Interface

Between Heaven and Earth

Conflict Resolution

David Ellis

Don: First, some additional commentary on our discussion last week, where we noted that the one element common to all three “Parables of the Lost” (Coin, Sheep, and [Prodigal] Son) is that, though individually different in kind, the Lost are all equally, actively sought. This display of grace and effort to save the Lost describes the life and work of Jesus. The Coin, which as a coin can have no concept of being lost, reminds us that there are indeed also people who have no concept that they are lost, or that they are being sought, or that there is such a thing as the saving grace of god.

So could the passage “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6) be simply a matter-of-fact description of something that just is, like gravity? Whereas gravity is a universal natural law, God’s grace—which is extended to all mankind through the word, the ministry, the effort of Jesus—seems to be a universal spiritual law of salvation. Laws are laws, whether we understand, believe, or know them or not.

The passage in 1 Timothy that talks about god being the savior of all mankind but “especially” of Christians perhaps means that understanding this universal spiritual law confers upon Christians some special insight, but not a special relationship with god. God is just as interested in saving the Coin as he is in saving the Sheep and the Prodigal Son.

The process of salvation as given in scripture is thus apparently more descriptive than prescriptive; it describes how God’s grace operates and is not restricted, in its application, only to those who understand it.

It is also a strong statement that any religion that is centered around “me,” my work, my effort, is really an idolatrous religion. In asserting that there is no other way to be saved than through Jesus, the statement removes the emphasis on “me” and places it where it belongs: On the grace of god. To me, this is the key lesson in the three Parables of the Lost: To be genuine and true, religion must center on what god is and does, and not what man is and does. Yet, we fall so easily into religions that require us to behave in a certain way, through piety and ritual and so forth, in order to put ourselves into a “right” contractual relationship with god.

The “Lost” parables show that god is interested in and extends his grace to everyone, regardless of who and what we are, what we know or don’t know. Our responsibility for what we may or may not do or know is assumed by god, through his grace.

* * *

Today, we will examine the issue of conflict resolution. This is another aspect of community building that Jesus addresses in Matthew 18, in a way that seems almost stuffy, almost Victorian. God probably does not desire that there should be conflict in a community of faith, and the fact that there always is conflict is a testament to our selfish, sinful nature.

There were about 1.25 million licensed attorneys in the US in 2011. That tends to show that conflict resolution, which is what lawyers are fundamentally all about, is in strong demand here, so conflict is a pretty significant problem.

Here’s how Jesus wants it handled (Matthew 18:15-16): “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.”

The idea of listening is one key element of conflict resolution, but (verse 17): “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Jesus sandwiches his remarks on conflict resolution between his earlier remarks on humility (being “least” in the kingdom of heaven) and his later remarks on forgiveness. This ordering suggests that conflict resolution is central to the practice of humility and forgiveness.

The ideas of peace within the community of faith, living together in harmony, being one another’s keeper, bearing each other’s burdens, and so on constitute a common theme throughout the scriptures, particularly in the New Testament and Paul’s letters. Paul never neglects to point out that we ought to live peaceably together, that we ought to love another.

In saying that we ought to resolve our differences, Jesus is alluding to personal differences. Some bible translations say, in this context, “If your brother sins….” But the complete translation is: “If your brother sins against you….” In other words, it is not a matter of dealing with every little sin, which would be impossible, prolific sinners that we are. Rather, it is interpersonal sinning—personal animosity, inability to get along with one another, slandering others, and so on. These can be the most disabling of conflicts because, unlike conflicts of ideas or belief, it is much more personal and therefore, Jesus saw, more damaging to the community.

The great importance of conflict resolution is underscored in Matthew 5:23-24, which elevates conflict resolution even above worship: “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

Here, Jesus is saying that if, while you are engaged in worship, it occurs to you that you have left unresolved a conflict with your brother, then you should abandon your worship in favor of reconciliation. It is a very strong passage concerning the importance of conflict resolution in a community of faith.

