Do You See What I See?

Do You See What I See? Do you hear what I hear?

Long time coming? Or was I just lacking in patience?

September 11, 2001

It was shocking, horrifying, devestating that terrorists could breach our national borders and kill U.S. citizens in cold blood on American soil.

I could not SEE what you saw that day. I was blind at the time. (Now I am blind no more. I wish the same for you, spiritually as well as physically.)

But then mostly all I could do was listen to hear of what you saw; on televised newscasts in the newspapers, magazines and periodicals. Through a haze like two sheets of waxed papers I sensed images and heard the anguish.

I was a part of this world and yet not quite.

Nonetheless, we all still remember and read and talk about it.

We always will.

We were changed by what happened. Yet not quite enough – which is one of my main points here.

In the aftermath we came together in shock and fear. We gathered in churches and synagogues wherever two or more could meet to talk and pray. We sought comfort in one another and that which was somewhere beyond. That which we could not quite see, but longed to feel; peace and comfort and meaning in that which seemed to have no meaning at all.

After a time, too little time, however, most returned to business as usual.

As if there could ever again be “usual.”

What I saw in 9/11 because I could not see what you saw -- of the bloody aftermath was only that which I could see with my heart. And the images I sensed that went beyond the physical into the spiritual dimension.

For me the time brought close the words of  Helen Keller --

The spiritual world offers no difficulty to one who is deaf and blind. Nearly everything in the natural world is as vague, as remote from my senses, as spiritual things seem to the minds of most people.

This very much reflects how I “saw” 9/11.

For me there was little difference between the physical world and the spiritual. So I saw what you saw as best I could; the spiritual taking dominance as the physical was so very vague for me.

Since that day, 9/11, and the weeks and months after I came to realize that somehow I was able to hold onto my spiritual musings more easily than most.

After all I had no meaningful work at the time to distract my attentions – and – no lingering, terrifying and bloody graphic images to haunt me. Soon after that day I created a brief study of attitudes and such to explore with the limited number of people I had access to in those blind days after 9/11.

Not able to drive and living, as I still do, up in the mountains, I found comfort for myself and created it for some by drawing those few into storytelling about what 9/11 meant for us all.

Not realizing, at the time, that I would come to find storytelling to be a path to healing and peace, personally and collectively; a recognition that would come, a few years later, when I had, after eight years, recovered my eyesight and had begun to heal from the trauma the loss brought about.

Storytelling would come to play a central role in my life after blindness, continuing to this day.

Now as the vista of 2015 looms ahead, I am recalling that brief following 9/11. And I am seeing something that I hope you too are seeing.

That early study presaged what my latest study, the Possible Human, Possible Society Study, has revealed, sometimes inspiring -- through stories -- and – sometimes disappointingly in actions that demonstrate, too frequently, what our minds would likely choose to dismiss –

We are a nation of people who, typically, only take time to lean into one another others opportunistically. When tragedy erupts or when doing so serves some other self-centered agenda. Thus we neglect doing that which would serve the higher good of all for one, one for all.

For example, individuals and groups have come together in protests around upsets involving police violence against African American men.  Several years back an equal or greater number took up the call that became Occupy Wall Street, pushing those  protesters in our faces on a daily basis.

Did this make a difference for all its noise? I wonder. Now you barely hear a word spoken of it.

Protest can be a good thing, boldly affirming our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Protest also can turn violent as we are seeing. Even the simmering can be a precursor to treachery and tragedy.

Today I am standing on the side of a mountain where I live, overlooking the historic town of Harpers Ferry. My backyard backs up on sites, once sheltering civil war soldiers from both the Confederacy and Union.

It is almost an effortless endeavor here to immerse oneself in the history of that era. It is correspondingly with relative ease, with scenes of bloodshed surrounding us on every side out here, to call up those long ago voices of death; the cries of young men, dying for freedom.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. It never did. War, even civil war is not an answer.

So let us come together as the New Year of 2015 birth its entry to make the coming year one of personal and collective growth as an ever more civilized humanity, striving to take our evolving another level up.

New Horizons will do its part with an emphasis on guiding whoever will join us to tell our stories and listen with to one another with our hearts on our path to healing.

Do You See What I See? The unity and peace!

