Heart of England: Stratford-upon-Avon and Coventry

©2008, RKSilipo. All rights reserved.

At the end of May, my husband and I took a weekend trip to “Shakespeare country” It’s only about an hour and half’s drive, but we meandered a bit, took our time and enjoyed country roads with gorgeous vistas in every direction. The weather was hot, so we decided not to try to cram the weekend with activity.

We stopped at Coventry Cathedral on the way to Stratford-on-Avon. My husband had seen it when he was twelve years old and never forgot it, and he wanted to show it to me. I knew why the moment I saw it. This is the first modern cathedral I’ve ever seen that is what I think a cathedral should be. It is exquisite. The exterior is gorgeous red-tan sandstone. The way it’s designed the new cathedral is connected visually and literally to the old one that was bombed out during WWII, with a connecting bridge over a courtyard between the two building. The shell of the old cathedral is visible and you can go inside. It’s an eerie feeling; all that’s left is 3 walls. See: www.coventrycathedral.org

In the new cathedral, everything is bathed in light. Instead of the few usual big, darkly stained glass windows, there are hundreds of small windows in floor-to-ceiling fenestration all along both sides of the building. Light floods into it from all directions. The large, main stained glass work is glorious. It’s hundreds of small windows arranged in a patchwork of colours. You can’t see what it is until you get across the church from it, and then you see a sun in skies of all shades of blue from dark purple to the palest baby blue. Breathtaking!

The baptismal font is a sculpture carved into a giant boulder from Jerusalem. The sculptures in the cathedral are, of course, all modern. There’s a head of Christ by an artist in Oklahoma that is made entirely from the metal in crashed cars from a junkyard. I didn’t like the Christ face, far too white-Midwesterner-looking, but the concept of resurrection, of new from old, runs throughout all the sculptures. A lot of them are made from recycled or reused materials. The most amazing one is the main cross in the sanctuary. It’s a sculpture showing what the altar cross in the old cathedral looked like after the bombing, all twisted from the heat, but not broken. In the center of it, very small, is a cross made from 3 medieval nails, original to the old cathedral. it gave me chills. What a symbol of resurrection!

Coventry Cathedral is also a world center for reconciliation. After the war the then bishop went to Germany and offered forgiveness. Can you imagine? He went to Dresden, which was literally levelled by Allied bombs and the subsequent fires, a striking parallel to Coventry’s situation. He started a movement of reconciliation, and an organization called The Community of the Cross of Nails. They have an international center at the cathedral where conferences and courses are given for both clergy and lay people about fostering forgiveness and reconciliation. Now there are connected centers all over the world that practice reconciliation and charity. The cross made of the old nails is the logo for the organization. See: www.coventry-cathedral.org/international

There’s also a side chapel that is an interfaith meeting place. It’s round. The exterior is rich teal green slate and there are vertical windows, floor to ceiling, every few feet. The stained glass is in very light pastels to let in lots of light. The seats are in a circle, and there’s no altar. The brochure says it’s a place where all Christian denominations are welcome to worship together. They have a service once a week. I loved the chapel, but I wished it was for ALL religions, not just all Christian religions.

We went on to Stratford-upon-Avon and got to our bed and breakfast (B&B) at about 4:00. Driving in, I wouldn’t have recognized the place. I hadn’t been there since 1985. So much development is going on, there are hundreds of new buildings. We had a little rest and watched some news. Then we went out for a while.

We walked from the B&B first to dinner in a pub that was so old, the walls were leaning in. It’s structurally reinforced, so perfectly safe, and eating there, sitting in a room where Shakespeare could have sat, was fun. The food was heavy English food: cottage pie for my husband, and I had traditional Lancashire hot pot– a stew with beef, carrots, onions (in chunks, not sliced), parsnips and potatoes. They served it with greens and bread. It was much over salted for my taste, but I never salt anything at home, so it was probably fine for most people. Then I had a Southern Comfort for dessert. )

We walked off dinner by walking down (about a mile down and back) to the River Avon, window shopping and looking at restaurant menus on the way there; investigating the Royal Shakespeare Company site when we got to the river. We walked along the riverbank briefly, but it was just getting dark and those annoying midges were out and drove us crazy in about 30 seconds. Millions of those little things anywhere near water at dusk.

