadership’ as ‘leaders working as partners with the dispossessed of the world to secure life, liberty, and happiness – happiness empowered with transforming purpose …’ (Reference BurnsBurns, 2003, p. 3). Could we not also add, leaders and followers working as partners with all to dwell in peace – peace empowered with a transforming purpose?

1.5 Not Leader-Centric

Peace leadership, then, is not about traits or skills of any one person. It is not person-centric as ascribed by Reference CarlyleCarlyle (1841/1993) and other traits (Reference Kirkpatrick and LockeKirkpatrick and Locke, 1991; Reference ZaccaroZaccaro, 2007), and skills-based (Reference KatzKatz, 1955; Reference Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly and MarksMumford et al., 2000; Reference YammarinoYammarino, 2000) approaches to the study of leadership. However, while the concept of relationship-oriented behaviour has been around since the early days of leadership studies, Reference Uhl-BienUhl-Bien (2006) noted that ‘the term relational leadership is surprisingly new’ (p. 654). While it is indeed encouraging to note that there is a growing list of leadership scholars who are embracing and studying leadership as leaders and followers standing in a socially constructed relationship with each other (Reference Graen and Uhl-BienGraen and Uhl-Bien, 1995, Reference Graen and Uhl-Bien2005; Reference Heifetz, Linsky, Heifetz and LinskyHeifetz and Linsky, 2017; Reference Kouzes and PosnerKouzes and Posner, 2017; Reference PopperPopper, 2004; Reference Scandura and MeuserScandura and Meuser, 2022), a dominant positivistic paradigm continues to prevail in our discourse about leadership.

For example, Reference BatesonBateson (2000) noted in the Preface to a later edition of her father’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, that Western epistemology drives men and women to (a) ‘search for short term solutions that worsen the problem over time (often by mirroring it, such as violence used to oppose violence)’ and (b) ‘focus on individual persons or organisms or even species … in isolation’ (p. xiv) from each other and from context. She further went on to say that ‘even with current progress in chaos and complexity theory, we remain less skilled at thinking about interactions than we are at thinking about entities, things’ (Reference BatesonBateson, 2000, p. vii; parenthesis original). In sociology, Reference Durkheim and LukesDurkheim’s (1966) proposition … that social facts (including peace) are to be treated as ‘things’ (p. 14; parenthesis added), appears to not only rule the scientific-positivistic sociological method, but also how we approach our study of leadership. This positivistic method excludes thinking about the implications of interactions and relationships as subsystems within larger systems which may have an investment in maintaining levels of restlessness.

1.6 Peace Is Not a ‘Thing’

To think of peace as a ‘thing’ is to orient to actions like peace building or peace making. It is to think of peace as a ‘thing’ that can be built, crafted or fabricated. Within the field of peace and conflict, peace building is generally conceptualized as a movement ‘toward a frame of reference that focuses on the restoration and rebuilding of relationships’ (Reference LederachLederach, 2017, p. 24). Restorations and rebuilding occur after the end of violence, when all in conflict choose to put their ‘swords’ down. What is dropped from this dominant homo-faber focus is to think about peace dwelling as a human relationship between being-at-home (a state of rest) and being-not-at-home (a state of restlessness) – especially when we fall outside this place of caring for how we choose to dwell with each other. The significance of thinking and talking about peace dwelling rather than peace building is that something decisive is concealed in peace building. For Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977), what is concealed in peace-building is that ‘dwelling is not experienced as man’s Being; dwelling is never thought of as the basic character of human being’ (p. 326). Thinking of peace leadership from the vantage point of peace dwelling is a way of revealing how humans can choose to be in this in-between space of being-at-home (a state-of-rest) and being-not-at-home (a state-of-restlessness).

1.7 Moving Forward

In the section that follows, a fourfold conceptual peace-leadership framework is offered to aid us in addressing the problem and the question confronting peace dwellers as that was raised in the preceding pages. To this end, a deliberate attempt is made to reconstruct Reference BurnsBurns’ (1978) formulation of the ‘fundamental act of the leader’ while keeping in mind that leadership is a relationship and partnership among leaders and followers who seek to dwell in peace.

Second, the life and lived experience of peace dwellers are discussed through four metaphors. Guardian: Following the philosopher Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977), who formulated peace dwelling as being brought to peace and remaining at peace by caring for, sparing and safeguarding each other from harm and danger, these values and actions are collected under the rubric of being a Guardian. Curator: The complexity of embodying Guardianship within the context of violence that we witness in our world today is such that we find ourselves in the middle of betrayal, distrust, and dehumanizing practices that stand in the way of dwelling in peace and remaining at peace. Within this context, peace dwellers as Curators of hearts and souls are offered as a metaphor to enable being at peace with oneself and others amid such betrayals and distrust. Welcoming Presence: Here, the question of how peace dwellers can be a welcoming presence to self and others amid conditions of disturbance and violence is discussed in some detail. Finally, Being a Neighbour: Being a neighbour is discussed through the notion of ‘habit’ or practiced conduct of ‘making oneself available’ (Reference Ricouer and KelbeyRicouer, 1965, p. 95) to others where they are, including being present to the wounded, to the dispossessed, and to those who are hurting.

2.1 Epistemology of Peace Dwelling

The epistemology grounding peace dwelling is interpreted as the dynamic and reciprocal nature of the fourfold oneness of peace leadership’s purposes of the head, heart, hands, and holy. As a fourfold, all four Hs are received as being interconnected and interrelated to each other. They are not and cannot be separated from each other. Imagine peace dwelling in the absence of any one H. Within the context of the fourfold it doesn’t make sense to talk about crossing boundaries. In the fourfold, we have instead a ‘mix’ or a ‘combination’ of the dynamic interrelated oneness of the fourfold that is both distinct and connected. The interconnectedness of the fourfold, means that each H thinks of and orients to the other three Hs along with itself in everything each of the Hs do. Figure 1 visualizes the interactions and interconnectedness of the four Hs of peace leadership.

Figure 1 Fourfold oneness of peace leadership

2.2 Look for Patterns Which Connect

In all of the examples offered, we notice both a special place of the number 4 in our human constructions and that neither one of any four stand independent from each other. They are interconnected. Each is understood in their interrelationship with the other. But herein lies a particular challenge with dominant Western epistemology – namely, ‘how we can know anything’ (p. 4), or ‘how knowing is done (Reference Bateson and BatesonBateson and Bateson, 1987, p. 20; emphasis original). Together with his daughter Mary Catherine Bateson, they described how knowing is done in the Western world (Scientific Mind). Scientific minds first ‘name the parts’ and ‘after that the relations between the parts appear as predicates attached usually to a single part – not to the two or more parts among which the relation existed’ (Reference Bateson and BatesonBateson and Bateson, 1987, p. 37). What is dropped from sight is an epistemology that orients to ‘a pattern which connects’ (Reference Bateson and BatesonBateson and Bateson, 1987, p. 8) among two or more parts. These authors were guided by an underpinning Oriental (Reference FlemonsFlemons, 1991) and Indigenous (Reference LopezLopez, 2020) epistemology, namely, an epistemology of connectedness. It is not, however, a connectedness that erases the distinctions and the spaces between the four Hs but rather, as the Lebanese-American poet Reference Gibran and GibranKahlil Gibran (1923/2020) advised those who are married, it is to: ‘ … let there be spaces in your togetherness … And stand together yet not too near together’ (pp. 15–16).

2.3 Ecological Connectedness of the Fourfold

If leadership is indeed a relationship, then what is particularly inviting is Bateson’s call to situate our consciousness of peace leadership within an ecological connectedness of the fourfold. The language of ‘eco’ in ecology returns us to the notion of home (being-at-home/being not-at-home). While the Greek word for ‘eco’ – oikos means home, for Reference Gadamer, Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996b), it means something more. For him, ‘it included not only the ability to manage by oneself but also the ability to manage along with other people’ (p. 79). He shared that one way we can manage along with others, or dwell in peace, for that matter, ‘is to learn properly how to integrate this reliance on one another into our own lived existence’ (p. 79). Similarly, peace leadership is interpreted as the art of learning how to properly integrate the four Hs into our own shared lived existence for the sake of dwelling in peace.

2.4 Dominance of Either/Or Thinking

For far too long the mental model of Western epistemology has been dominated by a dualistic either-or thinking. For an organizational learning theorist, Reference SengeSenge (2006), mental models ‘are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action’ (p. 8). We are accustomed to think in terms of either black or white, either us or them, and so forth. This heady either-or thinking has led some in the field of leadership studies to claim that ‘Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart’ (Reference Kouzes and PosnerKouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 313). This bifurcation has also opened problematic either-or debates around head vs heart approaches to leadership and also calls to balance head and heart (Reference BartimoteBartimote, 2020; Reference LoveLove, 2005).

The conceptual framework that frames peace leadership for the value rational purpose of dwelling in peace (as an end in itself) suggests that only when peace leadership students, scholars, and practitioners gather with a view to raising their consciousness to the dynamic and reciprocal value-relationship among the fourfold, can we begin to gather with a mutually shared purpose (Reference AmaladasAmaladas, 2019). Allow me now to turn to my attention to the four distinct, yet interconnected, parts of the fourfold in their combined and mixed relationship to peace dwelling.