Thus, you honor god by being at peace with your brother. 1 John 4:20 makes a similar point: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

This espouses the important principle that reconciliation and peace within the community of faith are an essential expression of true worship, of true love of god. But some people are more gifted at reconciliation than others. Jesus mentioned them in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:9): “Blessed are the peacemakers.” The implication is that not everyone has the gift of making peace but there are some people who do.

Proverbs 19:11 talks about the fact that not every conflict needs resolution; it is a matter of spiritual judgment: “A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger, And it is his glory to overlook a transgression.” The idea is that not every transgression, not every conflict, needs to be pursued to the nth degree; that there are transgressions and conflicts that discretion might overlook and allow to let pass.

Scripture does not give us much guidance about what kinds of transgression and conflict we have the discretion to overlook, but Matthew 5 and 18 together provide three important principles:

1. Conflict should be resolved quickly, even if it means interrupting one’s worship. Conflict should not be left to smolder.

2. Conflicts should initially be resolved face-to-face, in private. Resolution cannot be achieved indirectly, it cannot be mediated. And yet, with modern media technologies, we have many channels—from writing a letter to making a phone call to tweeting a tweet—for conflict resolution. Are they good enough? Jesus was addressing a tweetless generation. Is Facebook-to-Facebook acceptable as the new “face-to-face” for conflict resolution? It would seem that with social media, whole communities and even whole societies can participate in conflict resolution at various levels: One-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many. Jesus seems to be insisting that initially at least, it needs to be one-on-one; that there is no obligation to drag everyone in the community of faith into the conflict resolution process, unless…

3. …If one-to-one resolution does not succeed, then one may seek guidance from the wider community.

Are these principles relevant and practical today?

Kiran: It seems that god wants us to be committed to our relationships with others. It is lack of commitment that prevents our bothering to resolve conflicts. We should face our problems head on and not seek to sidestep them.

Harry: It’s almost as though Jesus is setting a trap for us. He is teaching the principle of forgiveness. So you are inevitably going to end up having to forgive people all the time because the need for it is never ending. If you follow Jesus’ teaching, you will tend to be of a forgiving nature, but if you follow religious rules and ritual, you will not. The trap is where Jesus says, in effect: “When all human efforts at conflict resolution have failed, then treat the recalcitrant renegade as you would a gentile or as a tax collector.” His contemporary audience would have taken that to mean “treat them with contempt,” except for those who heard his thoughts about gentiles and tax collectors, who would have taken him to mean “treat them as people most in need, and deserving, of forgiveness.”

Fady: It seems to be telling us not to make church or ritual an excuse for postponing conflict resolution with someone. Some people might say: “I could take care of this today, but I have to go to church.” But god says: “If you really love me, then go take care of that problem first.” God is also telling us not to wait for those who sin against us to beg our forgiveness; rather, it is up to us to take the initiative, in the spirit of unity. In 2 Chronicles 32:20, when Isaiah and Hezekiah the king were in conflict, they united in prayer and god responded (“But King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed about this and cried out to heaven.”)

The message is that forgiveness brings unity, and that you cannot forgive without unity. When god wanted to forgive us humans, he came among us as a human, to be in unity with us. So we too should put ourselves in the shoes of those who sin against us, to understand why they did it. There are always two sides to a story, and it takes two, acting in unity, to resolve an issue dividing them.

Harry: Forgiveness is a liberating way of life. It’s hard to swallow one’s ego and accept insults and forgive those who trespass against us, but the more one practices this way of life, the less conflict.

Kiran: But Jesus seems to be demanding even more than that. He seems to want us to do more than passively forgive. He wants us to actively approach our enemies and not only engage with them in peaceful debate on the issue, but also to extend the hand of friendship to them. He does not want us just to resolve the dispute and say goodbye.

Allie: This is a very difficult concept. The lesson is that worship is hollow unless we forgive and resolve our conflicts; and yet, I feel that if I were to really apply that lesson in my daily life, I might never make it to church! Everyday life seems rife with conflict: “The cashier did this to me,” “My supervisor said that to me,” and so on. Much of it may seem trivial, but how is one to decide? It is very challenging to be the forgiving kind of person Harry talked about, because that seems to involve being at a god-like level of spirituality; and it seems to be solely about the forgiver’s relationship with god, not about the forgiver’s relationship with the forgiven person. That requires a level of spiritual maturity that takes quite a while to reach!