Do you hear what I hear? The unity and peace!

We can do this, more and more in 2015!

Silver Bells, Silver Bells

It’s holiday time all around us. Time to celebrate and time to reflect as the year grows to its close.

New Horizons Board of Directors, our volunteer team and myself thank all of you who have so generously and graciously participated in our Possible Human, Possible Society Study this past year.

And those of you who have become regular visitors to our three blog sites, our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show and/or are supporters of our general, overall efforts to contribute our small piece to making this a better world for each and every living thing in it.

With the holiday season now upon us we do not necessarily plan to be actively posting articles here until the first of the year.  It could happen but may not.

So we want to simply share our joy and appreciation to you for what we have been able to accomplish this past year that bodes well for the coming one, 2015. It is always a “WE” thing for us!

In the coming year, look for news about our progress –

• In nearby Frederick County Maryland with our Coffee House Conversations on Race Relations;
• At Hood College and other college campuses for an expansion of our Possible Human, Possible Society Study with interviews of students, faculty and administrators – and -- programs;
• Through our general expansion of the study into new locales within the one hundred mile radius of the Washington, D.C. White House;
• Practical application suggestions for building a better YOU as well as a society from Anastasia The Super Sleuth.

And more!

Our huge package is about to become more and more accessible to you.

With best wishes to you for a joyous and peaceful holiday season!

P.S. While we are off on a holiday, visit our newest blog site, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime for some new adventures with New Horizons and me, Anastasia.

Conversations Project on Race Relations To Promote Coalition

Press Release

Contact: Anastasia Rosen-Jones Phone: (240)409.5347

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Horizons Conversations Project on Race Relations To Promote Coalition

Anastasia Rosen-Jones, executive director of the New Horizons Support Network, has announced plans for her organization to hold—along with other community leaders and groups—a coalition-organizing meeting around the subject of race relations in Frederick County. The objective of the meeting will be to discuss how groups and individuals in the county can expand current efforts to work together on this issue.

The program is slated to be held at Dublin Roasters Coffee, 1780 N. Market Street, Saturday, January 31, 2015 from 3 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Announcing this latest New Horizons’ initiative, Ms. Rosen-Jones stated, “The protests and violence that erupted out of events in Ferguson, Missouri; New York and elsewhere show us that whatever has been done to date on creating an equitable society in our country has obviously fallen short. We need an expanded effort in this regard. New Horizons, recognized in Frederick County as a model program for building bridges of commonality across lines of division through community dialogue, wishes to contribute talent, experience and effort toward the attainment of this goal.”

The coalition-forming meeting will include brief comments by Ms. Rosen-Jones and other community leaders. New Horizons’ conversations format, specially designed for the issue of Frederick County race relations, will, however, take center stage for the majority of the meeting, with comments from the group at-large playing a central role. Follow-up plans for community involvement in the project will be the concluding step 0f the event.

Those interested in participating or attending should contact Ms. Rosen-Jones. Advance reservations are encouraged as space is limited.

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach community development and violence-prevention skills and strategies through the conversations model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project. The New Horizons Conversations on Race Relations effort will develop out of this project. Information about the project can be found at: zonesofpeacenh.blogspot.com. Also, tune in to New Horizons’ “Possible Society in Motion” radio show: www.blogtalkradio.com/smallzonesofpeace. Ms. Rosen-Jones can be reached at: 240.409.5347 or zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.

-End-

Ferguson, Missouri As A Door Opener

Your heart and mind have many doorways to personal and collective transformation. 

Here is a story of one of my own transformations, opening doorways in me from the personal to the collective.

Thanksgiving weekend brought with it moments of serious contemplation for many of us. The uprisings erupting out of the grand jury ruling to not indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown took center stage.

At a time when Americans customarily turned to the holiday and what it is intended to represent of our blessings, the ruling shifted attention, dramatically, from the holiday’s objective.

Perhaps it was intended to do that.

Why else position the announcement for this time, if not?

So, I, like many others were called to incorporate our responses to what was happening in Ferguson and elsewhere into our Thanksgiving feast day. Each of us, so inclined, having our own personal angle regarding how the situation was touching us.