3.1 Peace as a Preventing Violence

Shortly after World War II, authors of the Constitution of UNESCO (1945), declared that ‘since wars begin in the minds of men (and women), it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’ (para 1; parenthesis added). Writing within the context of the Vietnam War, Reference MertonMerton (1976) also called on his readers ‘to recognize the great problem of the mental climate in which we live’ whereby our ‘minds are filled with images which call for violent and erratic reactions’ (p. 17; emphasis original). In stating that ‘the defences of peace’ must be reconstructed in the minds of men and women, the authors of the 1945 Constitution of UNESCO began with the value of peace as preventing violence. The military language of ‘defences’ suggests that we dwell in peace by strategically preventing violence. How are we to receive UNESCO’s 1945 declaration of what Reference GaltungGaltung (1964), a peace and conflict scholar, defined as negative peace?

From the perspective of systems theory, we read that peace is compared and contrasted against that which is not peace – violence/war. For systems theorists like Reference Watzlawick, Weakland and FischWatzlawick et al. (2011), concepts like peace and violence/war ‘stand in a relationship with one another and need to be combined together, in spite of their apparently opposite nature’ (p. 3). This is one way through which we have come to know what dwelling in peace means. For these authors, this is ‘not an abstruse idea, but a specific instance of the general principle that all perception and thought is relative, operating by comparison and contrast’ (Reference Watzlawick, Weakland and FischWatzlawick et al., 2011, p. 3). Reference FlemonsFlemons (1991) would further suggest that these concepts belong together and that we can only begin to understand one by understanding the other. Reference Becvar, Becvar, Amaladas and ByrneBecvar and Becvar (2018) also noted that while these humanly constructed concepts and distinctions (peace/war; positive/ negative), describe two different kinds of social relationships, they are complementary, and this ‘complementarity … describes one concept rather than two’ (p. 15). They are concepts and ways of living that imply an interdependent relationship. What is particularly at stake for systems theorists are two questions whenever they observe a person, a family or a wider social system enmeshed in conflict in persistent and repetitive ways, despite the desire and effort to alter or change such a situation: (i) How does this undesirable situation (conflict/violence) persist?’ and (ii) ‘What is required to change it?’ These questions are relevant because for systems theorists change stands in a relationship with persistence.

One way that persons within nations have proceeded to change the persistence of conflict and war, one response to prevent war is to deter war by building and increasing the production of armaments of war. In this context, the central message of deterrence is to credibly communicate threats of military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. It is a message that relies enthusiastically on an adage derived from a military writer, Vegetius, in Roman times: ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’ (as cited in Reference Moloney and WilliamsMoloney and Williams, 2017, p. 1). In recent times, Reference GlaserGlaser (1990) went so far as to rationalize deterrence theory by reducing it to a mathematical/economic equation. Here is how it works. If the attacker believed that the Probability of deterrer carrying out deterrent threats x Costs if threat is carried out is > Probability of the attacker accomplishing the action × Benefits of the action – then attacks will be deterred. This mode is frequently simplified as: Violence will be deterred if attackers believe that Costs × P(Costs) > Benefits × P(Benefits).

If this is indeed true, then how can we explain Hamas’ 7 October 2023 undeterred attack on Israel? How can we explain Russia’s unprovoked attack against Ukraine? The attackers in these instances have not accomplished their intended objectives and the ‘costs’ of their actions are far outweighing the ‘benefits’. While the unrestrained military reaction against not only Hamas but against all Palestinians may demonstrate Israel’s show of force in avenging the terrorists acts, they are now accused of their ‘barbaric’ military reaction ‘without political considerations’ (Reference Gillespie and PatmanGillespie and Patman, 2023, para 6). It appears as if all sides of these conflicts are perfectly aligned for the results they are getting. It is not a question of what they are not doing. Instead, it is matter of what they are doing.

A question must be asked: ‘What happens after the liquidation of Palestinians in the Gaza strip?’ Or for that matter, ‘what happens after the liquidation of Israelis?’ Will either of them (assuming that at least one survived) be perceived as a credible partner in the pursuit of any long-term aspiration for regional or world peace? Will they be respected or viewed as worthy of credibility in any public round table that is focused on peace dwelling? Will not their unrestrained, indiscriminate, disproportionate, and inhumane military reaction be historically viewed as the official representatives of Israel, or Hamas, simply not wanting Palestinians or Israelis anywhere on what they have claim to be ‘their’ land, and that they really have no use, let alone respect, for Palestinians or Israelis? For all involved in this conflict, in attempts to change conditions of violence, are they themselves not ensuring that such violence persists indeterminately?

To persist in the act of deterrence for the sake of changing conditions that result in violence would simply affirm that deterrence is motivated by mutual fear that allows the persistence of an ‘us vs them’ attitude to prevail. This attitude would further move some nations to prevent other nations from developing similar weapons of destruction (nuclear bombs) for fear that the latter may indiscriminately use such a destructive weapon. At the same time, other nations may simply persist with the production of weapons for destruction because they fear the threat of being annihilated. Results like this only confirm that the more things change, the more they remain the same. (The French Proverb: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.) The more A persists to change B – while A remains the same – the more B persists in her/his behaviour to resist change because of the perceived threat of A’s persistence. But what is really at stake in allowing this mental attitude, of ‘us vs them’ – an attitude that disconnects, separates, and divides – to prevail?

In this recursive relationship, each side of the conflict projects and assigns responsibility to the other as justification for what each is doing. In claiming that their voice was absolutely the ‘right voice’, and by implication that other voices were absolutely wrong, each punctuated their relationship as lineal or unilateral to justify their actions. In the micro relationship of persons in the personal story offered at the beginning of this Element, this is akin to A saying to B: ‘If you simply change your opinion (believe that you are wrong), while I remain the same with my opinion (believe that I am right), our experience would be so much better’. In this instance, perhaps any relationship would be so much easier if there wasn’t another person involved. But then again, it would also be meaningless. By definition relationships involve more than one and as such they can be maddening, frustrating, messy, and at the same time, exhilarating and too beautiful for words. In standing firm on their opinion of right and wrong, the experience of those in the personal story was such that it led to an impasse and feeling disconnected, frustrated, and angry.

What, however, is concealed in this persistence of ‘who is right?’ or ‘who is wrong?’ and claiming that only one of them can ‘be right’? Allow me to share a story narrated by a systems thinker, Reference Von Foerstervon Foerster (1990), in his Opening Address for the International Conference, Systems and Family Therapy: Ethics, Epistemology, New Methods.

This boy who lived on a street that divided the Jewish and Arabic quarter, remained connected to both Jews and Arabs by playing with them, listening to what each thought and had to say, and learning their fundamentally different views, and in so doing affirmed that the real problem is not one of who is right and who is wrong, but rather that it resided in the capacity to think and act in ways that offers a third (or fourth or fifth?) alternative. The quest for knowing ‘who is right?’ and ‘who is wrong?’ closes-off alternatives. It orients more to the disconnectedness among people rather that how they are connected. It socially divides those who live on a street that physically divides. But then again, can any street divide? Streets are simply there. Streets are constructed to make our travels easier. The boy in von Foerster’s story affirms that the construction of any street offers the possibility of gathering persons who happen to live on either side of the street. Unlike the boy who chose to dwell by moving across both sides of the street, there was no intermingling of Jews and Arabs living on both sides of that street. ‘Division’ then is more a matter of how they chose to live on a street that was constructed. Within the context of violence and counter-violence, Reference LederachLederach (2017) noted: ‘Paradoxically they live as neighbours and yet are locked into long-standing cycles of hostile interaction’ (p. 23). In the context of von Foerster’s story, it is also a matter of long-standing cycles of ‘no interaction’.

Growing out of this socially constructed division, the singular quest for the truth closes-off an understanding that what is really at stake is that they are both right. To accept that they are both right is to accept that both sides have a truth that not only needs to be heard and respected, but also that all voices need to feel heard. Without the everyday experience of playing together, talking, listening, and feeling heard, trust will not be a possibility. One emerging truth in the boy’s response is that ‘right or wrong’ debates and disconnectedness deletes the possibility for trust to emerge in such a dualistically separated relationship. By implication, it also excludes the possibility to hope for and imagine a different relationship.

One natural outcome of dwelling in peace by preventing violence, and by remaining distrustful of the other, is, as noted earlier, the building of weapons of destruction – another expression of deterrence. Historically, the building of weapons of destruction led first to an Arms Race, and second, it also brought us into a realm of what was described as the ‘cold war’ between two ‘superpowers, United States and the Soviet Union. Based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for world dominance by these two superpowers, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But more than a struggle for dominance, Reference MertonMerton (2007), from within the confines of his monastery, noted that ‘“cold war” is simply the normal consequence of our corrupt idea of peace based on a policy of “every man for himself,” in ethics, economics, and political like’ (p. 122). There is a truth to Merton’s assessment that it ‘is absurd to hope for a solid peace based on mutual fear and a policy of every man or woman for themselves’ (p. 122). In this, we are returned to Reference HobbesHobbes’ 1651/1977) Leviathan way of living in mutual fear and that the best we can do is to hold on to building more armaments of destruction in order to feel secure.

