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This thread describes real relationships and communities that follow the way of the healer. There is failure, and messy ambiguity, and hope.

We encourage you to submit a post telling us about a marriage, a family, a congregation, an organization, a community or an international situation you are aware of where the way of the healer is being attempted.

About the way of the healer


The root task of government is to meet our fears--to give us security, to keep social order, to deal with our enemies. We are testing a different way to meet those same needs, one not based
As a healer you gamble that even a terrible person has a trustworthy side, and you engage, betting that you can invoke that side. From Description: the healer at war.

We say a relationship or community is healthy when the people involved want a relationship even if they deeply disagree; they listen to each other, are respectful, voice their point of view, ask for what they want, gamble that the other is trustworthy, negotiate, don't avoid conflict, don't walk out, and don't use coercion. From Description: the healthy community.

A healer speaks to an enemy as if that enemy represented the very best that humanity can aspire to. From Description: the healer at war.

We negotiate. We live by asking. We ask, ask, and ask again. From Description: the healthy community.
on coercion (law) or violence (arms) or territory (state). We're provisionally calling it "relationship healing" or just healing.

A good mother wants a relationship with her grown children even if they have turned out very differently than she hoped. A healer wants and knows how to have a healthy relationship with people who are very different, even opponents.

The healer's strategy is to turn an enemy into a trustworthy opponent within a healthy relationship. They may remain adamantly divided, but they have a respectful relationship where their difference can be productive. This site reflects on ideas and experience in the tactics of healing.

Healing and coercion both carry risks. Arguably healing is riskier in the short term, while coercion is riskier in the long term--that's one of
Regardless of the way you follow—Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist, whatever—-if you want to join with those from other ways who believe we can profit from our differences to improve all our ways of healing the world, then we need your story and your texts, we need you to help us learn to live together even when we remain very different.
the things we want to test. Arguably both healing and coercion are called for, in different situations--that's one of the things we'd like to clarify.

This site is for those living in a conflict situation, great or small, who have lost faith in coercion and control, and are willing to take some risks gambling that their enemies potentially have a good side.

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The Description of the way of the healer is written in terms of how humans should relate to each other, as a working document among different religious and secular traditions.

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John Fairfield founded thewayofthehealer.org, with much encouragement and critique by Larry Alderfer Fisher. Posts explaining where they are coming from are here.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Imam from Qom stresses unity of all faiths

Mohammad Ali Shomali  (Shi'a Muslim)

Qom, Iran - I remember when I was a teenager in Tehran the following verse from the Qur’an was frequently recited after prayers at Al-Anbiyā, our local mosque: “The Messenger believes in that which has been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) the believers. Each one believes in God and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers – We make no distinction between any of His messengers – and they say: we hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Your forgiveness, our Lord. Unto You is the journeying” (2:285).

This verse, like many others in the Qur’an, puts great emphasis on the uniformity of all the prophets and messengers from God, leading us to believe that we belong to one great community of faith which includes all believers throughout the history of mankind.

It was only later that I realised that this idea of uniformity of all divine religions is a very profound aspect of the Islamic conception of monotheism. Islam, like other Abrahamic faiths, teaches us to believe in the unity of God. He is the only Creator and He is the only One to worship.

This means that it’s not only the universe that must be harmonious and consistent, but the divine revelations as well. If divine messages are sent to mankind by the one and only God, then these messages must be identical in essence. Of course, depending on varying conditions and factors, some details may change, and the depth and the extent of the ideas expressed in the scriptures may change through better human understanding. And how wonderful it is to find, upon close inspection, that the essence is always one and the same indeed!

It should be noted that the call for this unity of outlook is not limited to a Muslim audience. The Qur’an invites all believers, including Christians and Jews, to unify their efforts and concentrate on common ground: “Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God” (3:64).

One of the best means of achieving this unity is to know each other, to overcome historical prejudices that prevent objective understanding of one another and to build on commonalities. As the 7th century Imam Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and caliph of all Muslims, said, “People are enemies of what they do not know.”

For any sincere believer, failure to establish a genuine and constructive dialogue with people of other faiths is a grave shortcoming that in today’s interconnected world is, moreover, alarming. We must all take our responsibility to members of our sister faiths seriously, especially in places where we constitute the majority and can be proactive in this matter toward our minority brethren.

By reaching out to members of other religions, especially those among them who are vulnerable, we have an opportunity to partake in the values of love and hospitality that are so central to the Abrahamic faiths. But to do so, we must first extend a simple invitation:

Shall we speak?

