Real life stories


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.

Description

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.

Blog

We encourage you to submit a post describing

a marriage, family, congregation, organization, community, movement or government where the way of the healer is being attempted,

the texts and stories of your particular tradition--secular or religious--to teach, expand or critique the way of the healer,

an application of the way of the healer to some current social problem.

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

Organizations

A list of organizations that advocate and use the way of the healer.

Submit a post

Please help elaborate and critique the way of the healer by commenting on existing posts, or by submitting a post of your own.

Contact

Email us at contact@thewayofthehealer.org.

Contributors

Larry Alderfer Fisher (Anabaptist Christian), Churchville VA USA

Mohammad Ali Shomali (Shi'a Muslim), Head of the Department of Religions at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran.

Founder:

John Fairfield (Anabaptist Christian) cofounded Rosetta Stone with his brothers-in-law Allen and Eugene Stoltzfus, and was VP of Research and Development until his retirement in 2006. He was professor of Computer Science at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, teaching there for nearly twenty years. He has lived in Canada, Germany, Belgium, France, and the United States, and served under Mennonite Central Committee in Congo (Kinshasa) in the early 70's, and in Nepal in the late '90's. His Ph.D. in Computer Science is from Duke University, 1981.

John and his wife Kathryn, an attorney, mediator and trainer of mediators, raised four sons in Bridgewater, Virginia, where they enjoy eight grandchildren and four grandnephews. They are members at Park View Mennonite Church.

John volunteers at Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Interfaith Engagement. Giving an announcement at Lake Junaluska in fall 2010 he gives a thumbnail sketch of interfaith interdependence:



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