To frame the problem of peace dwelling as a problem of trust and as a problem of increasing choices is to challenge a predominant and deeply ingrained dualistic either-or and right-wrong mental models. Determining who is right or who is wrong, would be a naturally forced consequence of this deeply ingrained either-or way of thinking. It is to think and act as if there are no, and can be no, other choices other than ‘only one of them can have the truth’. Either-or thinking forces us to take sides (as if there are no other options). For Reference LederachLederach (2005), who ‘spent most of (his) professional life working with deep-rooted conflicts and violence’ (p. 66), in this either-or model, ‘side-taking, unfortunately seems to accompany social battlefields and therefore accepts the premise that change is inherently a dualistic struggle’ (p. 87). Theoretically and practically, either-or thinking and doing, simply cannot resolve conflicts. On the contrary, they can only escalate conflicts.

To say that trust is what is at stake is to affirm that that how we choose to dwell or live together is that which is calling for our attention. Trust is essentially rooted in human association – in relationships. Trust is hard to define but can be felt inwardly and outwardly when it is present. Trust does not dwell in the opinionizing of opinions. The boy, in von Foerster’s story, dwelt by remaining connected to both Jews and Arabs. He was able to dwell in trust because he chose to live in ways that nurtured and built trust. He did not build trust in order to dwell in peace. Instead, it was because of the way he dwelt that he allowed for the emergence of trust. It is this shift from thinking about peace as preventing violence to peace as residing or dwelling in ways that build trust, that informs another understanding of peace, namely, as cooperating for a growth of a culture of peace. And is not ‘culture’ also a matter of human association?

3.2 Peace as Cooperating for a Culture of Peace

On August 1, 1989, the Yamoussoukro declaration of ‘Peace in the Minds of Men’, which UNESCO adopted unanimously and by acclamation, changed UNESCO’s 1945 thinking about peace. This 1989 declaration was divided into two interrelated and interconnected parts. First, it emphasized that peace is more than preventing violence, and expanded an understanding of peace as cooperating in ways that respects the primacy of the rule of law, pluralism, justice in international trade, and participation of the whole society. Second, they called for a growth of a culture of peace by showing a deep commitment to universal values of respect for life, freedom, justice, solidarity, tolerance, human rights, equality between women and men, and a harmonious partnership of humankind with the environment. Both of these interconnected parts were viewed as ‘being the most precious possession of humanity’ (UNESCO, n.d., p. 73), and as a way of promoting ‘a healthy exercise of cooperation’ (para 5).

Cooperation which respects the primacy of the rule of law (assuming that established laws are indeed good for all – recall, for example the Apartheid law of South Africa; Jim Crow laws in the United States that justified racial segregation; Taliban declaring jihad on women’s rights), and showing a deep commitment to the identified values, including a harmonious partnership with the environment, are now placed under a rubric called a culture of peace. While we cannot deny the lived experience that it takes much ‘cooperation’ to fight a war in that each side must cooperate with the other to be an enemy, cooperation for peace appears to be much more difficult. The significance of approaching peace from the perspective of cooperating for a culture of peace is that it creates a public space for orienting to peace as being in the province of more than politicians and soldiers to include ALL. To speak of promoting a culture of peace is to focus on basic everyday actions like how we speak to each other, how we receive each other, how we listen to each other, how we play with each other, and how we care for each other. Culture, in this sense, includes and goes beyond appreciating the different foods we eat, or observing how people dance differently, or celebrating diverse customs. Instead, it is fundamentally a question of how we choose to dwell with each other and with our environment. In this way, culture is expressed through the spirited (animated) and soulful (spiritual) character of people who choose to dwell by connecting with each other despite their differences. Allow me to turn to Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977) again and learn from what he said about dwelling and peace.

Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977) informs us that we cannot talk about dwelling without talking about what we have built – with a twist. For him, building is really dwelling. ‘We do not dwell,’ he noted, ‘because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell, that is, because we are dwellers’ (Reference Heidegger and Krell1977, p. 326; emphasis original). In this we can anticipate his distinction between peace building and peace dwelling. Heidegger returns us to the primal language of ‘dwelling’.

3.3 Being a Guardian

Notice, for instance that Heidegger speaks to how dwelling in peace, and remaining in peace is experienced. He formulated peace dwelling as being brought to peace and remaining at peace by caring for, sparing and safeguarding each other from harm and danger. These values and actions are collected under the rubric of being a Guardian. As guardians, peace dwellers spare each other from harm and thereby free all to be-at-home. For Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977), the ‘fundamental character of dwelling is this sparing’ (p. 327; emphasis original). It is particularly important to keep this character of dwelling in focus because in the literature on peace and conflict, the language of peace building and peace making, rather than peace dwelling, appears to dominate our consciousness (Reference LederachLederach, 2005; Reference Leonardsson and RuddLeonardsson and Rudd, 2015). As noted earlier, peace building is often addressed as an instrumental or technical means to an end. We build and re-build structures, systems, policies, and so forth, in order to live in peace. After violence or acts of war, peace builders engage in processes of reconciliation in order to repair past violations. Without disavowing the need to rebuild conditions for peace under those circumstances, Heidegger shifts our attention from this technical and instrumental relationship to peace building or peacemaking.

As a dweller, the boy in von Foerster’s story remained in peace from the perspective of how he chose to dwell in a particular place. He chose to dwell by being clear about his place in-between the Arabic and Jewish quarters. In this his head and heart were ‘straight’, that is, not complicated. It was as if this boy demonstrated his maturity both by claiming his own voice and by enabling others to claim their own voices. Said differently, he was not a ‘card-carrying’ member of the Jews or Arabs in his dwelling place. It is as if this boy understood the philosopher Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977), who noted that peace dwelling is experienced as ‘being at peace’, ‘remaining at peace’, or ‘being brought to peace’ by dwellers who purposefully coordinate their efforts to their dwelling in ways that cares, preserves, spares, and safeguards each other from harm and danger. His actions affirmed that he was indeed a guardian of those values. Guardianship defined his way of being. Rooted in the value of guardianship, this boy made an intentional and enlightened choice to dwell in ways that cared for all in his own back yard. He did not do anything extraordinary. He did ordinary things. He played with all, he listened to all, and he sought to understand what was important to both Arabs and Jews. In doing ordinary things, he can, however, be viewed as doing extraordinary things (crazy things?), because he chose to step out of the boundaries of how Arabs and Jews chose to ordinarily live on that street.

In the extraordinariness of his ordinariness, he exemplified what being a dweller means. Listening to Heidegger, we can say that this boy’s enlightened choice is a call for all who live on any street to gather together by taking responsibility to embrace and embody the principle of Guardianship. And how is this done? By subordinating or surrendering themselves to being governed by the principles of caring, preserving, sparing, and safeguarding each other from harm and danger. Why? Because this is what dwellers as Guardians value and do. As Guardians, dwellers act in ways that are aware of how their actions would affect, and indeed, cannot not affect every other group or person.

3.4 Peace as Shalom

This understanding of dwellers as Guardians is closely connected to the biblical and Judaic concept of shalom. From the perspective of the World Churches Council (2012), shalom focuses ‘on justice, prosperity, and wholeness’ (p. 26). Shalom calls all persons to care for the well-being of the whole and for the prosperity and justice for all. This is Shalom’s culture of peace.

In this, we are retuned to Reference KornfieldKornfield’s (1993) notion of ‘true community’. As mentioned earlier in this Element, true community ‘arises when we can speak in accord with truth and compassion’, when we ‘come together bringing honesty, respect, and kindness to support an awakening of the sacred’ (p. 24). In this way, shalom genuinely embraces and embodies the values of honesty, respect, truth, compassion, justice, and kindness, to support an awakening of the sacred. Sacred in the sense that the Guardianship of principles of caring preserving, sparing, and safeguarding each other from harm and danger are non-negotiable and indispensable should we choose to work towards being a true community, or, as Reference KornfieldKornfield (1993) would say, a ‘spiritual community’. Insofar as Shalom focuses on justice, prosperity, and wholeness, it is indeed revealing to see Reference OswaldAristotle (1962) as raising the question: ‘How could prosperity be safeguarded and preserved without friends?’ (Line 1155a, p. 10). The concept of shalom is now moving us to consider peace and peace dwelling from the perspective of friendship.

3.5 Peace as Friendship

In Book VIII of his Nichomachean Ethics, Reference OswaldAristotle (1962) offered us a ‘practical’ understanding of friendship through his observation of the practices of politicians and lawgivers during his time:

Friendship, according to Aristotle, was the lawgivers’ way of striving to attain concord and harmony. They paid more attention to friendship than to justice in the traditional legalistic sense of justice. What is unique and significant in Aristotle’s formulation of friendship is the notion that when ‘people are friends, they have no need for justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition …’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, 1155a, p. 29). Could this be his way of challenging Plato’s claim that the Republic be rooted in justice?

In terms of peace as friendship and from the point of view of caring for justice, prosperity, and wholeness (shalom), in Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous people, for example, we hear an Indigenous author Reference Ladner and TimpsonLadner (2009) as pointing to the limits of Canada’s legalistic structure: ‘Given that the courts have been … quite useless as an arena in which [Canada’s] constitutional orders can be reconciled,’ she opined, ‘some alternative mechanisms need to be developed’ (p. 296). Perhaps the alternative of friendship is indeed what is at stake for holding Canadians together as ‘we are all here to stay’ (Reference Ladner and TimpsonLadner, 2009, p. 287).