(This article first appeared in the Common Ground News Service, 5/10/2010.  It was graciously submitted by Dr. Shomali to begin a conversation here on 15/02/2011.)

3 comments:

  1. I applaud your conclusion, Dr. Shomali, so I can't quibble too much with how you get there. Your conclusion is

    (begin quote)
    By reaching out to members of other religions, especially those among them who are vulnerable, we have an opportunity to partake in the values of love and hospitality that are so central to the Abrahamic faiths. But to do so, we must first extend a simple invitation:

    Shall we speak?
    (end quote)

    Thus you take the initiative in making a relationship of listening and speaking to each other--a very good move.

    However I mistrust the reasoning you give. You argue too much like a modernist, touting uniformity as the foundation of good relationship. You speak of building on commonalities, and overcoming "historical prejudices that prevent objective understanding of one another". Whereas there is no objective understanding of one another. We escape any rational, objective capture within any one language. Listen to your own. Your phrases include "uniformity of the prophets", "unity of God," "this unity of outlook is not limited to a Muslim audience. The Qur’an invites all believers, including Christians and Jews, to unify their efforts and concentrate on common ground."

    For example, all this leaves atheists and Hindus a bit out in the cold. A Hindu scholar (I've forgotten who, if anyone can help me please let me know) once wrote that Hindus have many gods and only one humanity, whereas monotheists have only one God and therefore two kinds of humanity: believers and infidels. Your exclusion of polytheistic discourse appears to stem from your basic thesis--that our common ground is our unity of outlook.

    You continue "This means that it’s not only the universe that must be harmonious and consistent, but the divine revelations as well. If divine messages are sent to mankind by the one and only God, then these messages must be identical in essence." Even in essence, consistency isn't something that we, as finite understanders of a much larger reality, can afford. No one point of view, no one language, suffices for the description of our situation. We need inconsistency, we need different outlooks. The only exodus from our limits is a dialectic of different points of view. We are not going to arrive at uniformity of understanding, nor should we. Therefore we need to have a different reason for staying in community with each other, for staying the sometimes difficult course of the struggle with each other.

    But like I said, you come out at a great place. I wish you had started there. For me, hospitality is healthier. Welcoming and being vulnerable to a relationship with the stranger is a healthier basis for our unity than is our uniformity of opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear John,

    Thanks for your email and response. My idea is that we can have different levels of unity based on what we share. It is like ripples that become larger and larger, but less stronger. With whom we share more, we have more grounds for unity and of course dialogue. However, no one remains outside, because at least we share humanity which by itself us great. However, when in addition to humanity I share with some one the same moral values or belief in the same God, etc. I am expected to be even more prepared to have dialogue.
    Re what that that person said about many gods and one humanity, I think this is not necessarily the case. There are people with many gods or even no gods who are very exclusivist. They may even not treat people of their own tradition or religion equally and may even insist on them not being touchable. On the other hand, there are people who believe in one God, but are very inclusive.
    I personally believe that sharing our humanity is a great reason for dialogue, but at the same time I believe that nothing like belief in the same God who has created all of us out of His love has the potential to make human society feel really like a united family.

    Kind regards,

    Mohammad

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Mohammad:

    I agree that there are exclusivist polytheists, and inclusive monotheists.

    We both make an argument from common humanity. I argue that all humans (save the severely handicapped) have within them an invokable personality type which appreciates justice, and I make speaking to that personality the keystone of healing. In my tradition there is the language of humanity being created in the image of God, and it seems to me that there is strong analogous language in your tradition.

    You say our levels of unity "based on what we share" are "like ripples that become larger and larger, but less stronger." Some of the bitterest enemies are siblings, those persons who share the most in language, culture, history, genes and friends, those who by your logic would share the strongest unity. That is why I don't want to found my rationale for wanting a relationship on the shifting sand of agreement or shared commons. I want it based on stronger stuff, on a primordial desire for relationship even with those with whom I differ the most dangerously--my enemies.

    In a conflict situation I want to create a healthy, negotiating relationship. I want to invoke the representative of God within my enemy, to bless me. I encourage people to undertake relationships where we respectfully struggle over our differences, even in our marriages and our families.

    For me it is not "belief in the same God" that makes us feel like a united family, but the actual experience of meeting God in each other, or at least God's grace, especially there where we least expected it.

    Much appreciation,

    John

    ReplyDelete