We took a slightly different route home. The center of Stratford is completely protected as a historical district, so the houses are tiny, with doors along the street that even I, at five-foot-four, would have to duck to get into. Many of the buildings have side entrances that are modern, but the facades are perfect Tudor half timbers. A lot of them lean in or out, or even side to side, but the effect is magical. It’s like stepping into a fairy story.

Of course the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (the RSC’s main house) is closed because they’re building the new theatre on top of, or rather inside, the old one, and it’s a huge construction site. But they’ve done a really smart thing. On the construction barrier walls around the site, they have put up the plans for the new theatre, pictures of how it will look, and regular updates on the process. There’s a whole history of the project posted on these walls. It’s fabulous. (See: www.rsc.org.uk)

Only the small, temporary theatre is open, called the Courtyard Theatre. It’s on the site where the Other Place used to be. They were doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the night we could go, and we weren’t in the mood.

On Saturday we slept in, then walked to Trinity Church, where the graves are. Will and Ann are under gravestones in the sanctuary, just in front of the original altar. (Their son, Hamnet, died in childhood. Their daughter lived to adulthood and married a very well-to-do doctor, so she’s buried next to him out in the churchyard. Their house is restored so you can tour it. )

The church was busier than I’ve ever seen it. When I’ve been before, there have been maybe half a dozen people there, but it was crawling on Saturday. So we didn’t linger very long. We did find a nice quiet side chapel where we sat and mediated for a few minutes. The graves are now cordoned off so you can’t get close enough to read the inscriptions. When I was last there, I stood right over them and read the famous “Curst be he who moves my bones..”

We stopped for tea on the way back to our B&B and had delicious pastries (my one extravagance for the day) with really good tea. Then Ewan went straight back to the B&B and I went to the shops to buy little things for dinner. We didn’t want to go out again that night. So I got steak and mushroom pies (actually rectangles of pastry with meat and mushrooms inside in a thick gravy) and Cornish pasties (shaped like giant pot stickers with meat and potatoes inside), apples and plums, and drinks. So we had a picnic on our bed, watched Dr. Who and some other TV and went to sleep early. It was good just to loll around.

Sunday, we got up early, packed up and left by ten , to go to Compton Verney, a fantastic gallery in a gorgeous family estate. It was bought a few years ago by Sir Peter Moores, a very rich businessmen, heir to a fortune and rich in his own right. The permanent collection is quite eccentric because he has eccentric taste in art, but the museum itself is absolutely best practice. They took a page out of the Met’s book and are really the most modern-thinking art museum I’ve seen here in England. See: www.comptonverney.org.uk

They have LOTS of beautifully, professionally produced educational materials, catalogues, a history of the estate and other supporting material. And they have activities every day to engage both children and adults in doing art as well as looking at it.

The galleries are well laid out with good light and temperature control, and the collections are arranged and displayed completely professionally. It was a pleasure to be there. The cafe has fantastic food and the service is amazingly good. The shop had many items based on the collection, and the general stuff is directly related to the activities and/or the collection– not a lot of junky, unrelated items as in most of the museum shops here. I was very impressed indeed.

The collections are, as I said, a bit odd. There’s a lot of medieval art from Europe, especially Italy, and very little English art, in the permanent collection. I’m not fond of medieval stuff, all the angels and saints and endless variations on the theme. But they have some wonderful, very suggestive still lifes, and a couple of saints that really glow.

The temporary exhibition was Giocometti, whom I detest, so we didn’t even go into that gallery.

There was also a performance art piece in progress the whole time we were there, but it was completely booked up so we didn’t get a chance to see the whole piece. It looked really wonderful, young dancer types in dark leggings, skirts or pants, with bright turquoise tops, standing and moving in various places throughout the museum and grounds; and mobiles of photos and miniature objects were part of it, and a video camera set up. As I say, it looked like fun, but it was booked up all day.

