Power sharing, "mutual invitation" help bridge cultural "rivers of divide"

by John Filiatreau, Presbyterian News Service

[posted here 7-31-01]

ESTES PARK, CO - 27-July-2001 - Diversity was the focus of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program seminar held here July 21-25, and the nearly 200 participants turned out to be an unusually diverse lot, especially for a group mostly from the Presbyterian Church (USA), a denomination still 94 percent white.

The day started with Shibashi, Japanese for "18 breathing exercises," a regimen of "gentle movements" (mercifully gentle, in the "thin air" of the Rocky Mountains) intended to "clear your mind, rejuvenate your body, increase your resistance to disease and (help you) gain new strength and vitality." It continued with Diyin Bizaad, Navajo for "word of God," meaning Bible study; Yae Bae, Korean for "worship"; Fon See, Chinese for "reflection"; and plenary sessions devoted to Aprendiendo el Proceso, Spanish for "learning the process" - which turned out to be more important than you'd expect. Prayers were heard in Choctaw and Greek. Appropriately, one of the Bible passages chosen for discussion was the Tower of Babel story from the Book of Genesis, in which God is said to have "confused the language of the people."

The event's theme was "Venturing into Differences: An Intergenerational Journey Across Cultural Divisions." It was held on the picturesque campus of the YMCA of the Rockies, which the peacemakers shared with camping families, church youth groups, Scout troops and teams of cheerleaders honing their gymnastics and pom-pom routines.

The seminar preacher, the Rev. Carmen Mason-Browne of Vallejo, CA, challenged her listeners to summon courage to cross "the rivers of divide" and to accept the risk of going imaginatively "to a place strange as could be" - someone else's reality.

"Don't be afraid to go," she said. "Let God take us on this journey."

And sure enough, just like it says in the Book, the lion lay down with the lamb. Side-by-side, astride the snow-capped Continental Divide. It happened about the third day of the seminar: Despite their differences and misgivings, participants came to understand each other better and to appreciate the richness their diversity made possible. What at first seemed threatening turned out to be liberating. The result was something like real intimacy.

The Rev. Eric H.F. Law, the seminar trainer, mixing carnivorous metaphors, referred to what he called "the wolf-and-lamb scenario": In intercultural encounters, the party with more power and more aggression, typically white, male and Western, dominates, while the weaker party, typically composed of women and people of color, falls silent.

"One group dominates - automatically," he said. "It's nobody's fault. It happens every time."

Law, a former campus minister at the University of Southern California, decided two decades ago to devote his multifaceted ministry to developing ways of creating "truly inclusive multicultural communities." With the publication in 1993 of the first of his four books - The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community - Law became a national authority on making diversity work. He has consulted extensively with the United Methodist, Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, among others.

The refreshing thing about this exercise in diversity was that it included training in specific skills and techniques - "tricks" of el Proceso, courtesy of Rev. Law - that help make diversity a group asset.

The seminar turned out to be not just another discussion of the importance of making peace, but an exercise in the actual making of peace. The participants, divided into small groups for Bible study and reflection, bridged their "rivers of divide," spoke from their hearts, and finally came to genuinely care about each other. The process was surprisingly emotional. Nobody seemed to have anticipated such a possibility until it happened, like magic.

It happened because of a few "tricks" Law had up his sleeve.

For example, he introduced the practice of "mutual invitation." In this process, each member of a group is invited to speak (briefly), then to choose the next member to take a turn. The group leader or chairperson goes first, to get things started. Anyone invited to speak may "pass" and simply invite the next person to continue the discussion. This process continues until everyone has been invited to speak. Nobody speaks a second time until everyone has had a chance. It is amazing how this process keeps group members of differing backgrounds and levels of assertiveness on equal footing.

Law also had the would-be peacemakers agree at the outset to observe what he calls "Respectful Communication Guidelines":

R: Take Responsibility for what you say and feel without blaming others
E: Use Empathic listening
S: Be Sensitive to difference in communication styles
P: Ponder what you hear before you speak
E: Examine your own assumptions and perceptions
C: Keep Confidentiality
T: Trust ambiguity, because we are not here to debate who is right or wrong

Another key part of Law's message was his theory that people's characters are like icebergs: What you see at first is only a small part of a larger, denser, more mysterious (and seemingly more dangerous) reality.

