Building Bridges
About
What if we could have heartfelt conversations with those who hold opposite perspectives? Not to convince each other, but to listen respectfully and explore our differing perspectives, and perhaps find some commonality….experience empathy…learn tolerance.
“We are more alike than different.”
We use the shared experience of cooperative lamp making while surrounding it with a process that focuses on bridging our differences through understanding and respect. The process may include circle work, sharing of stories and role playing but we also use the lamp and the potent symbolism of light to break down barriers and replace walls with bridges. And when the workshop ends, the lamp remains as a reminder that when you have built a bridge you can always cross it again and again.
“One of the first poems I ever learned to recite”, says David Moss, founder of The Illumginossi Project, “was ‘The Man He Killed’, by Thomas Hardy, written in 1902. This poem about the senselessness of war continues to haunt me and was part of the inspiration for the Bridge Building Initiative.”
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Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.”
–Thomas Hardy