The stuff I enjoyed most was the folk art, which is on the top floor. It comprised everything from wonderfully bad paintings to pub signs to everyday tools and gadgets to quilts. There was one quilt that just knocked my socks off. It had patchwork, embroidery, crewel work and applique, all done by hand. It was a patriotic piece, commemorating some battle in 1898. It was a bit worn around the edges but otherwise in very good condition. The colours were much brighter than you’d expect in fabrics over a hundred years old.

The other patchwork was a set of pillows and a full length cushion on an old settee. The patchwork was definitely 19th century, but the settee was at least 17th if not even earlier. The cushions were an obvious effort to make the old bench more comfortable. The colours were natural undyed cotton with a pale orange that could have been from onion skins or possibly calendula petals to make the dye. The stitching was all by hand of course, as the stitches were UNIFORM. What skill the quilter had!

There were also some wonderful toys in the collection, whirly-gigs, a doll bed and a child-sized wheelbarrow, all hand carved. The paints were old and faded and badly chipped, but you could see that they were skillfully and fancifully done in very bright colours. Some of the kitchen gadgets defied even the curators as to what they were used for. A lot of the labels said, “believed to. . .” or “possibly for. . .” Great fun!

There were very few English paintings, but they are having a visiting exhibition of English art later this year, which we may go back and see. In June-September they’re having a special exhibition called The Fabric of Myth, all textiles, which I’m dying to see, so we’re planning to do that. It’s a little more than an hour’s drive, so it’s a doable day out.

Forgiveness – A Skill That Can Be Learned

©2008 Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

FORGIVE FOR GOOD, by Fred Luskin, subtitled, ‘A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness,’ is a striking combination research report, case study and handbook. The material is groundbreaking, fascinating and instantly accessible.

In the courses he teaches, Fred Luskin, Ph.D., Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, is absolutely authoritative and professional, without for a moment being dry and academic. His book breathes the same directness and expertise, written in a crisp, homely, very personal style. When the book was published, Dr. Luskin told me that, after he first submitted the manuscript, an editor handed it back to him with voluminous changes, putting everything into ‘proper’ English, taking the life out of it. Fortunately for the reader, he stood his ground and insisted that his own voice remain.

The ease of reading is crucial, because the material can be difficult. Most of us grew up hearing ‘forgive and forget,’ which in our minds connected the act of forgiveness with allowing ourselves to be hurt again and again. To forgive someone, we gathered, meant to ‘overcome’ the hurt, to ‘forget’ and be reconciled to the person who hurt us.

But Dr. Luskin’s work leads us in a different direction. Forgiveness is not condoning unkindness, or forgetting pain, not excusing bad behaviour, denying or minimizing your hurt. Shame, guilt, redemption, reconciliation— those things we learned about in Sunday school, are not necessarily connected with forgiveness. In fact, holding on to those ideas can actually prevent us from moving into a healthier state of mind and body.

His research and practice as a psychologist show that forgiveness is for the forgiver, not the offender. It is, essentially, a decision not to let past pain continue to hurt in your present and future life. It is taking back your personal power, taking responsibility for your emotions. Most important, forgiveness is about healing yourself and not about the people who hurt you. What’s more, and most promising, Luskin’s research shows that forgiveness is skill, one that can be learned just like tying your shoes or doing sums.

The book, throughout, is sprinkled with real life examples drawn from Luskin’s active counselling practice and his own life. His story of how he ‘got into’ studying and teaching forgiveness is at once a self-revealing recount of deep hurt, and an effective lesson in learning how to move past the pain and stop giving it room in one’s life.

Part One of Forgive for Good sets out the elements of grievance, blame and our tendency to take things personally that were never meant that way. The fine art of nursing a grudge is examined, as are the physical, emotional and psychological implications of doing so.

Moving to Part Two, the elements of forgiveness are presented, along with the medical evidence and a dramatic example of the effectiveness of deciding to forgive. In chapter seven, ‘The Science of Forgiveness,’ Luskin distills key research from a number of scientific studies which show that forgiveness improves physical as well as emotional and mental health. Then he gets specific and, in addition to detailing his earlier research, tells us about his work, aptly named HOPE, with mothers from Northern Ireland who lost sons, and a second programme for both men and women who lost family members in ‘the troubles.’