As has become typical for me I sat down and wrote a blog article, using writing as a vehicle for sorting things out. What came of the effort was an article I titled: “Tribal Mindsets: The Light And The Dark Sides,” my name for it capturing how I was holding the subject.

Typically when I write as a means for ordering my mind I feel a sense of clarity and completion.

But this time was different.

In the article, I wrote of pondering particular things the Ferguson situation aroused in me.  As a result I found  myself drawn to revisit an incident that happened at a New Horizons’ Abkhazian Dinner event that has  left  still  unhealed  scars and  breaches. The situation, growing  out of  an occurrence  at the event of  verbal abuse that had, also, had strong racial overtones.

To  date the situation remains without reconciliation ,  almost  three  years past. But it  didn’t have  to  be this way; it still does not! 

I have always believed this.

Similarly, I was believing this of Ferguson, too. But what was best to do, now, I asked myself.

As I wrote the article, and then later continued reflecting on that earlier situation up against the current mayhem around Ferguson, I asked myself what had I learned from  my experience of the Abkhazian Dinner upset.

And what could I/we do with what we have learned from this and other past situations of racial tensions.

I had believed that  I  had  done  all I could  regarding  the Abkhazian Dinner  incident.   But maybe  I had not.  So I pondered that past with this present – and – wondered at it all.

Thus over the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself looking again at my part in racial situations, past and present, that lack healing, to date. 

Ferguson, Missouri prompted  me to do this.

Much more began to flow into my heart and mind once this process of personal de-cluttering began. Alchemy was at work again, turning the lead in me into gold.

Low karat or not, gold is gold!

The most amazing of it all was that in the process my mind, almost magically, shifted to a separation I knew full well I had created.

Irrational as it seems  now, out of these clearing efforts I came to realize that in my growing distress with President Obama  I had, without conscious intent, begun to develop a racist attitude toward others of color, turning away from people I love. 

Racism can be that subtle.

OMG! I could not believe it when all at once I grasped what I had done.

Never before a racist, I had, inadvertently, become a part of this country’s problems with race relations, instead of being a part of the solution. (Sometimes being born Jewish gives one a predisposition to social justice, you may realize.)

OMG! A doorway to a locked down area of my heart and mind opened.

What did I do with it? I followed my own prescription for the cure of polarization!

Almost instantly, I began to lean in to friends of mine of color instead of holding back.

Since few were around who could meet my almost instantaneous shift in awareness, I used my re-newed passion for social justice and creativity to draft a plan for New Horizons that we, collectively, could carry forth, born of an idea of  conscious concern this Thanksgiving holiday.

An Executive Director can take such liberties, even on a holiday.

So --- what’s happening next at New Horizons?

Out of Ferguson, Missouri we are, together, initiating a new project, building on our Small “Zones of Peace” conversations model  ---

Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations.

We do hope you will support this new effort of ours. Details will follow.

Tonight We Celebrate

“The Times They Are A Changing” for the better, if you look closely and broadly enough.

Months ago, I said it on our May 15 Possible Society In Motion Radio Show, “The times they are a changing.”

Ain’t we smart?  The ones who are catching on to this new, enlightened reality.

Those of us who somehow are able to lift ourselves up and out of the daily debris about how awful things and life, in general, are around us.

In spite of Ferguson, in spite of thousands of other problems, big and small, there is Light in the Darkness, if you look closely enough.

On that May 15^th show Jack and I took a look at the positive changes we are seeing in the world around us and within ourselves. A focus of that program was on how the contemporary marriage of science and mysticism is affecting our everyday mental mechanics.

And, how shifts in perception flow forward, if we allow them, making their way into our personal, daily living and our general culture, expanding our perspectives more and more into the positive with attitudes and actions following suit.

Join Jack and myself tonight for our Possible Society In Motion Radio where we will celebrate the bounty of this type of “living in the Light” with

Magic Is Afoot: Moving From The Dark To The Light

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show!

Thursday, December 4, 2014 6:30 p.m.

As usual the on-air, broadcast portion of the show is followed by a conference call forum discussion. 

Guests are welcome to join in at: 712.432.0600, access code 640883 (also recorded).

If you miss the original conference call discussion, please contact New Horizons, the show's sponsoring organization, at: zonesofpeacenh@aol.com for access code for the conference call recording.

