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A Message from Beth Robinson
Torrington, CT September 15, 2001
Dear Colleagues, Friends and Family,
Many of you receiving this have been in touch by phone or e-mail,
and whether or not I've been able to respond yet personally, please
know that Marcel and I are grateful for your concern and support.
On Tuesdays, I usually come into New York City, to Trinity
Institute of Trinity Church, where I am a consultant to their Wall
Street Dialogues project. This Tuesday, I was in my office on the 21st
floor, 2-1/2 blocks from the World Trade Center, when the airplanes
struck. Although it is a part of the healing process to hear and tell
our stories, I am not writing to give a detailed account of what those
of us in the building went through in the first hours of that day. If
you need to hear that story, you will find a piece written by John
Allen, Director of Communications and until recently press secretary
to Desmond Tutu, on the Trinity website www.trinitywallstreet.org --or
you can call me next week.
I have a deep sense that I was meant to witness those events. Even
if that sense comes only from wanting to make meaning of the
experience for myself by writing thoughts that occurred to me during
that day, and my reflections since-I feel compelled to share my
thoughts as widely as possible. I also feel a sense of urgency, as I
listen to the news reports and read e-mails being circulated, because
I watch the mood swing from fear and anger to compassion and healing
and back again. I know that anger is one stage of the grief process,
but hope that it is not the stage out of which we act. Whenever
disruption occurs, it is the task of each of us individually and all
of us collectively, to revise our "story" about ourselves and about
our world. Thank you for reading my contributions to that task. I also
urge each of you to use discernment, the inner sense of rightness that
emerges in your quietest moments, in sifting through my
interpretations as well as those of others.
On to my own experiences....Many thought they were seeing the worst
of what humanity is capable of that day, but my abiding impressions
are of the best of humanity. I saw strangers caring, instinctively and
without regard for their own safety, for the safety of strangers. I
heard those around me praying, not for their own survival, but the
best possible prayer at that moment, for the right decisions to be
made: locally, that lives would be saved; and nationally, that
violence not escalate. And as I have heard many stories of others who
were in New York and Washington, every one of them speaks of kindness
and of courage. And so I wonder, with an almost naïve hope, if it
might not be possible to sustain that connectedness and reverence for
one another as the days and weeks wear on.
I reached safety in midtown in the company of two Episcopal
priests: Fred Burnham, the director of Trinity Institute and a close
friend; and the Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Wales, who happened
to be with us for what was to have been a day of taping in Trinity's
television studios. We paused to have lunch together as we attempted
to reassure our families and find colleagues via cell phone. Although
I am not Episcopalian, it was a privilege to break bread with the
Archbishop, a very thoughtful and spiritually realized man, who spoke
of his deep concern that social problems, environmental problems, and
violence, are interconnected and must be addressed holistically. I
believe he will be an important voice internationally in the years to
come, and that his voice and understanding were deepened by his
experiences in New York this week.
After lunch, as Fred and I walked through the surreal sunlight of
midtown, we heard fighter jets overhead. My body shivered and
instinctively ducked for cover. My mind quickly grasped that these
were American defense planes and I should feel reassured; but my body
would not accept reassurance. At that moment my heart went out in
compassion for those, in so many places on the planet, who live daily
with the fear and insecurity of war, terrorism, or ethnic and racial
violence. I remembered the pre-school children crying as we ran away
from the collapsing towers that morning, and thought that no child
anywhere should experience a scene like that. We have indeed lived in
a blessedly secure and open society, for our lifetimes, and those of
our parents and grandparents. The temptation is to look for solutions
to restore our own feeling of security, and perhaps give money to
support good causes elsewhere. That is what I have done until now; it
will not be enough for me any more. I am committed to taking
leadership in a renewed conversation, international and interfaith,
that puts America's tremendous will and ingenuity to the task of
providing secure, open and healthy living conditions around the
planet, not just within our borders.
I have been greatly encouraged that the president called for
embracing those of Arab descent and the Muslim faith in America, and
by the interfaith service at the National Cathedral on Friday. We must
go much further than mere tolerance. Twice I have been in a small
group when the Dalai Lama spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations
(where he is treated as a head of state). I was most impressed that
when asked about the Chinese government, he unfailingly and sincerely
replies, "They are my greatest teachers." The Dalai Lama is believed
by Tibetan Buddhists to be the incarnation of the Buddha of
Compassion, and I think what he means by this statement is that the
greatest challenge to his commitment to compassion for all beings, is
to bring a compassionate stance to those who have committed horrible
acts against him and his people. I don't know that I personally am
capable of that level of compassion, and I suspect if someone attacked
me with intent to kill, I would defend myself rather than protect my
attacker. However, in the Trinity Wall Street project, we use the
practices of Dialogue and Appreciative Inquiry, and I find I am at
least capable of applying those practices in seeking to make useful
interpretations and understand our attackers, and in my ideas for how
we design a response.