Ada: Oftentimes it seems that conflict is God’s way of testing us. We should certainly be forgiving of other people, but it’s not always really about the other person but about how we react and how we approach god in dealing with it. God uses these conflicts to make us better people. [The audio was broken up here—I hope I have not misquoted Ada.]

Jay: We often take the passage under discussion as a blueprint for recovering our lost brother or sister, rather than as a method of conflict resolution. I agree that this is a call by Jesus to not let conflict exist, because when we do, we are hoarding god’s grace. In order to share God’s love and grace, as we are instructed to do, then we have to be communal, we have to build community.

It seems to me that the passage extends protection to both parties to a conflict. We tend to consider ourselves to be in the right in our own conflicts, and we permit our bias to guide our response. But the call to take two people with you if a one-on-one meeting does not resolve the dispute would help determine whether in fact you are the problem!

David: If the message is that we should not let conflict exist, the question then is how to achieve that? The Christian approach appears to be very much an activist one: Go and confront the person with whom you are in conflict head on; and if necessary get your community involved. Daoists, in contrast, take a passive and individualistic approach: Do not try to confront the issue or the aggressor; instead, calmly let if flow around one and dissipate its strength downstream. There is no need or use for community—conflict is resolved inside one’s self.

The Daoist approach solves the problem mentioned by Allie about where to find time to deal with conflict and still find time for worship. The activist approach would make that very difficult, whereas it is possible with the passive approach. So the Daoist approach may or may not be more spiritual, but it certainly seems more pragmatic and practical!

Harry: I deal at work with a largely uneducated workforce lacking the education and the intellect to discuss conflicts in an informed and rational manner. To be disrespected through something as innocuous as a baleful glance can easily result in conflict. My approach is to ask the aggrieved party, in private, to explain exactly what happened. Frequently, that exercise, while stressful to me, usually suffices to show the person that the issue was not really such a big deal, and it often reduces or eliminates the conflict.

Fady: One of the principles of forgiveness is stated in Colossians 2:14: “…having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” We must give what we receive, and we have received God’s unconditional forgiveness. If we accept it, then we have a duty to give our unconditional forgiveness to others.

Mr. Evanovich: Conflict resolution is ultimately about bringing glory to god.

 

3 responses to “Conflict Resolution”

  1. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    This week’s discussion mentioned Facebook. The BBC News just published the following report, which seems to bear directly on the question of Facebook’s impact on individuals and community:

    BBC News Technology
    15 August 2013

    Facebook use ‘makes people feel worse about themselves’

    Using Facebook can reduce young adults’ sense of well-being and satisfaction with life, a study has found.

    Checking Facebook made people feel worse about both issues, and the more they browsed, the worse they felt, the University of Michigan research said.

    The study, which tracked participants for two weeks, adds to a growing body of research saying Facebook can have negative psychological consequences.

    Facebook has more than a billion members and half log in daily.

    “On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it,” said the researchers.

    Internet psychologist Graham Jones of the British Psychological Society – who was not involved with the study – said: “It confirms what some other studies have found – there is a growing depth of research that suggests Facebook has negative consequences.”

    But he added there was plenty of research showing Facebook had positive effects on its users.
    Loneliness link

    In the survey, participants answered questions about how they felt, how worried they were, how lonely they felt at that moment, and how much they had used Facebook since the last survey.

    They received five text messages each day at random times between 10:00 and midnight, containing links to the surveys.

    Researchers also wanted to know about how much direct interaction participants had with people – either face-to-face or by phone – between questionnaires.

    Results showed that the more people used Facebook, the worse they felt afterwards. But it did not show whether people used Facebook more or less depending on how they felt, researchers said.

    The team also found that the more the participants used the site, the more their life satisfaction levels declined.

    The pattern appeared to contrast with interacting “directly” with people, which seemed to have no effect on well-being.

    But researchers did find people spent more time on Facebook when they were feeling lonely – and not simply because they were alone at that precise moment.