Hear The Podcast If You Miss The Broadcast

Magic Is Afoot!  

Tonight we celebrate!

Introducing Your Personal Dark Side Warrior Assessment Inventory

Since Jack, my Possible Society In Motion Radio Show co-host, and I have recently been featuring the Dark and the Light as topics on our program so frequently, hopefully we have caught your attention on the subject. 

And, you are, thus, now quite ready to dig in to the personal applications of the matter.

Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime  and learning to “Lean In” are partners when it comes to doing your best to help us all build the best “possible society.”

Are you wondering how you might take your next steps?

Visit our new Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime blog site for an introduction to the topic. 

Then treat yourself to a personal inventory experience with at this link, the Do You Have A Survivor/Addict Personality? Inventory.

P.S. Survivor/Addict equals the  Dark Side. You need to familiarize yourself with this side of the Force so you can clear away any clutter you may be carrying.

Please contact me, personally, for special guidance on the interpretation once you have done the inventory.

For a personal consultation on this inventory, contact Anastasia at: 

Cell: (240) 409-5347, email: SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.

Sometimes all it takes to reach the Light is to clear away the clutter of the Dark, to make room for it.

Also, check out my latest article on that site, “The Many Doorways To The Force” to discover some of the entry points for the adventure. You are, no doubt, already working with these. Our input will assist you in being more deliberate.

Good luck on your adventure! 

Tribal Mindsets: The Light and The Dark Sides

When volatile, violence-threatening incidents occur such as this past week in Ferguson, Missouri, many feel prompted to give voice to the problems and concerns such events mark, as they see them.

A Real Deal
Peace Buddy is...

For me, when I stand back from the mayhem, most significantly I see it in terms of the Dark and the Light sides of the happenings.

What is the good of it? What is the corrupt, the merciless; the Light and the Dark sides of it all.

And what does my taking a position on it, should I choose to, represent of me?

Given the recent launching of New Horizons newest blog site, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime, I feel particularly compelled to think of the Ferguson situation in terms of how it reflects the responsibilities of the individual, myself included.

For  each of  us,  according  to  my  own personal values  and those  of  New Horizons,  a facet of  our potential  for adventuring through life is to be an  active participant  in it. Rather than a  bystander to, at least, pay attention to  situations  such  as this. Even  if all that we contribute  is the simplest  of  positions;  to be that of an observer with a viewpoint,  contemplating for  a  brief  moment the  potential for learning from  went right or wrong here,  embracing both with compassion and understanding.

Thus a grave  situation  in this present instance  might  pave  the  way  to a better outcome  another  time  in  a similar  situation –and – hopefully what pains  now,  might in time be healed.

As Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist and  survivor of  the Nazi concentration camps, enjoined, we always  have the freedom  to decide  how  to  think  about  things.

Whereas  we  may  not  affect  what  has  happened  now  in  Ferguson – and – are  too far away,  geographically, to reasonably contribute  to the  immediate  healing so badly  needed  there,  what  can we learn  from  this episode  to bring about something  better?   And,  how  might  our being like that infamous butterfly  in  New  York ,  affecting what may  be happening  in far off Japan,  be a contributer,  in some  small way,  to  what Ferguson  will need over time?

Is  it  not a truth we can trust that  if  one  is not a part of the solution than one  is a part of  the problem?

Today,  as I look outside my office  window  at  the  falling snow on  this  day before Thanksgiving,  I am reminded of a  New Horizons’ Abkhazian Dinner event  that has  left  still  unhealed  scars and  breaches behind  it. These grew  out of  an  incident  of  verbal abuse at the event, without reconciliation to date.,  almost  three  years later.

And, while the divisiveness that grew of this episode was subtle, it remains as a wound that still separates.

It  didn’t have  to  be this way; it still does not! 

What can we learn from  this experience? And  what can  we do with what we  might learn?

I believe, to date,  that  I  have  done  what I could  regarding  the  incident.   

But maybe  not.  I must  look again at my part  in this.  Ferguson, Missouri reminds  me of this.