It is here that we need to uncover Aristotle’s distinction between three kinds of friendship, and to be aware of the reciprocity of motives underpinning each of these kinds of friendships (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1155b, p. 31).

In both of these motives of usefulness and pleasure, the other ‘is loved not because he [she] is a friend, but because he [she] is useful or pleasant’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156a, p. 15). In the literature on leadership studies, we notice that both these kinds of relationships are defined under a rubric called transactional leadership. In this relationship, transactional leaders exchange things of what is regarded as valuable to both leaders and followers in order to advance their own and their followers’ agendas (Reference Kuhnert, Bass and AvolioKuhnert, 1994). In this mode of exchange, followers do what leaders want them to do because it is in their best interests to do so (Reference Kuhnert and LewisKuhnert and Lewis, 1987). This transaction or exchange involves something that is regarded as valuable between what the leader possesses or controls and what followers wants in return for their services (Reference Yukl, Van Fleet, Dunnette and HoughYukl and Van Fleet 1992). A challenge and reality of transactional relationships is that the ‘affection’ felt between leaders and followers are at best ephemeral and temporary. In cases like this, both leaders and the followers are motivated to ask: ‘What’s in it for me to remain in this relationship?’ Simply put, when the relationship is no longer experienced as benefitting one or the other, that relationship is simply altered into uselessness or as being unpleasant.

Reference OswaldAristotle (1962) offered a third kind of friendship, which he called ‘the perfect form of friendship’, namely, ‘those who wish for their friends’ good, for their friends’ sake …’ and which for him, ‘are friends in the truest sense’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156b, p. 10). It is in this way that we can also understand Pope Pius VI’s (1972) notion of peace. In his Message for the Celebration of the Day of Peace (Jan. 1, 1972), he stated: ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’ And he went on to locate the ‘true source’ of peace, as being ‘rooted in a sincere feeling for man … And what do we call this sincere feeling for man? We call it Justice’ (Pope Pius VI, 1972, para 5 & 6). This form of friendship and justice is not based on motives of transactional affection. Instead, it is a sincere feeling that ‘is determined by what their friends are and not by incidental considerations’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156b, p. 10). The etymology of the word sincerity may add to the genuineness of such a feeling. Sincerity is composed of two Latin words: sine (meaning without) and cera (meaning wax). The genuineness of a sincere feeling for others is such that it is ‘without wax’.

For Reference OswaldAristotle (1962), however, friendship is more than simply wishing the best for the other. In this Aristotle is clear: ‘One cannot extend friendship to or be a friend of another person until each partner has impressed the other that he is worthy of affection, and until each has won the other’s confidence’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156b, p. 30). In quoting a proverb, he shared that people cannot become worthy of each other’s affection ‘until they have eaten the specified (measure of salt) together’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156b, p. 25; parenthesis original). It is in this reciprocal interaction of being guided by the principle of friendship, namely by giving and receiving the best of what we can give and receive from the other, and vice versa, by experiencing the pains (eating the specified measure of salt together) and the joys of winning the other’s confidence, that true friendship emerges in its fullness. Living together in friendship then is both a sincere feeling and an act. Without wax, it is a feeling that wishes the best for the other, a feeling that seeks not to prevail over the other, and it is a decision to act deliberately in ways that are influenced by such a feeling for their friend’s sake. In this process people become friends by gaining each other’s confidence. The reciprocity of this relationship affirms that ‘friends should be able to count on’ each person receiving in all matters what he gives the other (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1156b, p. 35). It is in this relationship of friendliness that we can begin to understand Aristotle when he said: ‘When people are friends, they have no need for justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition’ (Reference OswaldAristotle, 1962, Line 1155a, p. 28).

4.1 Feeling Disturbed

Allow me to turn my attention to the question raised in the previous paragraph by returning to the ‘incident’ for this Element. While participants in that workshop came together or gathered because they were interested in responding to the question of how they care for themselves and for each other while living in the gap between their aspirations (peace) and what is (violence), they also gathered within the context of being disturbed by what they were seeing in the Middle East. The good news about feeling disturbed is that they were not feeling indifferent. In this process, what bubbled up in being disturbed were feelings of anger, resentment, and frustration. In that emotional state of restlessness (being-not-at-home) while they noisily accused each other of not understanding (‘No, No, No, You Don’t Understand’), they all shared in feeling the injustice of what they were witnessing in the Middle East. They were not then angry with each other, but angry at the experience of injustice – as they saw it. What they essentially cared about was people suffering an injustice. This is what mattered most to them, and they each wanted their voice to be heard.

However, for the sake of feeling heard, while the Peace Prayer of St. Francis urges us to seek first to understand and then to be understood, in this room, the reverse held to be true. In the desperate desire to be heard, their loud voices drowned the possibility of listening. Allow me to use the language of ‘I’. As a peace facilitator, I intuited that underlying their anger was their experience of being hurt. They were each disturbed and hurting from what they saw taking place in public. And as a facilitator, I acted on my intuition. There was no time or inclination to do an empirical survey to validate what I sensed. I needed to trust my own senses/intuitions. Even though I, as their facilitator, was charged with being ‘crazy’, it appeared as an appropriate thing to do in that circumstance.

4.2 Curators Embrace Compassion and Healing

In embodying the spirit of a Curator, the peculiar character of judging the appropriateness of an act based on ‘intuition’ is difficult to define. Perhaps such a character resists definition. At a personal level, what I do know and want to acknowledge is that such an ‘intuition’ was itself a consequence of me, as facilitator, asking the Lord for help. Could this then be conceptualized as a moment of grace? In Genesis 6:8, grace is described as ‘God’s favour’. If this is true, then this gift of intuition can be received as a favour that was freely given by the Divine. This is indeed humbling because it affirms that human beings are but conduits of a something larger than themselves and all we need to do is to be open to the possibility of being surprised. It times of hurt, Curators understand that compassion is a more appropriate response. This is what Curators hold true. The etymology of the word ‘compassion’ can help us better understand what it means to be a curator. The word ‘compassion’ is composed of two Latin words: com (with or together) and pati which means to suffer. Compassion means ‘to suffer together’. To respond with compassion, then, is to look for proper and appropriate ways to ‘suffer together’ for the sake of ‘healing’. It is in this way that Curators choose to be a healing presence. Curators then are not focused on ‘curing’ restlessness but rather on ‘healing’ the restlessness of being-not-at-home.

The significance of the practice of healing is that unlike notions of building and making, it does not ‘produce’ anything. Musicians, for example, may create or produce beautiful pieces of music. Artists way produce paintings never before painted. Poets may produce poetry that touches the core of our hearts. While these may be shared with others, their products remain theirs. Those are their possessions. Unlike them, Curators cannot be seen as producing anything. Nothing tangible is left behind. Such is the nature of healing. Within the context of disturbance, healing aims at restoring broken relationships to once again becoming whole. According to Reference Gadamer, Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996c):

Within the context of the ‘incident’, the silence of participants, after they joined-in in singing and humming to St. Francis’ Peace Prayer, and hugging each other with their hands, could be interpreted as them choosing to return themselves to a state of equilibrium.

4.3 Another Personal Story

Allow me to describe this experience of reclaiming equilibrium (or not) through my passion for cycling. Yes, I have been riding my bicycle ever since I was a very young boy. The bicycle was my main mode of transportation, in my hometown, Taiping, in Malaysia. Curiously, Taiping means ‘eternal peace’. My first experience of riding a bicycle was one of being totally off-balanced. I found myself leaning too much to the left, and in an effort to stay balanced I leaned too much to the right. The result: I crashed. Falling and crashing were not a matter of applying no force or applying little force to stay balanced, but rather a matter of applying too much force. After several attempts suddenly everything appeared to happen spontaneously, lightly, and effortlessly. After a while, I was able to boast riding my bicycle with arms folded: ‘Look Ma, no hands’. And then, my arrogance got the better of me. I decided to experiment riding my bicycle with my left hand on the right handle, and my right hand on the left handle. I crashed. As I was falling, in my panic-stricken state, instead of letting go, I held on to the handles more tightly, and against rational thinking – I began to ride faster. Result: I broke my right hand, dislocated the other, and had bruises in my legs. My bike was in a sorry state. I limped home with bike in tow. It was an experiment that failed miserably. The best I received from my mom after I told her what I did, was: ‘You idiot!’ And she was right. Today, I enjoy riding my bike with right hand on right handle and left hand on left handle.

What is the point of this story? In times of social disturbance, reclaiming a state of equilibrium or harmony, cannot be a matter of applying too much force, and neither can it be a matter of ignoring some basic ‘rules’. Metaphorically, keeping left hand on left handle and right hand on right handle is critical to discerning what is being called for in moments of disturbance. The challenge, however, is that in times of violence, decisions to stay balanced are being made in a panic-stricken state. Consequently, there is a real need to slow down, take one’s hands ‘off the handles’ of our thoughts for vengeance or counter-violence, and to take a step back, for the sake of discerning what it means to be a healing presence. Failure to do so might only invite my mother’s admonition ‘You Idiot!’ In the example of the ‘incident’, and in retrospect, for the sake of healing – a gentle and seemingly ‘crazy’ (unexpected/risky) response of singing may not only be the precise pressure or force that is required to reclaim a state of equilibrium and harmony, but it can also be a way of reconstructing conditions for being-at-home.