    “Would engaging in any solitary activity similarly predict declines in well-being? We suspect that they would not because people often derive pleasure from engaging in some solitary activities (e.g., exercising, reading),” the report said.

    “Supporting this view, a number of recent studies indicate that people’s perceptions of social isolation (i.e. how lonely they feel) are a more powerful determinant of well-being than objective social isolation.”

    Colloquially, this theory is known as FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – a side effect of seeing friends and family sitting on beaches or having fun at parties while you are on a computer.
    Learning the rules

    According to the study, almost all the participants said they used Facebook to stay in touch with friends, but only 23% said they used the social networking site to meet new people.

    More than three-quarters said they shared good things with their communities on the site, while 36% said they would share bad things on Facebook as well.

    Mr Jones warned that the study’s findings were probably most relevant to people who spent too much time on Facebook, and the study did not offer a full comparison with “direct” social contact.

    He also said that since Facebook was such a recent phenomenon, society was still learning to use the platform.

    “As a society as a whole we haven’t really learnt the rules that make us work well with Facebook,” he said, adding some people became unable to control their experience with it.

    The researchers said their study was the first to examine the effect Facebook has on its users’ well-being over time.

    BBC

    BBC © 2013

  2. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    Here is another BBC article relevant to our discussion on forgiveness. Thanks to Don for finding it and forwarding the link.

    =====

    BBC News Magazine
    19 August 2013 Last updated at 19:10 ET
    How do people forgive a crime like murder?
    By Naveena Kottoor BBC World Service

    The moment when a murderer is released from prison can be a traumatic one for the victim’s family. But for American Bill Pelke the release of his grandmother’s killer this year was different – he has not only forgiven her, he wants to help her start a new life. How are people able to forgive a crime like this?

    It was late afternoon in May, 1985. Bill Pelke was at his girlfriend’s house when he received a phone call from his brother-in-law.

    “Nana had been stabbed to death,” says Pelke. “The house had been ransacked. My father found the body.”

    His grandmother, Ruth Pelke, a 78-year-old Bible teacher, had been murdered at her home by four teenage girls.

    The following day Pelke was at the hairdresser’s, getting ready for the funeral, when he heard news of their arrest.

    “I was shocked that four girls that young could be involved,” he says. “I had kids the same age.”

    Three of the girls received lengthy prison sentences, ranging from 25 to 60 years. One of them, Paula Cooper, was seen as the ringleader and sentenced to death on 11 July 1986.

    Pelke attended the trial as well as the sentencing of Paula Cooper, and at the time he felt the death penalty was an appropriate sentence.

    But 18 months after his grandmother’s death he started to reconsider.

    “I was envisioning Nana butchered on the dining-room floor – the dining-room my family used to go to every year to gather for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I couldn’t stand thinking about it,” he says.

    Pelke started wondering what impact the death penalty for Cooper would have on her family, especially Cooper’s grandfather who attended the trial and who Pelke had seen break down in tears when the sentence was handed down.

    “My grandmother would not have wanted this old man to witness his teenage grand-daughter die,” he says. “Everyone in north-west Indiana wanted Paula Cooper to die – Nana would have been appalled by the anger.”

    Pelke became increasingly convinced that his grandmother – a devout Christian – would have felt love and compassion for Cooper and would have wanted someone in the family to feel the same.

    “I felt like it fell on my shoulders,” he says. “When I was touched by compassion and forgiveness, I no longer pictured Nana dead but alive. Something terrific had happened inside of me.”

    Pelke says his decision to forgive brought him “tremendous healing”.

    But some members of his family struggled to accept his decision. It was particularly hard for Pelke’s father, who had found the dead body of his mother and testified in court.

    “He was not happy,” he says. “It caused a tense relationship for years.”

    Despite the disagreement Pelke says he never changed his mind about forgiving Cooper.

    “I knew I was doing the right thing, and later my father forgave me for forgiving Paula Cooper. He came a long way.”

    Pelke decided to pursue a meeting with Cooper in prison, but it was eight years before the authorities allowed them to meet – on Thanksgiving 1994.