"People are more than what you see on the surface," he said. "Even if you're married to them, even if you gave birth to them, there's more to them than you can know. ... What you can see, hear and touch is just a small part of what a person is. ... That's why we can commit violence to another person (despite) having good intentions."

Before we can relate successfully with other people, Law said, each of us has to do enough "iceberg work" to understand the parts of ourselves that don't always show clearly: the values, beliefs, patterns and family and cultural myths that largely shape our characters. "Iceberg work involves becoming like a child again," he said. "You need to look at the world differently." He commented that it is particularly hard for people who belong to dominant groups to see their own icebergs: "Your iceberg looks like society's iceberg. So you say, 'My iceberg is normal.'"

In one of her sermons, Mason-Browne also spoke about these "icebergs," which she defined as "what we see on the outside that we can't get below, like class and race and gender." The Bible passage she was preaching on was the story about Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. She explained that, because the Jews considered Samaritans "a mongrel race," it was "outrageous" for Jesus even to speak to the woman.

"Jesus has a way of crossing boundaries," Mason-Browne pointed out. "Jesus loved messing with folks' minds."

"She was not the same woman after that day she met Jesus at the well," the preacher said of the Samaritan woman. "Once an outcast, she was gifted back her full humanity. She was a complete child, not a step-child, not a half-breed. ..."

Mason-Browne said the Presbyterian Church (USA) does not always value diversity as it should, or "gift" some of its members with full humanity.

She went on, to a chorus of Amens: "Let's get real, let's get honest: We are not what we want to be. ... This denomination is 94 to 95 percent white. ... We are a church ... full of gray hair and lines and wrinkles. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: We are Anglo, affluent, highly educated, religiously smug, decently compulsively over-ordered folks. ...

"It's time to wake up, it's time to drink from this spring of water welling up like eternal life."

Mason-Browne mentioned that her hometown, Vallejo, CA, is "64 percent people of color," and no population group there has a majority. Instead, all groups are minority groups.

"We are the new America," she said. "Diversity is changing."

Law taught his listeners to sing to-the-point music of his own composition:

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ And the love of God And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Be with us all, Be with us all evermore.

He explained the "power analysis" dynamic: Those with power must learn to be quiet and listen; those without power must learn to speak up.

For example, in exchange for the power and privilege of preaching on Sunday, he said, a pastor ought to "listen the rest of the week":

"When you give power away, it always comes back to you transformed," he said. "… When you have power, what does the Gospel challenge you to do with it?"

The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10: "And Jesus looking on him, loved him, and said to him: 'One thing is wanting unto thee: Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.'"

Ultimately, Law said, after a long learning process, one discovers that "differences are positive" and makes a commitment to "cultural pluralism." People involved in contentious discussion/debate must agree to provide for each other a "grace margin," a non-judgmental space for "authentic revelation, compassionate listening and the reciprocal exchange of power. .... a gracious place where power is done differently and God is celebrated in all his diversity," a place where people refrain from "using theology to exclude people."

During one evening service, people who came forward for prayer were anointed - by children, who reached up to cross the foreheads of kneeling adults with sacred oil, saying, "Peace of Christ." This was held up as an example of empowerment of a group that is seldom given a role to play in liturgy.

The seminar also featured a discussion of a study of domestic violence by the National Presbyterian Mariners; a briefing on violence in the Middle East by Catherine Gordon of the Presbyterian Washington office; a briefing on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children by Bob Smylie of the Presbyterian UN office; an introduction to the Presbyterian Coffee Project, which helps growers in Latin America, Asia and Africa collect a fair profit and supports "ecologically sustainable farming practices"; a presentation on Colombia and the effects of U.S. anti-drug involvement there; and creative "community center" workshops in activities including music, quilting, artistry with paper and hair styling in various cultures.

The Estes Park seminar was preceded by a similar meeting earlier this year at the Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, NC, that also was attended by nearly 200 people. The programs were similar enough that, when recording equipment at Estes Park failed, participants were invited to buy tapes of the Montreat presentations, which were described as essentially the same.

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep this website going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Witherspoon Society" and marked "web site," to our Witherspoon  Bookkeeper: