“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” 

So goes the very powerful fundraising campaign launched by United Negro College Fund in 1972. It’s one of the most enduring tag-lines Madison Avenue has brought the world. It endures because the sentiment is universal.

Dust off the cobwebs, turn off the talking heads and find out what real people working on the front lines of social, political and educational change, are up to.

The season of “Summer Schools” is underway. It’s a glorious opportunity to surround yourself with the intellectually curious, to have your thinking challenged and be infused with a dose of positivity.

We are sadly lacking mature leadership on the island of Ireland and it has never been more important for all of us to develop ourselves into an active and engaged citizenry.

The McGill, Merriman & xChange Summer Schools are now behind us. There is ample coverage of all available and still time to consider The Thomas D’Arcy McGee Summer School in Carlingford  which will address “D’Arcy McGee, 1916 and Revolutionary Republicanism” and Tangible Ireland’s Ambassador Summer School which covers “Business & Civic Leadership”.

Don’t do it for yourself, do it for your children and grandchildren. Education doesn’t end with “qualifications“, it’s a life-long process. Model it!

Why? Frederick Douglas sums it up perfectly: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”

*(per the 2014 post – and an excellent incentive to mark your calendars for the 2017 events…)  The McGill Summer School will stream its programming on “Reforming and Rebuilding our State”. And there’s still time to plan an outing to Glenties. Audio highlights of the xChange Summer School about “Changing Conversations” are available. Still ahead are the Merriman Summer School where “Emotional Life in Ireland” will be explored; The Thomas D’Arcy McGee Summer School in Carlingford  will address “The Famine in Ulster”; Tangible Ireland’s Ambassador Summer School covers “Business & Civic Leadership” and there are many more.

A few years ago when a colleague’s grandson was only 6, he came home from school having been taught the biblical story of Joseph.

“Daddy, why did his brothers throw Joseph in the pit?”

“Because Joseph was his father’s favorite. Jacob didn’t treat the other brothers as nicely.”

The wee one went off. A good while later he was back, having seriously contemplated the matter at hand.

“They should have thrown Joseph’s father in the pit!”

That, dear readers, is precisely why we tell stories.

Whatever your relationship to, belief about, or even disdain for The Bible, the Book of Genesis is a good read. A psychology professor of mine once opened a class in group dynamics with:

“…and if you’re working with families don’t underestimate the complexity. Everything you need to know about that can be found in Genesis”

In an earlier post on Storytelling, I explored the archetypal nature of stories. Simply put, it’s the way in which groups, families, or societies behave, as demonstrated in common threads, patterns, or characters that appear across most human behavior.

Changing behavior, becoming resilient, and recovery of any kind all rely on our ability to observe our behavior, elucidate patterns, and reflect on their origin.

So whether it’s about a personal recovery – or a societal one, the lessons apply.

The six-year-old who has genuinely considered the parenting lesson at the core of the Joseph story will parent differently in later life. There is little doubt his own father’s parenting is at the core of his power to observe, reflect, and conclude.

There is application also to our wider human family and more specifically to us here on the island of Ireland. I would encourage us to consider the divisiveness of our “Green” & “Orange” narratives in the context of families, human behavior, and Genesis.

This Joseph story doesn’t begin with Jacob’s poor parenting. Jacob’s own father rejected him for his twin. His own favoritism of Joseph was born of his grief at Rachael’s death. Joseph was a motherless child, the first-born of his favored wife.

How much of this story is owed to that accident of birth? To the times in which he was born?

And if you never knew the historical context or the family background does it inform your understanding of Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers? Leave you more compassionate, perhaps?’

A “family conflict of legendary proportions” is how it is further discussed by David Lewicki, Our Dysfunctional Families (Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28), an excellent read.

I would argue that were we to explore the Irish historical narrative in this way, and other nation’s stories, we would come to a more compassionate understanding of ourselves and each other.

For more on changing narratives in Ireland see On Changing Conversations in Ireland or listen to a range of speakers from the Changing Conversations series at the XChangeNI Summer School 2014.

We tell stories in Ireland.

Yet, we don’t talk enough in conversation about what our current and past realities are.

Stories set our experiences in stone; a concrete past. Conversations allow us to evolve and to heal. In repeating, even our traumatic experiences from a distance, in a now safe environment, we re-experience them as our current selves, older and stronger for having survived.*

Storytelling has us repeat experiences along our tribal, party lines. We can be two faced in our delivery, polite and politically correct when telling them to the outside world; but within our tribes we stubbornly cling to old narratives, and we are often intolerant and recalcitrant in the telling.

Three speakers from panels at the XchangeNI Summer School, challenge us to tell fewer stories and have more conversations.

Debbie Watters in Changing the Conversation about Liberties has offered what we could be talking about. Steven McCaffery in Changing the Conversation about Media has offered why those conversations must begin in earnest. Ruth Dudley Edwards in Changing the Conversation about History has articulated how our old way of framing these conversations traps us in the past. She goes on to offer a compelling insight into our rhetoric.

Debbie Watters‘  talk began with a question and ended with one.

“We’re 16 years on from the peace process, where are we now? And what does liberty and peace process look like in loyalist communities?”

You have never heard such passion more gently expressed about, among other things, the realities of life and absence of leadership in the working class Protestant community.

Debbie pointed out that within the loyalist community she hears that “things have never been so bad”. She reminds us that “(p)eace is not just not absence of violence, it is about quality of life …”

Her questions included:

• How do we make our voice heard in ways that allow us to be heard in ways that …don’t demonize us…?
• What is our mutual responsibility to encourage, if not to coerce, our politicians to stand up and take care of the people most in need in NI….?
• What would that strategy look like?
• And what is our responsibility to help those communities come up with that strategy?

I was left wondering: does liberty even exist in a democratic process if a community perceives themselves without representation?

Steven McCaffery led with: “We don’t talk enough about parades… parading has been a massive issue we trade arguments and insults but we don’t actually trade facts.” He called for data rich conversations on a range of subjects in which we talk with each other; not at each other.

He challenged us to take a long view and focus on “political dynamics building outside NI which will have a huge impact on NI”.

Why does the rise of UKIP, predominantly in England matter? How many of us are aware that as much as 85% of farming income relates to EU funding?

“It will raise questions…about the UK’s place in the EU…  NI has an entirely different relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK…It’s a big debate leaning in on us.”

A long view, he reminded us, would also have us focused less on the “flag stories” of December 2012 and more on the census results released that month.

A fall in the Protestant population to 48% and the rise of the Catholic population to 45% means:

“We are a society of minorities, more diverse than ever… this (c)hanging demographic means the future has to be a shared future.”

In this context let me reinterate Debbie’s question:

“What is our mutual responsibility to encourage, if not to coerce, our politicians to stand up…”

Lastly, Ruth Dudley Edwards spoke of changing narratives. She articulated an inelegant truth about our tribal rhetoric:

“Nationalists are quite often less nice than they seem because they’re very good at seeming nice and
the Prods are quite often nicer than they seem because they’re really good at seeming awful.”

This was not a flippant observation, her call was to “challenge the ancestral voices of our own tribes”. This requires a new narrative about our history. The approach of the centenary of 1916 invites such a challenge. Framed in the context of a democracy in which “the constitutional nationalists were driven out by violent nationalists” we might begin to discuss how that legacy of violence has and continues to have an impact.

She calls for more of an “equality of rhetoric”. And less of what she describes as the “immensely defensive” Orange narrative, or the “impressive” but “profoundly dishonest” Republican narrative.

Please follow the links to the left of the photo. Listen to the speakers in their own words, and then, let the conversations begin.

*For an interesting read on rewriting our most traumatic memories see “Partial Recall”, Michael Specter, The New Yorker Magazine 19. May 2014 on the work of Daniela Schiller, PhD

Visit AlaninBelfast’s Audioboo to hear playlists of each “Changing Conversations” panel.

In organising BizCamps, support and networking groups and now Carlingford Forum, the mission has been to create a safe space and to start a conversation that gets us thinking about ourselves and our communities in a new light.

Think of this place as a fertile field. Our children are the seeds. Their yield will sustain our communities for another generation. Will they grow in seasons of dearth or abundance? Will we move on, leaving overplanted fields stripped of nutrients? Or we will dig in, hoe, clear the rocks, enrich and prepare a better field to ensure the future.

We can clear the plots defined by our acres and that is good. How much better would it be if we collectively prepared our own and helped our neighbours? Village wide, county wide, country wide and island-wide.

My grandmother was a simple woman. She shared her wisdom with “old sayings” that come to me often. Her response s were predictable.

• to my pained experience of mastering the sewing machine or kitchen gadget: “it’s a poor workman who blames his tools”;
• on my frequent whinges about my lot in life: “offer it up”;
• on any matter of importance: “two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage”.

The last was confounding. Was my opinion as valuable as veg?

Creative problem solving can’t happen in a vacuum. That was and is the most important lesson she offered.  It is what I seek to offer via this blog.  “Who does she think she is?” is the message I often hear when I raise issues. And the answer is: “No one and everyone”.

Once uttered, thoughts, threats, fears – all lose their power.  No more nighttime monsters under the bed. When we give voice to an issue, we throw open the windows and let in the light. The situation may remain scary – but we are no longer alone in the dark to imagine the demon, or to slay the dragon with limited weapons at hand. We’ve called in reinforcements. Reinforcements with a fresh perspective. They may be unarmed ones or ones who clear the debris obscuring the escape, the ones who resupply, or the ones who rework the strategy.

Perhaps, even a peacemaker who will whisper our demons to sleep.

So lest I be misunderstood, I am merely an observer and a facilitator. At best I seek to point out that we are undermining our collective potential. At worst, think of me as a mild annoyance. Often, it is my ignorance that is displayed – and your feedback serves to educate me.

The agricultural metaphor is not born of poetry but experience.

A client – twenty years ago, was delighted that we’d produced a resume she’d struggled over for months. She smiled when I abbreviated my grandmother’s thought – “two heads are better than one”.

“Even if one is a cabbage.” She startled me, I’d never heard that part elsewhere.

“Did it make you feel as dumb as a vegetable?” I asked. “No” she said – pooh-poohing that sentiment.

Her grandmother always generously finished the thought with, “because if all else fails, you can eat the cabbage”.

Food for thought. Wise women.