The positive results of the Northern Ireland programmes were deeply gratifying, and, Luskin admits, surprising even to him. He was not confident that his methods could work with people so deeply wounded. But, he concludes, ‘I marvel at the implications of these results. They demonstrate the incredible power of human beings to heal from even the most blatant of horrors. They reinforce my belief that people can learn to forgive.’

Part Three of Forgive for Good is a clear, practicable handbook on the process of forgiveness developed by Dr. Luskin. He is sublimely articulate and complete; the exposition of the material is logical, specific and practical. By working the exercises and techniques in the book, the reader can virtually complete the course Dr. Luskin teaches.

To cite one example, PERT (don’t be misled by the cute acronyms; this is serious work)– Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique. Through it, he says, ‘We gain tremendous confidence when we are suddenly faced with a painful situation or memory and are able to sustain our positive focus. Practising PERT helps us stay calm so we can make good decisions.’ Then Luskin gives detailed, simple instructions for the technique, which is essentially a relaxation and refocusing process that can be learned in less than half an hour.

The final chapter summarizes the process with ‘Nine Steps to Forgiveness.’ The first step is to know what happened, how you feel about it and be able to articulate it.’ Other steps include making a clear decision to do what you need to do to feel better; to give up expecting things from people that they do not choose to give you; and to understand your goal.

Luskin says, ‘What you are after is peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the peace and understanding that come from blaming less that which has hurt you [and] taking the experience less personally.’

Ironically, the final manuscript was ready for publication ten days after the September eleventh debacle in 2001. Luskin’s ‘Note to the Reader’ at the back of the book is alone worth the price of a copy. In part:

To help make sense of the relative importance of forgiveness at this time, think about the balance of a scale. . . On one end, there is vengeance and on the other forgiveness. At first the forgiveness end is up in the air, as it carries little weight against the strong desire for retaliation. . . Forgiveness, not forgetting, not condoning and not reconciling with offenders, is one of the powerful tools that we can use.

Violent Anger: Is it “in a Normal Range of Emotions?”

©2008, RK Silipo. All rights reserved.

Recently I happened to meet a psychiatrist who believes that violent anger and violent behaviour are  “in a normal range of emotions.” Her view was that people who do not lash out violently are actually somehow lacking in their range of emotional responses; that the absence of violence is abnormal. As usual in this kind of unexpected encounter, I thought of half a dozen things to say in reply afterward.

I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot since then. I’ve been thinking what an unlivable world we would live in, if what she says were true. People who lash out, hit and kick and stab and shoot and carry out countless angry violent acts would be acceptable. If her assertion were correct, it would be those of us who eschew violence, who try to find other ways of expressing and dissipating anger, who were considered odd, and the wanton bullies who were considered normal. I wonder, would murder be considered normal in this world?

I think she is wrong. I completely reject her premise. To me, any violence is an unacceptable way to express anger. Violence is not only physical, but also verbal and emotional. In fact, the latter are potentially more psychologically damaging, and often have longer-term and more debilitating effects than physical violence.

I felt this way long before I became a Quaker, and it is one of the reasons that Quakerism appealed to me. Quaker faith and practice have become the core of the way I choose to live. My husband isn’t a member of a Quaker meeting, but he learned Quaker ethics when he lived in Friends International Centre (London) while he was a student. In fact, even earlier, in his teens, he had learned the yogic ethical code and chosen to live by it. The yogic code holds the view that violence in any form, physical or otherwise, is proscribed. The Quaker Testimony is that we work to remove all occasion of violence, including anger. So my husband and I put these precepts into practice.

If you know anything about the Religious Society of Friends (doubtful in itself as we do not proselytize much), it would most likely be something about the Testimony of Peace. People generally understand this to be opposition to war. But it is much broader than that. It also encompasses more than the well known passive resistance taught and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (although both were aware of Quaker thought and practice).