    “I walked in and gave her a hug,” says Pelke. Then he looked Cooper in the eyes and told her that he had forgiven her.

    Despite corresponding weekly and making 15 prison visits, Pelke has never asked Cooper about the crime.

    “I know there is no good answer,” he says.

    Bringing perpetrators and victims together can have benefits for both sides, says Howard Zehr, a Professor of Restorative Justice at the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, who has facilitated hundreds of such meetings.

    As well as making the offender see the impact on people who have been hurt, the meetings often reduce the victim’s trauma – and victims of severe violence regularly report a high level of satisfaction, he says.

    “Victims are often stuck in their experience,” says Zehr. “The meetings enable them to get answers and let go.”

    One of the most memorable meetings for Zehr was when a man who had committed 14 sexual assaults on women under 18, met his last victim.

    “She met him and confronted him with the question ‘How could you do this to me? You stole my childhood,’” remembers Zehr.

    “The perpetrator said he came to realise for the first time what he had done. He had some insight,” he says. “The woman didn’t forgive him, but it was no longer the dominant experience of her life.”

    But Zehr strongly urges victims who want to pursue a meeting with the offender to seek the support of a facilitator, who can act as a “gatekeeper”.

    “Success depends on the level of preparation on both sides, sometimes it can take up to a year,” he says.

    “As a facilitator, I speak to both sides ahead of the meeting, I try and make them aware of the dynamics of trauma, as well as the possibility that their expectation might not be fulfilled. The perpetrator might not be able to answer questions.”

    Seventeen years after the brutal death of her daughter, Texan Linda White still has questions about the day she was killed.

    In November 1986 Cathy White, a 26-year-old mother who was pregnant with her second child, was abducted, raped and killed by two teenage boys.

    Like Pelke, White eventually met and forgave one of her daughter’s killers, but the process took much longer – almost 15 years.

    Following her daughter’s death White says she felt not only an enormous amount of grief but also a sense of not fully being in charge of her life.

    “For a parent, losing a child feels like the most unfair, wrong thing in the world. It’s upside down. The world didn’t feel as friendly as it once was – and I felt I had little power.”

    She joined victim support groups, but found scant comfort in them.

    “Nobody moved, everyone stayed the same,” she says. “People stayed angry. I didn’t want to be five years down the road and be the way they were – full of bitterness. I didn’t want to be grieving for the rest of my life and think of it as ruined.”

    White, who had two sons and was now looking after her five-year-old grand-daughter, wanted to get on with her life. She says if she had given in, she would have felt like she had killed herself – not literally but in her mind.

    She started taking her granddaughter to counselling. It was that experience that prompted her to study psychology, and later to become a grief counsellor.

    White says that by helping people cope with loss and grief she managed to gain back some control in her life. In January 1997, she decided to start teaching in prison – an experience she loved, and which “gave her healing”, she says.

    “I do believe people are more than the worst thing they have ever done. A lot of what we do while people are incarcerated is dehumanising, degrading and demoralising,” she says. “I was trying to put some humanity back in.”

    Her experience working with offenders in prison led to an even more radical decision. White decided to meet one of her daughter’s murderers, Gary Brown.

    “I didn’t know what he looked like. I had never ever looked at a picture of him,” she says.

    She sought the encounter to test whether she would be able to be compassionate towards him.

    “I wanted the person I had become to meet with the person he had become.”

    White and her 18-year-old granddaughter Ami met Brown in prison in 2001 for a conversation that lasted all day.

    “I was astonished by how young and vulnerable he looked. It was very emotional,” she says.

    For White one of the most difficult moments of the encounter was hearing Brown’s account of what happened to her daughter before she died.

    “I was spellbound when he started talking. Gary told us exactly what happened, how it happened, the progression of it. That part was hard to hear, but I was ready for it.”

    Brown also told the Whites that Cathy’s last words to him before she was shot dead were, “I forgive you and God will too.”

    “I was blown away when he told me,” says White.

    White has stayed in touch with Brown, who is now out of prison and on probation. The last time she heard from him was around Christmas – when he texted her.