4.4 A Change in Focus

It is here that we need to take another look at Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger’s (1977) formulation of what proper gathering means: ‘It is proper to every gathering that gatherers assemble to coordinate their efforts to sheltering; only when they have gathered with that end in mind, do they begin to gather’ (n.p.). What is particularly relevant here is a subtle, yet significant, shift, and its implications for dwelling in peace. At the risk of repetition, dwelling in peace is not so much a matter of resolving the conflict or conflicted feelings of participants in that incident. It is not a matter of coming to any kind of consensus. It is not a problem to be solved. Instead, it is a matter of leaning into the problem of living decisively in the messiness of this in-between space of peace and violence/disturbance, by coordinating our efforts and paying attention to how we choose to shelter or dwell in the context of what is being presented to us in our Here and Now. It is precisely because we know that how we choose to interact with each other in our Here and Now will influence the relationships that we build for ourselves inside and outside of any shared space, that it is both necessary and desirable that peace leaders as Curators need to keep this (namely, coordinating efforts to sheltering) as the end in mind.

If compassion and healing is truly what is at stake, then it would be foolish to give into the temptation of engaging in any discussion about who is right or who is wrong. By its own etymology, dis-cussion as dis (meaning apart) and cutere (meaning to cut), will lead each speaker to cut the other off or cut apart what the other has to say. In the presence and context of persons who are hurting, it is not more discussion that is needed. Within the context of the ‘incident’ presented, for the sake of inducing persons to be conscious of feeling the need for compassion and healing, peace leaders as Curators would need to take a step back, step out of circles of acrimony, imagine and risk constructing a healing space within any publicly constructed conversational spaces by raising and acting on the question of what it means to dwell and how we need to dwell with each other in times of acrimony. If we accept this, then Curators are called to properly coordinate the efforts of all who are restless to shelter and dwell in ways that are healing.

For Reference Heidegger and KrellHeidegger (1977), this dimension of dwelling makes a particular demand on us: ‘The proper dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the essence of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell’ (p. 363; emphasis original). Continuous learning (ever learn) is a critical term for Heidegger. Within the context of the personal story, the learning that is proper for this gathering is to attend to the particularities of what is being asked for in that situation or context. It cannot be abstract. The etymology of the word ‘abstract’ can be understood from the Latin abstrahere, meaning to draw away from, or ab-stare meaning to stand away from. Peace leaders as Curators cannot draw their attention away from or stand apart from the particularity of their situation or context because particular situations raise particular questions, and they demand particular answers. And so, learning to dwell in peace within the context of the personal story, involves continuously attending to the details of not only how participants in that story chose to inhabit or dwell in that space but also how they could dwell. It also needs to include how peace leaders as Curators choose to dwell in moments that appear acrimonious and in moments that are defined by the predictability of unpredictability. In defining that situation as persons feeling hurt, such a definition could potentially open peace leaders to being governed by the value of being a Curator which in turn orients them to healing and being a healing presence.

What, however, would it mean to not attend to being a Curator? Hurts run deep. Hurts are painful. They can take up their place and solidify or harden in the depths of one’s heart and soul. In so doing, one’s heart of flesh can become a heart of stone. In relation to the continual conflict in the Middle East, we can see the hardened and hurting hearts playing itself out in public- violently. The injustice of structural elements in that society continues to feed the hardening of hearts and the hurt. The betrayal and absence of trust sustains hearts of stone. Ill-will prevails. Here there are no friends. Only enemies. But here’s the thing. Because hurt runs deep, hurt is not readily visible. The overlayer, anger and angry reactions, is more visible and it presents itself directly for others to see. Reverting to the personal story (incident), what we see is that participants were angry on the outside but hurting on the inside. Talking over each other is an expression of such anger. The fixation and the fixing of hearts that appeared like stones are readily exposed as anger and resentment. We do not readily see – what is concealed – is that they are hurting on the inside. Perhaps this is why prophet Ezekiel from the Old Testament, spoke to the need to transform hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

For the prophet Ezekiel the transforming of hearts of stone to hearts of flesh is necessary for the sake of something other. For him, such a spiritual transformation is desirable for the sake of His holy name. Could we also not say, that for the sake of the holiness of peace, which has been profaned and defiled through the hardening of hearts, we need to ‘remove’ our hearts of stone and welcome hearts of flesh for the sake of something ‘other’ that is not readily visible? Is this not what Reference BurnsBurns (2003) meant by transforming leadership?

For Reference BurnsBurns (2003) radical change in outward form and inner character is the purpose of transforming leadership. This radical transforming change is also echoed by Reference O’DeaO’Dea (2012), a renowned figure in international social healing and peace studies. For him, an ambassador of peace ‘recognizes the importance of transforming both inner blockages to peace and those blockages in external relations, cultures, and systems that prevent peace in the world’ (Reference O’DeaO’Dea, 2012, p. ii). He would further say that as ‘fluently’ as peace ambassadors ‘model and express peace’, they must also ‘learn to reflect and embody it’ (Reference O’DeaO’Dea, 2012, p. ii). For Reference BurnsBurns (2003), one significant way that peace leaders can model, and express leadership is by partnering with the dispossessed of the world and by empowering both leaders and followers with a transforming purpose. For him such a modelling and expressing is ‘the greatest moral undertaking of united leadership’ (Reference BurnsBurns, 2003, p. 3).

4.5 Embodying a Sacred Heart

For Reference Heifetz, Linsky, Heifetz and LinskyHeifetz and Linsky (2017), such a modelling would mean choosing to lead and dwell with an open and ‘sacred heart’. ‘The virtue of a sacred heart’, they said, ‘lies in the courage to maintain your innocence and wonder, your doubt and curiosity … your compassion and love even through moments of despair’ (p. 227). Embodying a ‘sacred heart’ means that while Curators ‘may feel tortured and betrayed, powerless and hopeless’, they can choose to ‘stay open … without hardening or closing [themselves]’ (pp. 229–230). The power of the sacred heart is such that ‘even in the midst of disappointment and defeat’, Curators can ‘still remain connected to people and to the source of your most profound purposes’ (p. 230). How then can peace leaders as Curators attend to the work of transforming hearts of stone to hearts of flesh? How can they go about the process of inducing the need to feel the need to be a Curator of their hearts and souls in moments of disturbance? I offer three Curator ‘practices’: song, stories/story telling, and poetry.

4.6 Song

One practical, meaningful, and improvisational method could be the use of song. Not any song, but songs and music that are particularly connected to the experience at hand. So, this procedure itself would depend on a person’s knowledge of a number of different songs and their openness and courage to use them spontaneously. Stephen Holley, coordinator of the Commercial Music Program at the Kent Denver School in Englewood, Colorado, for example, shared his story that ‘a musician has the responsibility to listen, react, adjust, refocus, and add to the conversation on an almost constant basis!’ ‘This’, he continues to say, ‘is true in all styles of music but is arguably most prevalent in jazz and other improvisational genres’ (as cited in Reference WebbWebb, 2011, Para 2). But more than being responsibly engaged in a conversation, for film composer Bernard Hermann, music can also ‘propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry’ (as cited in Reference WentzWentz, 2013, Para 1). This is Hermann’s story. For him the power of improvisational music lies in its capacity to lift mere talk into the realm of poetry. Similarly, the lived experience of the personal story shared in this Element, affirms that song can move people in powerful ways. It can inspire, draw emotional responses like crying, compel us to remain calm and silent, and allow for healing.

Within the context of the personal story, the Peace Prayer of St. Francis appeared to be an appropriate song. The singing and humming of that song was not planned. Indeed, it was spontaneous. In retrospect, the spontaneity of singing and humming to that song/hymn is experienced as a divine gift and an affirmation that this aspect of knowing cannot be a matter of planning, or control. For Reference Gadamer, Gadamer, Gaiger and WalkerGadamer (1996d), spontaneity and subsequent improvisational Curator practices, places us in ‘the so-called grey areas where things cannot be treated with scientific exactitude’ (p. 133). As a facilitator, my lived experience was such that I appealed to the Good Lord for help, and I believe that the Prayer of St. Francis was His answer to my prayer. In retrospect, my lived experience also meant a knowing that to act on His answer was also a risk in that it would appear as if logic was being dismissed. Consequently, Curators may, as experienced in that personal story, be charged with ‘crazy making’. This ‘charge’ however, presupposes that there is an objective standard and rules by which to judge this, or that act as not crazy.