So,  today,  Anastasia The Super Sleuth  offers  you this –

If  you cannot  be wholly  thankful  tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day, for  all  that  has  come  your  way  (or  the  way of our collective) this  day,  at  least,  be  thankful  for the  lessons  brought.  In the  sum  total  of  your life,  the lessons you take  from whatever falls before  you, near and far,  are  as much  a  part  of  the  bounty of your life’s adventure  as  the  gold.

This is the summing up of the Light and the Dark Sides for each of us. Use it well for your adventure, especially for exploring whatever might be of the Dark in you, even if only from your seat as an armchair judge.

In other words, keep pointing that finger back on yourself. And, especially remember -- don’t sacrifice the Light of your inidividual responsibility for joining in with the tribal mindset on the Ferguson incident (or any others) that would have you polarizing on this Thanksgiving holiday.

On The Re-Humanizing Of America

I do not focus on the Light and the Dark Sides of humanity to simply be clever. And, I do not offer my perspectives on the subject without an enormous amount of substance from within, behind what I share. 

Quite the contrary!

What I know about the Light and the Dark, I know not only from diligent study but, also, firsthand; personally and professionally.

De-humanized
America
Art, copyright Marcia E. Rosen
1990

I have been through the fire, so to speak. And, I am very much better for it. Thus everything on this site and the others for which I write has been influenced by these adventures and grows out of that wisdom, born of challenge, pain and personal evolution.

I am, after all, both the Founder and Executive Director of New Horizons, its head chef, bottle washer and window cleaner. I am, as well, sometimes the voice of Anastasia The Super Sleuth, New Horizons’ mascot. Lessons learned in the heat of the fire are how I got and keep these most honorable jobs.

And, please believe me, this is not a one-time effort. Trial by fire is an ongoing experience.

I wish you, no less, if you are up to the task.

So do, please visit New Horizons new blog site, ExploringYour Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime for the professional angle – and – Anastasia The Storyteller to bring yourself closer and closer to these truths I bring back from my adventures and to keep abreast of the bounty.

My personal prophecy, as I have begun to narrate its place and meaning in my life is now in the beginning stages of being recounted as I live out its manifestation in real time on the latter, Anastasia The Storyteller. 

The abundance I bring you can only grow fuller and richer. That is, “G-d willing and the creek don’t rise.”

Here, on the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project site I/we will continue to do our best through “Anastasia The Super Sleuth Says” stories, reports on the data collection of our Possible Human, Possible Society Study, suggestions on our ever-emerging programs, projects and perspectives on building small zones of peace in our personal lives and communities.

Community development related articles derived from principles and perspectives we have learned through our Beloved community development mentor, recently deceased, Murat Yagan, will also continue to be presented on this site. These focus on action projects such as our Bus Ride Story Adventure, written by Murat.

New Horizons is going through enormous changes right now. How we will implement these and continue to use this site to bring these developments to you, as well as the lessons derived from them, is very much in the formative stages.

We have never been satisfied that our mission could not be readily translated into concrete, readily articulated terms. Others have also been dismayed at this failing in us.

I/we can’t assure you, even now, this is going to change, at least not any time soon. We are about experiential learning. How specific can that be made?

We will do our best. But how can we know that which is still unformed?

Nonetheless, if you look closely you will ascertain this much about us; we firmly believe that how people treat one another on a day-by-day basis has an enormous impact on, not only our personal lives and relationships, but also affects our society and politics.

So do please keep coming back and drinking from our sweet fount of wisdom and experience insofar as the re-humanizing of America is concerned.

That, in a nutshell, is what we are about; the re-humanizing of America!

The Adventure Begins

I (Anastasia, New Horizons Executive Director and sometimes mascot, Anastasia The Super Sleuth) have been posting articles off and on having to do with New Horizons’ “Adventure of a Lifetime.” We know our message seems vague and abstract.  Such are the limitations of that which can only be truly known through experiential learning.

To more specifically nail down that which can really be known only through experience, I have occasionally made mention of this adventure suggesting that it might be the climb to the top of the Mountain of Awe. Other times I have suggested our very exciting process might take place on our Bus Ride Story Adventure. And, on still other junctures I have spoken of the onset beginning by entering a labyrinth.

Each of these has been but a symbolic means of attempting, where language so often fails to capture the whole of the story, to describe a process of personal transformation that especially focuses on transforming the Dark sides of oneself into the Light.

