Funeral at Home

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21funeral.html

article from New York Times on home burials

Nonviolent Communication

Today, my friend Valencia and I went to the Road to Freedom exhibit at the Field Museum with the Chicago Urban League. Of course it was a moving experience. At powerful way to relive the civil rights movement. The video presentation showed stories of people in the pictures. The protestors often went through training to understand what it meant to respond in a nonviolent way. When people were mean to them, they had to be trained not to respond in a mean way. One woman said that there were a group of people who were spitting at her and calling her names. She asked them if they had a handerkerchief. Her clear request seemed to dispel their anger she said. Why would she ask for a handerkerchief, and why would she expect them to give it to her. But they stopped spitting and left her alone.

Andrew Young commented that the point of nonviolent protest was not to win. There were no winners at all in the process. You don't want to win, you want to transform the relationship. The point is not to win, but the transform the relationship. Nonviolent communication is not a reponse to a situation, but a lifestyle. What a powerful to live.

Our world, our understanding of life is so geared toward winning. What if every gave up the need to win, and instead felt the need to understand one another and live together in peace? My commitment is to give up the need to win, and to live a nonviolent lifestyle. More importantly, teach others to also adopt the pholosophy toward life. Winning also connotes opression, separation, allowing others to lose.