The Peace Testimony is an all-enveloping concept which imbues all aspects of ethical living. It means that we choose in daily life, in every instance, to try to avoid violence. Since Quakerism is a non creedal religion, individuals commit to various levels of living the testimonies, but virtually all Friends commit themselves to live the Peace Testimony.

So screaming matches, door slamming, threats, withdrawal of affection, the silent treatment and other fairly common acts of emotional/psychological manipulation and domestic violence are rare in Quaker homes. Quakers avoid confrontational behavior and instead try to make a habit of simply expressing anger, then moving on to ways to dissipate it.

Expressing anger, that is, saying outright, “This makes me angry,” and then letting go of it, is completely in the spirit of a non violent life choice. It is the way we try to handle anger. Of course we don’t always completely succeed, but neither do we commit frequent acts of violence–verbal, emotional or physical.

Several years ago I learned a method of dealing with anger called the Peace Empowerment Process© (PEP), including the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom© and can now teach these techniques. This process reveals that anger is virtually always a mask or an outward manifestation of a deeper, hidden emotion. People learn the techniques to look under the anger and identify the underlying emotions: fear, disappointment, grief or guilt. By finding the true emotion and dealing with it, we remove the reason for the anger.

When the process is learned, it can become almost automatic in moments of anger. The PEP demonstrably reduced violence (including bullying) levels in classrooms where it was taught to children, especially ages nine to fourteen, but also through high school age. I practice the PEP whenever I need to deal with anger. (See Creativity in the Lion’s Den: Releasing Our Children from Violence, by Carolyna Marks, and go to www.wwfp.org for more details.)

I have also been interested in forgiveness studies for many years, and before I left  California I completed the intensive forgiveness seminars at Stanford University.  Dr. Fred Luskin, founder of Stanford’s Forgiveness Project, gave me permission to teach Forgive for Good© workshops in the UK.

The catch phrase for his seminars is  “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.” That is, we cannot change the past, and in order to move forward and grow emotionally, we must let go of it. His research shows that holding on to resentment, pain or anger is literally bad for physical as well as psychological and emotional health. (See www.learningtoforgive.com.)

My personal feeling is that anger is wasted energy; and stewing in anger, resentment or revenge fantasies only serves to make people unhappy.

Follow My Leader

Follow My Leader, by James B. Garfield, one of the best modern books for young readers, is back in print.

The story follows Jimmy Carter, a twelve-year-old baseball player who is suddenly blinded by a firecracker. We see Jimmy when the bandages are unwrapped from his eyes, and feel his anger and fear. We are with him on each step of his recovery from the injury, from the first visit by a social worker to his unprecedented trip to the guide dog school and his day-by-day training there. Ultimately, we are there when he encounters the boy who inadvertantly blinded him, and is able to forgive him and move on.

This book appeals to both boys and girls aged about ten to twelve or thirteen. Depending on reading ability, younger readers can also identify through the character of Jimmy’s kid sister, Carolyn. Parents of children with disabilities will recognize the challenges that Jimmy’s mother has to meet.

I read it when I was ten, and I was riveted by the process of Jimmy’s learning how to work with his guide dog, whom he names Leader. it’s a wonderful story of the relationship between dogs and humans.

I’ve reread the book a number of times over the years, and it holds up beautifully. It’s fascinating, funny, challenging and with a few elements just scary enough to appeal to kids’ need for peril in their stories.

The book is neither sentimental nor cold, and the relationships are drawn very realistically. I highly recommend this one as a book to get your kids away from the computer and television screens and get them interested in reading.

Bridging In and Out

©2008, RK Silipo. All rights reserved.

Note to a friend:

Self sufficiency is selfish, in that it denies friends the opportunity to care for you. Independence is good, especially for women. But when we try to do everything for ourselves, we get too self-focused. Not only do we become preoccupied with our needs that are not being met, but we also shut people out by denying to them that we have a problem and need their help. Being a friend is a gift, but allowing someone to be a friend to you is an even bigger gift.

