What I learned this week:  This week we get to see the steps that we can take to go from a heart at war to a heart at peace.  I cover chapters 19-21 in this episode

Chapter 19  - Locating Peace within

This chapter we really get to understand the steps that we take to move our relationships from seeing people as objects (a heart at war) to seeing people as people like us (a heart at peace). Just like the below quote says we are not always in a box with every relationship. 

“Since the box is a metaphor for how I am in a relationship with another person, I can be both in and out of the box at the same time, just in different directions.  That is, I can be blaming and justifying towards my wife, for example, and yet be living straightforwardly toward Yusuf, or vice versa.  Given the hundreds of relationships I have at any given time, even if I am deeply  in a box towards one person, I am nearly always out of the box towards someone else.” (250) 

“We are able to recognize the difference because the difference is within us. Which is to say that we have out-of-the-box places within us - relationships and memories that are not twisted and distorted by blame and self-justification.” (251)

Recovering Inner Clarity and Peace (four parts)  - Getting out of the box 

1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box style, etc.) 

2. Find an out of the box place (out of the box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.)

Once you see that you are in a box with someone - or a heart at war- then you can begin to find an out of the box place.  For Avi, Yusuf, invited him to share about his dad - had a place for him that did not invite war.   

“You might try to identify the people toward whom you are generally and currently out of the box.  Names will come to mind, and simply thinking about your experiences with those people can take you to a vantage point from where the world seems different than it did the moment before.” (255)

“Or you might try thinking about the people who have had the greatest influence for good in your life and why.” (255)

“Or maybe there is a particular book or book passage that has a powerful effect on you, Avi Continued, “a writing that invites you out of the box.”  (256)

Or an activity or a place that invites me to an out of the box place.

“This all sounds fairly basic, but most people who are trying to find their way out of conflict and bitterness never think to do it.  Finding themselves stuck in bitterness, it never occurs to them that they have access to unbitter places in every moment.” (257) 

3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e. from this new out of the box perspective)  

You do this by asking questions.  

Chapter 20 - Finding Outward Peace

In this chapter we find out a little more about Yusuf's backstory.  Starting in his teens he became part of the youth organization - The Young Lions for Freedom - which mimic organizations coming out of the regions universities - It’s head and engineering student name Yasir Arafat.   He quickly became a leader and was invited to be part of the Palestinian National liberation Movement known at Fatah.   It’s founding documents state - “to replace the state of Israel in its entirety with a Palestinian State through means of armed revolution.  It was an intoxicating vision for a young man bent on revenge.” (261) 

He rose up in the ranks, despite his mother's protest but then in the conflict of 1967, where the differenct countries of Syria and Egypt were ready to defeat Israel.  Somehow Israel got a heads up and preemptively stiked down all of their forces that were lined up to defeat them.  (This is the war that Avi's father was killed in)  After the Fatah's defeat, they had to regroup and Yusuf was replaced y Yassir Arafat's relative.  He felt lost and wanted a new conlifct to be a part of so he looked to the United States.  He had remembered the assinations of John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X and thought he could understand the plight of the black americans.  So he went to the United Stated to try to get into college.  

He starts in New Haven, Connecticut and is there when the race riots break out.  He then notices a man who is standing on the sidelines,   “Despite the combustible dangers of the moment, he remained stoically still - neither joining in anger nor running in fear.  His face was serious with concern.” (268)  This man is a professor named Ben Arrig and begins to teach Yusuf the concept of having your heart at war.    The conversation began. (269) Ben “If you look closely you will see the desire for tear gas on both sides.” 

I know what they are feeling - yusuf  Then I pity you - Ben “You have become your own enemy.” 

So over the  next three years Ben began teaching Yusuf about the box and how you can and can’t get out of it. (270) 

He showed me how racism is too a feature of the box - [Ben] “If you see people of a particular race or culture as objects your view of them is racists, whatever color or lack of color or your power or lack of power.” (271)

“When you begin to see others as people, issues related to race, ethnicity, religion, and so on begin to look and feel different.  You end up seeing people who have hopes, dreams, fears, and even justifications that resemble your own.” (271) 

The second group must be careful to not become oppressors themselves.  A trap that is all too easy to fall into, when the justification of past abuse is readily at hand.” (271)

“Because most who are trying to put an end to injustice only think of the injustices they believe themselves have suffered.  Which means that they are concerned not really of injustice but with themselves.  They hide their focus on themselves behind the righteousness of their outward cause.” (272)

With this background, Yusuf now comes back to answer the question of how do you ponder anew.  

• What are this person’s or people’s challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?

• How am I, or some group of which I am a part, adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?

• In what other ways have I or my group neglected or mistreated this person or group?

• In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worse-than, and need-to-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions? 

• What am I feeling I should do for this person or group? What could I do to help? 

Yusuf “I had never thought to consider how the Israeli people might feel burdened as well, and how I might have added to the burdens they felt, and how I too had mistreated and neglected.” (273)

I began to lay down my victimhood.   – Went back to visit his mom - and tried to find Mordechai.  Began to look for him but no one seemed to know him or have a memory of him.  Then he met a beggar who knew him.  She told Yusuf that he had died 

“I was surprised by how badly the news hurt me.  What a lonely life he led, I lamented.  So many burdens, so many pains.  And yet surrounded by others so focused only on their own pains that they never noticed his.” 

Chapter 21 - Action 

In this chapter we find out the Gwyn is Ben Arrig's daughter.  And that is was his dying wish for Gwyn to really learn about all of these concepts.  “Sometimes our parents are the last people we can hear, you know?  My ears have been closed to my dad’s ideas for years. “ (279)  Her father had 6 months prior been killed by a drunk driver.   “The irony has been almost too much to bear. Gwyn said “Dad spend his life trying to help people let go of the grudges they carry about mistreatments they’ve received.  And then he’s killed by a drunk.  His ideas couldn't save him from that.” (280) 

Yusuf responds, "You’re right Gwyn, they couldn’t.  THere is no way to avoid mistreatment altogether.  There is, however, a way not to let your mistreatments destroy you and your peace.  Even a mistreatment as hard to bear as this one must be.” (280-281)

Ben's favorite word was action.   Avi’s desire to write a letter to Hamsih and he did.  And Yusuf’s desire to go find Mordechai when he went back to visit his mom in Bethlehem.  They both had the desire and then acted on it.  Mei Li and Mike not only had the thought to take off their shoes but they acted on that thought and actually took off their shoes.  “The moment you’ve recovered a desire to help, you are out of the box toward the person.  The question at that point is not how to get out of the box, it is rather to stay out.” (284)

And notice, it is not the sense of what to do but the desire to do it that’s at issue. That desire has to come from within. “  (286)  That is the key - that the desire comes from within.  “When we have recovered those sensibilities toward others, we must then act on them.  This is why action was Ben’s favorite word.  We need to honor the senses rather than betray them.  … so the key to staying out of the box once you have found your way out is to do what you’re feeling you should do.  Is it to act on the out-of-the-box senses you are having.” (286)  (Otherwise you will just get right back in the box by justifying yourself that you didn’t do those things you had a sense to do.)

Lou then asks well all of this is good, but then how does this helps others when I am the only one that can change.  We can invite change in others but we can't do that until our heart is at peace.  Yusuf tells the group, “While you are correct that a heart at peace alone won’t solve your complex outer problems, those problems can’t begin to be solved without it.” (289)

Staying out of the box

4. Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.