Now with our new Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of  A Lifetime blog site, launched this past week, New Horizons has added one more vehicle through which we hope to more closely lead those who are interested in our very unique community development model to our defined destination; AWE.

Our new site is fully dedicated to educating and guiding listeners of our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show and blog site followers on how exactly, from a New Horizons perspective, to go about understanding and transforming the Dark Side into the Light in oneself, personal relationships, society and politics.

The Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of  A Lifetime blog site can be accessed at darksidewarrior.blogspot.com.

Please join Jack Slattery, my Possible Society In Motion Radio Show co-host and myself, tonight as we take one more step toward shining a light on darkness and transforming it to a higher good. You just come away from the experience able to make, at least, a modicum of difference by doing so in your life and that of others. Just by listening to tonight’s Possible Society In Motion Radio Show.

The Light andThe Dark Sides In Motion

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show!

Thursday, November 20, 2014 6:30 p.m.

As usual the on-air, broadcast portion of the show is followed by a conference call forum discussion. 

Guests are welcome to join in at: 712.432.0600, access code 640883 (also recorded).

If you miss the original conference call discussion, please contact New Horizons, the show's sponsoring organization, at: zonesofpeacenh@aol.com for access code for the conference call recording.

Hear The Podcast If You Miss The Broadcast

“Enemies are people...

... who's story you haven't heard, or who's face you haven't seen.*

Storytelling as a way of passing on wisdom and culture is as old as the spoken word. However, oftentimes the internet seems to have rendered it obsolete. 

When we stop taking the time to tell our stories to one another, especially face-to-face, we intercept the flow of our humanity.

That realization came home to me when Jack, my Possible Society In Motion Radio Show co-host, and I hit a road block in our program planning efforts this past week.

That is – until a well-timed story initiated by Jack broke the deadlock!

I have recounted my story about Jack’s story in Post Mid-Term Election Reflections And The Wind In My Sails. Both of these are stories I hope I will long remember. Their poignancy to me is so great.

I took a lesson from Jack’s telling of his story, offering it back in the story I later told about the importance I attached to both. I told my side of it, after the fact, on my blog site as well as on our Possible Society In Motion Radio Show.

Now several days later I have gotten to pondering the significance, once again, of the role storytelling, generally, plays in my life. Additionally, this contemplation has brought me back to wanting to draw attention to the important role storytelling plays in the data gathering for our Possible Human, Possible Society Study.

Sometimes one can become so accustomed to even the most supreme riches of one’s life that you can forget to honor the Divine gifts they bring.

I may be guilty of this neglect where the importance of storytelling is concerned; the wondrous rewards I receive by telling my stories and having others listen to them. And the priceless gifts I receive when others share their stories with me.

Truly the most rewarding benefit I have, to date, accrued in doing interviews for our Possible Human, Possible Society Study is the experience of participants telling me the stories that are personally relevant for them as they relate to the objectives of the study.

I have previously written of the awe I have known in this process of human heart and mind to human heart. But I have become so accustomed to the magic of it that I have neglected, for a time, to hold it far enough out in front of me so as to admire its luminescence.

Right now I am making up it for that here.

It was storytelling, both Jack’s and mine, that enabled me to come up with a script plan for our last program that I could feel good about.  I had been so mired in the ruminations of last Tuesday’s elections that I had lost my way in getting to the heart of the matter, if “heart” can be seen anywhere near our political election process.

Storytelling turned me around.

So, now, as New Horizons gets itself ready to embark on the next phase of our study; polarization as it may or may not be playing itself out in campus life, I am re-setting my intentions so as to not lose sight of the singular importance storytelling plays in our study.

Anastasia, The Super Sleuth Says – 

Remember this --

Enemies are people who's story you haven't heard, or who's face you haven't seen.*

So if you want to really be a genuine peace builder take time to tell and hear the stories of others.

P.S. Once I heard the quote above, attributed to Irene Butter, a Holocaust survivor and the subject of the film "Never a Bystander," I could never forget it. I hope you won’t either.

*Whether or not Dr. Butter is the true originator of these words is a relatively small matter compared to the impact this message has had on many others, as well as myself.