    While on probation Brown is not allowed to contact the Whites, but earlier he had approached Linda about eventually speaking in public together.

    “We talked about addressing children and teenagers that are going down the wrong road,” she explains. “I hope that in the future, when he is allowed to move around freely, we will be able to do that together.”

    There are also things she still wants to ask Brown about that evening her daughter was killed.

    “I still wonder how the evening descended into violence. Why they raped her. The guys had no records of previous violence,” she says. “When I am ready to see him, I want to ask Gary face-to-face.”

    Despite that last lingering question, White thinks meeting Brown has kept her sane.

    “If you let grief take over your life, it’s as if the offence continues over and over again. It turns you angry and bitter. It’s almost like the only relationship you have left with your lost loved one is through the bitterness. People cling to that – because naturally they don’t want to let go,” says White.

    “Sometimes people feel that moving towards resolution of their grief – or healing in any way – is a disloyalty to the person that was killed. But it’s not.”

    Like Linda White, Bill Pelke wants to stay in touch with Paula Cooper, who was released in June, her death sentence having been set aside and her subsequent prison term greatly reduced due to her behaviour as a prisoner.

    While she was in prison Pelke had been campaigning for her to be released.

    “I am very happy she is free. I was looking for this day for several years,” he says.

    Pelke knows that there are a lot of people who don’t understand him. But for him the decision to forgive changed his life, and he has never looked back.

    He now wants to help Cooper adapt to modern life.

    “She has never seen a cellphone or a computer. She has never written a cheque, applied for a job or had a bank account. It’s going to be very difficult for her, in fact she told me she was scared.”

    Cooper is currently staying in a safe house as part of her transition from prison to life outside and has been advised against contacting Pelke just yet.

    But Pelke says that when Cooper is eventually allowed to meet him, he will take her out for a meal and some shopping – to buy, among other things, a computer.

    “If you hang on to anger and the desire for revenge, eventually it becomes like a cancer and it will destroy you,” he says. “I did the right thing.”

    Bill Pelke was interviewed on the BBC World Service programme Newshour, which airs every day at 12:06, 13:06 and 20:06 GMT
    BBC

    BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

  3. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    And one more:

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    The Herman Trend Alert
    August 21, 2013

    The Future of Local Justice

    Most of us have heard about the good work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was successful in South Africa. Now, imagine communities embracing this form of resolution, in which the victims and the offenders get together to work out a fair and equitable settlement for all concerned. This type of settlement includes punishment and help for the offenders and financial and emotional resolution for the victims—without directly involving the traditional legal system. The future of local justice is “Restorative”.

    “Restorative justice is a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in an offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs and obligations, in order to heal and put things [as] right as possible.” It is “rapidly gaining acceptance and support among educational, legal, social work, and counseling professionals”, as well as community groups.

    One of our Trend Alert subscribers, Anne Rarich is deeply involved in the restorative justice program in her community of Concord, Massachusetts. She is passionate about “Communities for Restorative Justice”. In Rarich’s view, “It is imperative to have a community process that allows people who have been harmed and those doing the harm to have a neutral and safe place to come together and work toward forgiveness”.

    She believes, “When people continue to hold on to old wounds, they stay in a state of victimhood, that keeps them from growing and enjoying life. “I have heard people say that forgiveness is self-preservation”, Rarich continues. As a result of taking responsibility for their actions, perpetrators cannot hide from what they have done; they must face the consequences in order to feel reconnected to their community.

    Unfortunately, when a crime is committed, our courts do not necessarily provide fully the kind of repair needed. These types of community resources provide alternatives to the adversarial process of our conventional legal system.

    This kind of forward-thing solution, embraced on a local level, not only conserves valuable resources, but also provides more effective resolution for the involved parties. As local governments have fewer and fewer resources, look for these types of unconventional solutions to spring up to provide alternative solutions. Though this example is from the United States, organizations like “Why Me” in the United Kingdom and the international Center for Non-Violent in Brazil and Kenya already exist to support their communities locally.

    © Copyright 1998- by The Herman Group, Inc. — reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From “The Herman Trend Alert,” by Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurist. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc.”

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