Summer Peacebuilding Institute, Shenandoah Valley
I'm in Harrisonburg, Virginia, these days, teaching a course in Session II of Eastern Mennonite University's justifiably renowned Summer Peacebuilding Institute. It's pretty awesome for me. Firstly because I've never taught (led) a course this long before. And secondly-- awesome in a better way, this-- because the participants in the course are a really experienced, multi-talented bunch of people. Many of them have been doing peace-and-justice work in one or another context for decades already.
The title of the course-- by an amazing coincidence-- is "Violence and Its Legacies: Societies in the Wake of Atrocities". My head is so full of this material, you can't believe it!
I don't want to write too much about the class yet, because of privacy concerns and because we're all still at the beginning of this. But the 16 participants include people from central America, Africa, Tibet, Haiti, Sarajevo (and one each from Israel and Palestine)... So much richness of experience.
I found out that there's wireless access in the Campus Center here, which is where I'm writing this. This morning, we had a great welcoming ceremony for the session, all put on for us by the participants from Asia.
Anyway, tomorrow evening I'll drive back over the Blue Ridge Mountains, to go home for the weekend. Bill gets home from N. California late this evening, so it'll be great to reconnect with him for a couple of days. Then next week, I have the whole week to work on facilitating these discussions here with this great group of students.
Maybe evening blogging will be my recreation while I'm here.
Wonderful class. Watch out though for those increasingly "creative" speed traps just south of Harrisonburg.... As you know, if you go the speed limit on I-81, (65) you get run over where authorities know that the average speed is over 75.... On the other hand, if you ever get clocked for speeding at over 80 mph, here in Virginia you don't just get a speeding ticket, you get charged with "reckless driving" and face penalties every bit as severe as DUI. (including jail time in many jurisdictions - including Rockingham Cty) You can easily "beat" a 1st time DUI charge in Virginia, but for speeding, you're risking having your life destroyed.... Real equitable and rational justice system we have here. (PS - not affecting me - but an out-of-state friend.)