Friendship is never a burden if it’s true and deep. Sometimes it might be a test, or a difficult passage that friends get through together, but not a burden. I do know what your teacher means, though. It is very much a part of your insight right now that you need to be out in the world. Start with your friends, the people you know, and then fan out. Your friends love you no matter what, and will make a bridge for you into the wider world where people might not be so kind and caring. The thing about a bridge is that you can move across it in both directions– outward into the world, but also back across into the homeland with your friends. You can visit both sides anytime you want.

Children’s Anger and Transformation

©2008, Ramona K. Silipo. All rights reserved.

THE PEACE EMPOWERMENT PROCESS
HELPS PEOPLE TRANSFORM VIOLENCE INTO CREATIVITY

The World Wall for Peace transforms the lives of people, children and adults, through the Peace Empowerment Process® (PEP), taught by its creator, Carolyna Marks. The process comprises two distinct sections, the PEP®, and the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom®. The PEP gives people simple, repeatable techniques which allow them to dissipate anger and the impulse to violent reaction, and to respond to violence or the threat of violence with creative thinking and compassion.

The PEP focuses not on unlimited freedom of the self, but on the free choices available to the whole individual in the context of a vital and responsive community. In many programs, self- esteem is often overemphasized to the detriment of responsibility and service. We are one with other people, and in the PEP self esteem is not emphasized to the exclusion of these things. The objective is for people to grow together; to be interrelated, not singular; to live creative individuality without sacrificing community.

In nearly thirty years of peace work, Carolyna Marks has observed lasting changes in attitudes of both children and adults with whom she has worked building peace walls; and participants who have learned the Peace Empowerment Process relate moving experiences of recognizing the transformations in their own consciousness and emotions.

The listing of Peace Powers, one of the first exercises in the PEP, leads children to redefine, as valuable abilities, qualities often seen as weak or “wimpy.” By writing down and reading them out, children see and own as powerful skills such as listening, drawing, or being persistent. In one school, a very quiet girl at the back of the classroom amazed her teacher by raising her hand, eager to read her list of Peace Powers to the class. The girl had never seen her quietness or her thoughtful nature as powerful until then. The teacher told Ms. Marks that the girl was the shyest child in the class and was literally transformed by learning the PEP.

The Walk-a-Mile exercise opens compassion and empathy. The procedure is to pair off from the circle and listen very closely to the story of another person’s experience; then return to the group and become the other person, to relate your partner’s story in the first person. In a recent PEP workshop, an African American man and a sixteen year old Chinese boy were partners.

The boy related that he had come to the United States when he was about five. He said that, although his whole family, seven children and his parents, all lived in one room, they were a close, happy family, even though they were poor. His father, who regularly went out with friends on Saturday night, one night went out as usual, and was shot and killed in an argument with his friends. It completely changed the boy’s life: He began to steal and was arrested, but fortunately was placed in a program, in which he learned from career prisoners what it would be like if he did end up in jail. The experience woke him up and started him back toward a more constructive life.

The African American man had been raised in minister’s family, and rebelled dramatically against his father as a young man. As he matured, however, he found great respect for and began to understand the power of his father’s ministry and ideals. The black man and the Chinese boy were from a neighborhood where friction between their two races was a daily fact of life. But they bonded instantly and intimately when they realized their experiences of loss and family conflict were not all that different from one another. Both had a fundamental change of attitude through experiencing the other’s story.

In working with the second component of the PEP, the Blueprint of Emotional Wisdom®, children learn to look at their emotions and identify the source of their anger. Marks’ work is based largely on the concept that underlying all violent actions is anger; and under anger are fear, guilt and grief or disappointment.

In one PEP session, children began spontaneously to share their grief by telling stories about the deaths of dogs and cats, grandparents, an aunt. They were very emotional stories, filled with anger, fear and guilt. Soon a wave of tears swept through the room. Everyone was crying because the schoolroom had suddenly become a safe place for them to express their feelings. The teacher reported that for the next several days the children were extraordinarily kind to each other. One boy had a foster sister who had died, and didn’t know what to do with his feelings about it. After this PEP training he decided to draw and write about it. Children do make creative choices when they have permission not to be violent.

For more information on the World Wall for Peace, go to www.wwfp.org. Marks’ book, Creativity in the Lion’s Den, is available from the organization.