In a situation of disharmony, shouting in order to be heard, and hammering things out in the heat of the moment (heated discussions), appeared to be accepted as not crazy-making ways of being. Expressing anger and resentment at the injustice of violence may be accepted as not crazy making, and by implication ‘normal’. From the perspective of whatever is accepted as an objective and normal standard, singing or humming in a moment of disturbance on the other hand, may be viewed as avoiding the task of addressing and settling disharmony, let alone taking such a situation seriously. However, the lived experience in that situation was that the very methods and procedures of shouting, and hammering things out, were themselves dysfunctional in that these methods paradoxically precluded the attainment of harmony. It led instead to more disharmony. In this context, ‘crazy-making’ can only be viewed as an illogical solution to resolve logical problems. Singing in the middle of escalating accusations of not understanding (‘No! No! No! You don’t understand!’) makes ‘no sense’ in that context – hence crazy, by definition and effect. A logical response to what seemed like crazy behaviour is confusion (‘Some stared at me …’). Accusations of ‘being crazy’ can be interpreted as an attempt to regain a preconceived notion of ‘normalcy’ and in so doing, regain a sense of clarity (not confused).

Insofar as peace leaders as Curators intentionally and deliberately use song with the awareness that they maybe charged with crazy making (or not), this very awareness implies that they are not crazy but intentional (Reference AmaladasAmaladas, 2018). They are intentional in acting unpredictably in a world that favours the predictability of whatever is accepted as normal. They are deliberate in their awareness of the need to step out of established system of rules and relationships governing matters regarding how to dwell amid conditions of pain and suffering. They are also deliberate in their consciousness that they need to break cycles of action-reaction by moving away from a defined place of ‘normalcy’ to what maybe viewed as a ‘strange’ and ‘crazy’ place, with the imagination that all can be brought to peace in a newly re-defined place.

4.7 Stories/Story Telling

This Element began with the telling a story of an incident at a particular point in time and context, and proceeded by telling a story about that story. As a psychologist Reference MairMair (1988) wrote:

To accept that we live in and through the stories we tell is to accept that we both live the stories of our culture, race and place, and are lived by those stories. We dwell in our stories and our stories dwell in us. The strength of stories is such that we first make our stories and then our stories make us. The angry reactions of participants in that workshop, for example, were expressions of how they were living the stories that were telling themselves and how they were being lived by such a telling. For Reference MairMair (1988), this is precisely what is ‘important to sense more fully’ (p. 127). This sensing of stories goes beyond fictions and tales. It is the stuff of human experience, including our histories, politics, economics, sciences, and religions. Our human experience is a storied experience. Each and every one of us is not only a storyteller but we are also storied beings. Every theory, book, or conversation is an exercise in storytelling. The storying of Peace Dwelling in this Element is but a story. For Reference MairMair (1988) what is important to sense fully is our awareness of how the stories we tell ourselves and each other are living our lives for us. Being conscious of this frees us to understand that the stories we tell are but a story based on socialized preconceptions or categories within our worldviews. This awareness opens us up to the possibility of telling different stories. We become open to alternate stories by becoming aware that our stories are socially constructed on the basis of our socialized preconceptions and categories that are informed by culture, race, and place.

In relation to transformative change, Reference HabermasHabermas (1984), a critical theorist, pointed to another revealing truth that is embedded in storytelling.

In telling a story about my personal story that participants in that workshop were experiencing the pain of hurt, and as naming how they were faring as hurting is to say that dwelling in peace draws peace leaders as Curators into the work of editing. They listen, edit, and reshape stories that are being told by how they listen, by the questions they ask, and by choosing to focus and elaborate on certain parts of the story. This is also true for all persons in any setting. Persons in that particular workshop were editing what they chose to hear or not hear. Such an editing can construct walls or destroy walls. And here, we may be well advised to hear the words of the poet Reference FrostFrost (1914), in his poem Mending Wall: ‘Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know, What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence’ (Lines 32–33). The significance of this edited listening is that both Curators and participants can listen and act in ways other than what either of them intended – precisely because of such an editing. Curators, in other words, are not in control. This lived experience makes visible what Reference SengeSenge (2006), an organizational learning theorist, meant when he wrote:

While the purposeful construction of conversational spaces and intentions may lie within the ‘control’ of Curators, ‘the rest of it’ it is in the hands, minds, and hearts of the collective. From this perspective it appears as if the best that peace leaders as Curators can do is to initiate conversations on peace. Without others ‘joining-in’ in ways that are aligned with what is intended, the experience within such socially constructed spaces can become messy.

Insofar as Reference BurnsBurns (2003), suggested that ‘leaders take the initiative in mobilizing people for participation in the process of change’ (p. 25), the understanding of peace leadership as a relationship, means that the effectiveness in realizing the Curator’s initiative is directly dependent upon the followers’ voluntary willingness to ‘join in’. Leadership, in other words, is embedded in the relationship between a leader’s initiative and followers’ voluntary and willing decision to ‘join-in’ (or not). For an existentialist philosopher, Reference Buber and KaufmannBuber (1970), it is a relationship that is established on the grounds of reciprocity. For him, any relationship other than reciprocity, ‘dilutes the meaning of relations’ (p. 58), or what it means to be in a relationship. At the same time, the language of ‘initiative’ alerts us to the question of what it means to act. Reference ArendtArendt’s (1958) excellent unveiling of different meanings of what it means to act is worthy of a second look. The Greek and Latin languages, she sketched, contain two different, yet interrelated, words to designate the verb ‘to act’. To the two Greek verbs, archein (‘to begin’, ‘to lead’, and finally ‘to rule’) and prattein (‘to pass through’, ‘to achieve’, ‘to finish’) correspond the two Latin verbs agere (‘to set in motion’, ‘to lead’) and gerere whose original meaning is ‘to bear’) (p. 189, parenthesis and emphasis in original).

Within our leadership literature, our consciousness has been dominated by an understanding of action as archein (begin) and prattein (finish). In the field of leadership studies, we encounter a dominant acceptance of how the effectiveness of leadership is to be ‘measured’. For example, Reference BurnsBurns (1978) described leadership effectiveness in the following way: ‘the test of the extent and quality of power and leadership is the degree of actual accomplishment of the promised change’ (p. 461). Elsewhere, Reference Burns, Goethals and SorensonBurns (2006) talked about leadership as ‘the interaction of persons in human (and inhuman) conditions of equality – an interaction measured by ethical and moral values and by the degree of realization of intended, comprehensive, and desirable change’ (p. 239). What has dropped out of sight in our leadership discourse is the notion of acting as beginning something new or to set in motion (agere), and the subsequent experiences of leaders and followers from within that frame of reference. What is critical to note in Reference ArendtArendt’s (1958) very perceptive distinctions is that to think of leadership action as ‘to set in motion’ (agere) is to accept that ‘the strength of the beginner shows itself only in his initiative and the risk he takes, not in the actual achievement’ (p. 190). To initiate anything, to set something in motion, is to risk the unpredictability of finishing the intended task. It is precisely this understanding of action as initiative that allowed Reference RostRost (1991) to claim that ‘leadership may still be leadership when the relationship fails to produce results’ (p. 118; emphasis original). In saying this Reference RostRost (1991) joins Reference ArendtArendt (1958) who formulated the strength of the initiator as showing itself only in the initiative and the risks taken, and not in the actual achievement. Both Rost and Arendt then make a break from Reference BurnsBurns (2003) who noted that the leadership ‘test’ is in ‘the results’ attained (p. 3).

In any initiative peace leaders find themselves alone. Others may join in or not; others may join-in and finish the task as intended, or not. While the courage to set something new in motion, and strength of any initiative belongs to the initiator, the power of any initiative belongs to the collective who may or may not choose to bear the burden (gerere) of joining-in and finishing (prattein) the initiator’s task. In this, Curators as initiators are not in control. To this end, we can also understand how Reference RostRost’s (1991) understanding of leadership effectiveness, as formulated through Reference ArendtArendt’s (1958) distinction of agere and gerere, is connected to Reference Weber, Roth and WittichWeber’s (1978) formulation of value rational action. As noted earlier, for Reference Weber, Roth and WittichWeber (1978), value rational action is ‘determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake … independently of its prospects for success’ (pp. 24–25; emphasis added). At the same time, the voluntary joining-in does not automatically mean that both leaders and followers will always be involved in initiatives aimed at the common good. Such relationships and initiatives can be toxic (Reference Lipman-BlumenLipman-Blumen, 2006; Reference Milosevic, Maric and LoncarMilosevic et al., 2020; Reference Vreja, Balan and BoscaVreja et al., 2016), or simply bad (Reference KellermanKellerman, 2004).

Songs, as suggested in the previous subsection, can be viewed as a way of introducing a different story. While the loudness of their voices was a desperate attempt for each in that room to want their stories and hurts to be heard, and not succeeding, the song shifted their attention to listening to a different story. It offered them an opportunity to become silent – at least for a little while – and, in silence, to allow the lyrics of a song to wash the dust and dirt away from their souls. Indeed, it was not a paralyzing silence. It was instead a thoughtful and reflective silence. This different story – song – offered participants the possibility of distancing themselves from negative patterns that were keeping them apart, and an opportunity for them to hold themselves together differently. The capacity to tell a new story is possible because what Curators hold valuable is an awareness and a belief, as Reference BurnsBurns (1978) wrote, that ‘people can be lifted into their better selves’ (p. 462; emphasis original) and that they can be lifted to ‘higher levels of motivation and morality’ (p. 20). Similarly, as Reference GardnerGardner (1969) wrote, it is a conscious awareness that is grounded in the value that people can be lifted ‘above the conflicts that tear a society apart and unite them in pursuits of objectives worthy of their best efforts’ (p. 134). Imagine the consequences of denying such a value? However, acting on the belief that people can be lifted into their better selves does not guarantee that any desired result(s) will be produced.