In Dialogue, we listen to the other person with respect, and we
make the effort to recognize our own assumptions and listen for and to
the assumptions, or background of understanding, out of which the
other person speaks and acts. This is very different than our common
sense that when we are in conversation with someone, they are
interpreting things as we do. I've found, in being married to a Swiss,
that we constantly misinterpret and hurt one another unintentionally
by unconsciously assuming that the other is reacting as we would. Even
in our group of Wall Street executives, whose experiences and
backgrounds should be so similar, it is sometimes profound how
different our experiences and perspectives and feelings actually are.
An e-mail I received this week directed me to an article on Osama Bin
Laden by William O. Beeman, a specialist on Middle Eastern culture at
Brown University () that I found very helpful. While our policy not to
"negotiate" with terrorists may be wise (although I'm not sure), I'm
wondering if perhaps we can have at least a dialogue by proxy, between
our decision-makers and those who have listened most carefully to
those who threaten us. Unless we understand them as they understand
themselves, we cannot possible move towards a future in which they no
longer are a threat. And this dialogue needs to take place not just in
"expert' public policy circles and institutions, but needs to be
taking place where all citizens can listen and participate. My friend
and colleague Dan Yankelovich has written brilliantly about how the
public, in our open society, reaches sound conclusions not through
accepting the guidance of experts, but through conversations with one
another. My commitment is to seek to understand, not through my
perspective, but through the eyes of extremists and terrorists, what
concerns and beliefs motivate them, and to be open to radically
different responses than any we have made or imagined in the past. My
commitment is to understand what causes individuals to adopt that set
of understandings and extreme actions, so that we can reach others
with similar concerns and engage them in dialogue before they reach
that point of extremism.
Many of the messages I have seen circulating call for compassion
and the discovery of truth, but begin with words of fear, anger or the
kind of blame and paranoia that turn us into victims. It is a powerful
psychological reality that fear does not inspire calm or
connectedness. I am in awe as I observe my body's "post-traumatic
stress" response, of the thousands of years of evolution that have
created mechanisms for the neurological system to integrate extreme
experiences and information that cannot be grasped all at once, and to
keep itself alert in times of danger. I am also in awe that I can
grasp on to the caring of others, and to the beauty of the woods in
which I live, to find that the wellspring of my compassion lives
inside me, and does not need an enemy as its source of motivation. An
expert on security said on television this week that one design
principle, for example for airport security, would be to recognize
those who do not pose a threat and enable them to travel easily,
rather than to concentrate on screening and applying restrictions to
all travelers indiscriminately. That seemingly small but powerful
shift in thinking, which is very much in alignment with the principles
of Appreciative Inquiry, struck me as brilliant. A reporter told of
having his razor blades confiscated as he boarded a plane this
morning. We cannot live so fearfully as to require citizens to buy
blades with which to shave every time they travel to a new
destination. In Appreciative Inquiry, we don't focus on solving
problems, so much as on identifying what works and encouraging it to
flourish. Surely we are smart and inventive enough to use what is
positive about our open society to keep us safe, rather than designing
safety in ways that limit our freedom. I don't know what this means,
but I have a sense it will involve greater human, personal
relatedness.
I want to close by thanking the friends and teachers from whom I
learned the practices that made such a difference to me on Tuesday. My
deepest gratitude to Vijali Hamilton, who on our trip to India, Nepal
and Tibet in 1992, taught me to meditate and bring my wild mind back
to center. To Velvalee and Joie, who on our road trips in 1996, taught
me to listen for and trust guidance that is available to each of us in
every moment. To Oh Shinnah Fast Wolf, who in 1992 taught me morning
tobacco offering prayers, which I say daily. In those prayers I give
thanks, ask for blessings for others, and for help for myself-and the
prayers close with the affirmation, "It's a good day to die." There
are traditions, including Native American and Tibetan Buddhist, which
teach that through an awareness of the reality of our mortality, we
can make better use of our lives. That daily statement reminds me to
say "I love you" and "thank you" and to not postpone taking care of
the things that are most important to me.
I can now confirm that living in this way meant that I could simply
be present in those moments of not knowing whether life or death lay
ahead, and not be distracted or in pain on account of what I'd left
undone. I have spoken of national and global commitments in this
message, and I want to also recommit myself, and commend to you,
practices of mindfulness, gratitude and forgiveness. On a practical
note, I closed our temporary Execukos offices in Danbury at the end of
August, and my NYC office is likely to be unavailable for some months.
For business, it is best to reach me at my new home office phone:
(860) 482-9002 or by e-mail at
brobinson@execukos.com. My personal e-mail is drbrinc@earthlink.net.
Please join in this conversation. Respond to me. Send on all or
part of my thoughts, whether you agree or disagree, and add thoughts
of your own. We have a tremendous opportunity to build a better world
together.
In peace.
Beth Robinson
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