Allow me to share Vivian Silver’s story. All information about her is gathered from her blogs and what is found in social media. As she wrote in her blog she was born and raised – in my home city, Winnipeg, and she was a ‘kibbutz member almost 45 years, the last 28’, as she noted, ‘on Kibbutz Boen, bordering on the Gaza strip’. Shortly after she graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in the late 1960s she dreamed of ‘changing the world’. She was also involved in numerous humanitarian groups. She co-founded Women Wage Peace, which advocates for a unified demand for diplomatic negotiation, with full representation of women, to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This passion moved her to spend

In 1998, she became the Executive Director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development in Beer Sheva, ‘an NGO promoting human sustainable development, shared society between Jews and Arabs and peace in the Middle East’. What is particularly significant for this social change and peace activist is what infuriated her the most: ‘it especially infuriates me when people claim: ‘We have no partner on the other side!’ I personally know so many Palestinians who yearn for peace no less than we do …’ (Reference SilverSilver, 2018, para 5). She went on to say:

In 2016, she wrote:

Notice for example, stories that are told based on the socialized preconceptions of the other and of the situation at hand, namely that ‘we are destined to live by the sword and that there is no hope’, or that ‘the Arabs won’t give up the struggle until Israel disappears’. In these zero-sum stories of sword and survival, where the existence of one precludes the existence of the other, to imagine a different story and to choose to believe otherwise would simply be ‘crazy’ at best, or traitors at worst. Hence the loyalty of ‘we’ that is present in this context is a ‘we’ of ‘us against them’. It is this context and storying of the other that led Reference LederachLederach (2005) to affirm that the best one can do is to take sides in this dualistic struggle. You are either for us or against us. No other options or stories are available. And here’s the rub. For all her sincere efforts for peace, Vivian Silver’s last text message to her son was, ‘They’re inside the house’. Her son noted, ‘I continued talking with my mother until I heard on the phone screaming and yelling and gunshots outside her window … So we stopped talking so (the gunmen) wouldn’t hear’ (Reference SempleSemple, 2023, para 10; parenthesis original). Vivian Silver was taken hostage by Hamas agents and ‘her remains were found shortly after the attack at Kibbutz Be’en, where she lived, but weren’t identified until weeks later’ (Reference GreensladeGreenslade, 2023, para 7).

While Vivian Silver believed that people can be lifted into their better selves, and while she was infuriated at those who thought otherwise, her being taken hostage and killed affirms that stories that instil anger, resentment, revenge, and rage continue to prevent the transformation of that belief into everyday life, and, by implication, they continue to reinforce violence. Did the Hamas agents know who she was and what she was trying to achieve? We do not know. What we do know is that the rage of violence affirms that acting on the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others, can continue to rip communities apart like a sharp double-edged sword and they can at any moment kill persons like Vivian Silver, even though she walked and lived alongside both the Israelis and the Palestinians believing that they can all be partners for peace. Her story affirms that we can edit our stories either for peace or for enmity. She affirmed that editing can be used to confirm or reject the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and about the other.

4.8 Poetry

Poetry could also be used with a view to the non-negotiable orientation to, and relationship with, each other as a Thou. It is critical to understand Reference Buber and KaufmannBuber’s (1970) distinction between ‘I-It’ and ‘I-Thou’. For him, the attitude of ‘I’ towards ‘It’ is one that treats the other not only as an object (‘It’) but also one that is separate from the ‘I’. The attitude of ‘I’ towards ‘Thou’ is one in which I-Thou are not separated by discrete bounds. I-Thou is, instead, a living relationship among persons. For Reference GadamerGadamer (1985), the important thing in any human relationship is ‘to experience the Thou truly as a Thou – i.e. not to overlook his claim but to let him really say something to us. To this end, openness is necessary’ (p. 324). This way of being with the other is also reflected in the African concept of Ubuntu. Ubuntu means ‘I am what I am because of you’. In Ubuntu culture, ‘I’ and ‘you’ are in a relationship with each other. In Ubuntu all relationships is an encounter. The concept of Ubuntu is centred on the principle that my humanity is inextricably caught up in yours – a concept that Archbishop Desmond Tutu described as ‘the essence of being human … I am me because you are you’ (as cited in Reference CantacuzinoCantacuzino, 2015, p. 29). We are not islands by ourselves. We are part of a community. Consequently, as co-participants, the healing of a broken community cannot occur without the participation of all because we are all a part of our hurting and suffering community.

But why turn to what might be seen as an unlikely resource like poetry? The poet Robert Frost, for example, as President Reference KennedyJ.F. Kennedy (1963) noted in his speech at Amherst College,

Within the context of the brokenness of trust, Reference KinneyJames Patrick Kinney’s (2012) poem The Cold Within is particularly useful. Written within the sociopolitical context of the American Civil Rights Movement – when people of colour were fighting for their basic rights as citizens, and for the right to be treated with human dignity – Reference KinneyKinney’s (2012) poem continues to be relevant today. Reference KinneyKinney (2012) speaks to the experiences of ‘six men’ who not only find themselves ‘trapped in happen-stance, in bleak and bitter cold’ but also amid a ‘dying fire in need of logs’. This is how each chose to dwell in bleak and bitter cold. Confronted with the crisis of a dying fire, each man, as Reference KinneyKinney (2012) tells his story, refused to feed the fire with their sticks of birch for different reasons. The first ‘held his back’, because he noticed ‘one was black’. The second ‘could not bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch’ because he saw one ‘not of his church’. A poor man in this group resentfully withheld his log: ‘Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?’ The rich man, judges the poor as ‘lazy’ and ‘shiftless’. Hence not contributing his log would mean keeping what ‘he had earned’ to himself and away ‘from the lazy shiftless poor’. The ‘black man’s face’ was filled with the spirit of ‘revenge’. All this man saw in his stick of wood was ‘a chance to spite the white’. And the last of these men in this ‘forlorn group’ played the transactional game of ‘giving only to those who gave’. And since nobody gave, neither did he. Reference KinneyKinney (2012) completes his poem by defining a tragic consequence of this act of withholding:

Sharing this poem with those who choose to dwell in peace has often led to moments of silence and disbelief, as expressed through the shaking of their heads. Reference KinneyKinney’s (2012) poem taps into a particular aspect of humanity that is experienced today. The act of withholding our ‘logs’ continues to reinscribe and polarize persons on the basis of racial and religious prejudices (Reference Augoustinos and ReynoldsAugoustinos and Reynolds, 2001; Reference HaidtHaidt, 2012; Reference HofferHoffer, 1951/2002). It continues to put humanity in crisis (our dying fire in need of logs). Holding tightly to one’s own prejudices, righteousness, resentment, revenge, spite, and transactional giving, continue to perpetuate and sustain one tragic human reality: we all die from the cold within. In this ‘un-holy’ modern-day tragedy, there will be no winners. We will all lose.

5.1 Five Critical Actions

Within the context of the personal story/incident, five critical actions surfaced as both necessary and desirable in response to the disturbance and being-not-at-home. These included (a) consciously breaking any cycle of violence/chaos by stepping away from such circles of intense, emotion-filled disagreement, (b) paying attention to a different story (a different song/hymn), (c) imagining the possibility of being choreographed by a different story/song or language, namely by ‘something other’ than what presented itself in any acrimonious conversational space, (d) acting on such an imagined ‘something other’, and finally (e) as will be offered herein, orienting to others ‘as-if’ all were equal and at the same time honoured in particular. The lived experience of that incident suggests that intentionally disrupting chaos by creating a moment of ‘interlude’ or, for the technologically literate, ‘clicking on the pause key’ is a necessary risk and a step in facilitating peace. Along with the uncertainty as to what would actually occur, another risk in acting in this manner includes being charged with being crazy (‘Are you crazy?’). From this perspective, crazy making, then, is a charge against anyone who is perceived as taking serious matters too lightly. Within the context of the ‘incident’ for this Element, it is an accusation that believes that peace leaders as dwellers are actually treating one’s reality as if it was simply a game.

It is here that we turn to an understanding of sociability as formulated by a sociologist, Simmel. For him, sociability ‘is the game in which one ‘does as if’ all were equal, and at the same time, as if one honoured each of them in particular’ (Reference Simmel and LawrenceSimmel, 1976, p. 86). A philosopher C.S. Lewis made a similar point.

But is this attitude and ‘as if’ game not a lie or a deception? If I did indeed treat you as an equal and if I did indeed honour you in particular, then why play what seems to look like a pretend ‘as if’ game? Does this not sow the seeds for manipulation? Reference Simmel and LawrenceSimmel (1976) would answer ‘yes’, but only if such a ‘game’ was ‘guided by non-sociable purposes or is designed to disguise such purposes’ (p. 86). For him, the game can become a ‘lie only when sociable action and speech are made into mere instruments of the intentions and events of practical reality …’ (p. 86). In Reference OswaldAristotle’s (1962) language, when action and speech are not made ‘for their friends’ good, for their friends’ sake …’ (Line 1156b, p. 10). Reference Simmel and LawrenceSimmel (1976) further went on to acknowledge that the ‘actual entanglement of sociability with the events of real life’ can ‘make such a deception often very tempting’ (p. 86). Simmel appears to be returning us to the question that was raised by Reference BurnsBurns (1978), namely leadership for what end, and whose end?’ (p. 457). The entanglement of sociability with the event of violence in the Middle East, for example, can be used by some to further their own intentions. In so doing, ‘taking sides’ becomes one way of demonstrating an unflinching support for one, not for the sake of peace for all, but rather as a means to preserving one’s own interests.

Resisting such a temptation depends upon an intentional decision or a choice to be sincerely guided – without wax – by the principle of acting as if all were equal and as if all deserve to be honoured in particular. While for Simmel, it is a decision that is grounded in the principles of equality and honour, for Aristotle, it is a decision that is rooted in the principle of friendship. Allow me now to offer one story and a poem, one from a scriptural source, and one secular, that show cases both the five critical actions as noted earlier, and acting as if all were equal, and at the same time, as if one honoured each of them in particular. Both the story and the poem speak to the significance and power of the Hands. The power of the Hands offers peace dwellers an opportunity to consider the question of what it would mean to be a Welcoming Presence amid disturbance.

5.2 Stories of Being a Welcoming Presence

6.1 The Art of Being a Neighbour

In response to this question, allow me to turn to yet another story that, again, appears only in Luke’s Gospel. Commonly called The Good Samaritan, the soulful and healing presence of human beings to other human beings, offers us a practical example of the holiness of treating each other like persons, like friends, or in Luke’s story like a neighbour. In response to a ‘test’ question by a legal expert: ‘Who is My Neighbour?’ Jesus told this story.

In this story, Jesus makes a political decision in distinguishing the actions of the priest, Levite, and the Samaritan. At his time (and now?), Samaritans were seen as being enemies to the Jews. Recall for example, the story of a woman from Samaria who came to draw water from a well. As John narrated that story:

The Jews (Judeans) of his time were most concerned about the purity of their bloodlines, namely, that everyone in that community could trace their history to Jacob, son of Isaac, and grandson of Abraham. They believed that they would become ‘unclean’ if they associated with Samaritans who readily intermarried. They thought that they would become unclean in the eyes of their God if they travelled on Samaritan roads or drank from Samaritan wells. In this context, we can understand how livid they might have been in hearing or seeing Jesus, another Jew and Judean, associating with a Samaritan woman and asking her for a drink. Jesus’ disciples were themselves ‘surprised’ to find him talking with a woman from Samaria. But although they were ‘surprised’, they chose not to pursue it any further.

We can better understand Luke and Jesus’ political decision in telling the story of the Good Samaritan within the context of the Judaeans’ relationship with Samaritans. The Levite and the priest, who happened to travel down the same road where a wounded man lay, absorbed by their institutional roles, went about their religious business of not contaminating themselves by not making the wounded man their business. They chose instead to walk pass by him ‘on the other side’. In so doing, they showed that they were preoccupied to the point that they made themselves unavailable for the surprise of an encounter. Was this the story that Reference BrechtBrecht (1937) had in mind as he wrote in his poem ‘To Posterity?’ He asked the question: ‘And he who walks calmly across the street, Is he not out of reach of his friends, In trouble?’ (Stanza 2). Unencumbered by any role, institutional, religious, or otherwise, the Samaritan, when he came to that same place and saw that wounded man, ‘took pity on him … went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine (and) brought him to an inn and took care of him’. This was his direct person-to-person encounter.

Who then is my neighbour? In this story, Luke affirms that neighbours are not those who live beside one`s home, let alone those who live on one`s street. Whereas social science researchers have focused on the science and sociology of neighbourhoods, the art of Being a Neighbour, as Reference Ricouer and KelbeyRicouer (1965) disclosed, situates us ‘between a sociology of human relationships and a theology of charity’ (p. 98). He further went on to say: ‘If there is no sociology of the neighbour, perhaps there is a sociology which starts out from the frontier of the neighbour’ (p. 98).

In Luke’s story/parable, a critical learning that emerges from the ‘frontier of the neighbor’ is that one does not have neighbours. Neighbours are not ‘things’ to be possessed. Neighbours are not social objects. To orient to the social fact of neighbour as a ‘thing’ would in effect move us to a study of neighbourhoods and/or a study of ‘types’ of neighbours. Instead, as Luke affirms through this story/parable, being a neighbour ‘lies in the habit of making oneself available’ (Reference Ricouer and KelbeyRicouer, 1965, p. 95) to others where they are, including being present to the wounded, to the dispossessed, and to those who are hurting. The significance of Ricoeur’s use of the word ‘habit’ cannot be underestimated. While there may be good or bad habits, what they both share in common is a constant practice that becomes a ‘usual’ way of being. If this is so, then Ricouer shares in Reference Hegel and WilliamsHegel’s (2007) understanding of ‘subjective spirit’. ‘Habit,’ Reference Hegel and WilliamsHegel (2007) said, ‘is the most essential feature of the existence of all mental life,’ because it enables ‘religious content, moral content, etc., to belong to this self, as this soul, in its very being’ (p. 202). Within this context then, the habit of being a neighbour as the spirit of making oneself available is harmonized (becomes one) in the subject through the practiced conduct of making oneself available. Habits are not a consequence of a singular act. Habits are formed by repeated actions. By virtue of this, the habit of making oneself available could becomes ‘usual’ to the point that one may no longer be aware that making oneself available is the very principle that guides Neighbours to be neighbours. It is a conduct that comes to them ‘naturally’ as if they are in tune with nature’s way of being.

Like the Samaritan, peace dwellers also make themselves available by being present to the other – person to person. They make themselves available by being open to changing one’s own itinerary in the face of unexpected events, like, stumbling upon a person who was beaten and left half-dead, or in confronting voices of anger, dissent, and hurt, as that is told in the personal story for this Element. As neighbours they make themselves available by dwelling in-between the sociology of human relationships and a theology of charity. From the perspective of the sociology of human relationships, they make themselves available in their spontaneity when confronted with unforeseen and conflicted events. They invent and reinvent themselves within the context that surrounds them, and they open themselves to being surprised by what may transpire. In this way, peace leaders as Neighbours compose an improvised response and a life.

For Reference BatesonMary Catherine Bateson (1989), the art of improvisation, rather than technical design, offers Neighbours the flexibility of ‘recombining partly familiar materials’ in ways that are ‘sensitive to context, interaction, and response’ (p. 2; emphasis added). In such improvisations they appeal to what is and is not familiar. While improvisation may be familiar to many, the theology of charity may sound strange. From the perspective of a theology of charity, Neighbours ground their practice of making themselves available in the sacred principle (value) of agape. In Christianity, agape is ‘the highest form of love, charity’ and ‘the love of God for man and man for God’ (Reference Liddell and ScottLiddell and Scott, 1901, p. 6)

What must be highlighted in the Parable of the Good Samaritan is that, for Jesus, it is not only a story about the goodwill of the Samaritan, but also a call for action (‘Go and do likewise’) – a call to act with an empowering and transforming purpose. This story, in other words, calls us to reflect on the questions: (i) what does this mean to make ourselves available where polarization and divisions constantly increases, and where it seems that we do not live in the world of the ‘neighbour?’ and (ii) what can we do about it? It is a call to conduct ourselves in the direct relationship of ‘person to person’ within the context of where we find ourselves in relation to each other, and not simply through the mediation of institutions, including the mediations of a legal system.

By implication, the direct relationship of person to person within the social context of wherever we find ourselves, and our particular situations, returns us to a micro and local level. It is in the frontier of these localized instances that we begin to engage in the practice and habit of dwelling in peace – one relationship at a time, one encounter at a time, one act of charity at a time. It does not however stop there. Beginning with our direct relationship with one another, this also means that we extend such a relationship with our own family members, with legal systems as they are established by the states and nations, with organizational/political structures that divide more than unify, with others who may look different from me, with others who may be members of different religions, and so forth. Indeed, the habit of being a neighbour cannot not include all who have vested interests in any concord or discord – socially, politically, and economically.

The lived experience of being neighbour, as it is told in Luke’s parable can be received as appealing to the awakening of our own consciousness to the power of charity. If being a neighbour through acts of charity is lacking at a micro and local person to person level, such a lack will naturally extend to larger macro levels of any society. It is precisely in cases where there is an absence of charity – potentially or in reality – that we need an institution of laws and rules to protect persons against the uncharitable acts of other persons. Laws aim at deterring persons from harming other persons. Without disavowing the need laws, we cannot dismiss the idea that the presence of laws and legal institutions protects all (at least in intention) from the absence of charity. Similarly, the presence of violence in our societies also affirms the absence of charity. Choosing to pass by each other on the other side of the road with an attitude of indifference affirms the absence of charity. Alternatively, a simple nod of the head upon passing someone on a street can affirm the presence of another person. Not a single nod, but repeated nods that allow a nod to become a habit. A person’s genuine and repeated nods are a step that can potentially begin a longer journey of neighbourliness.