November 2, 2024 • 73 mins
This episode pays tribute to the late Ted Lewis, a remarkable figure in restorative justice, whose life and work provide profound insights into this balance.
We explore how his bicultural upbringing and Mennonite roots led him into mediation and facilitation. We also reflect on Ted's legacy, balancing systemic change while addressing relational harm on the micro-level. We also explore the "Listening to the Movement" project as Ted brought together many of the RJ thought leaders to examine how RJ has evolved from a programmatic approach to a broader social paradigm.
Support for Ted's family through their GoFundMe to continue honor his impact and legacy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, my name is David Ryan Barsega, castro, harris all
five names for all theancestors, and today, november
2nd, when this is posting, isDia de los Muertos, all Saints
Day, day of the Dead, all SoulsDay, depending on your cultural
background.
So I'm sharing another episodefrom this Restorative Justice
Life archives, featuring TedLewis.
(00:20):
Ted was a Titan in therestorative justice community
and he passed away this summerafter a bottle with brain cancer
.
So re-airing this conversationis a small way to honor him and
his legacy.
As I was listening back to thisconversation, I was reminded of
so many things, but what struckme most were that how, even
though this conversationhappened a couple years ago, so
(00:43):
much of what we talked aboutwhen it comes to political
discord and working with peoplewho don't agree or can't seem to
come together, is so relevantto what's happening literally
right now.
But also, along with that,there are so many ways to go
about doing restorative justicework, there's so many approaches
, and that everyone's approachis needed so we can build a
(01:06):
world where people are in goodrelationship with each other,
with themselves, where thoserelationships are rooted in
equity and trust, and evenacross our cultural differences,
our religious backgrounds, theway that we've been socialized
to think about safety andprotection.
Restorative justice frameworks,philosophy, values give us
(01:27):
guidelines to give us ways tonavigate all of those things.
Before I turn it over to myselffrom the past to introduce the
rest of the conversation, I wantto share that Ted's family has
a GoFundMe to continue to keepup with the medical expenses
that they incurred over thecourse of his fight with cancer.
So if you have the means,please give what you can.
(01:47):
That GoFundMe will be linked inthe description.
I hope you enjoy and learn fromthis conversation with Ted.
Ted, welcome to thisRestorative Justice Life.
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, foremostly, I'm a lover of Lake Superior.
I live very close to the NorthShore line in Duluth, Minnesota,
and I love cold water and Ijust can't get enough of that
lake.
Who are you?
I am someone who got introducedto restorative justice on Pine
(02:20):
Ridge Reservation.
It was back in the early 90s,through some Mennonite workers
that were adapting a restorativedialogue process for the Lakota
indigenous folk there, and eversince, then, I've been sort of
grabbed by restorative work formy vocation.
Who?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I am someone who comes from an overseas
background.
My parents were missionaries in.
Portugal of all places.
So when I was a boy I lived inPortugal and moved early on back
to Minnesota.
So I'm kind of a biculturalperson and I think that fed my
(03:07):
capacity to be a mediator,facilitator between you know,
two parties.
Who are you?
A consultant for?
The Center for RestorativeJustice and Peacemaking at
University of Minnesota, basedhere in Duluth, and that center
(03:35):
is distinguished as being theoldest academic based center for
restorative justice worldwide,started by Dr Mark Umbreit in
1994.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
1994.
Who are you?
I have Mennonite connections.
I didn't grow up in thatreligious tradition but in
college years I was sort of wonover by the peacemaking
tradition, the servanthoodtradition within the Mennonite
world.
And Mennonites were prettyinstrumental, starting in
Ontario and in Indiana,preceding some of the modern
expressions of restorative work.
So that's a big part of my ownsense of rootage in terms of
(04:14):
tradition and restorativebackground for me who are you?
I'm a poet, an artist on theside.
I'm a poet and artist on theside.
I've always liked creative work.
At times I find sort of aconvergence of my creative
(04:36):
activities and the restorativework is when I do trainings,
workshops, presentations.
I just love coming up with newmetaphors and images and
pictures and all of that for meis a very creative activity and
a type of teaching restorativework to other people.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And finally for now, who are you?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I'm Ted Lewis and I love watching the planets.
One of my hobbies is to trackplanets in the sky.
Whenever I can go to thelakeside and look at the eastern
horizon.
I just really enjoy looking atstars and planets and their
movement.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, thank you, ted, so much for sharing just those
bits about who you are.
We're going to get into all theintersections of those and how
they apply to this restorativejustice life right after this.
Thank you so much, ted, forbeing with us on this
restorative justice life.
I'm very excited to have thisconversation for a couple
reasons.
One it's always good to talk toone of the folks who've been
(05:40):
doing this work almost sinceI've been alive.
But it's also really excitingto talk to you because you are
one of the editors of thisproject that culminated in a
book called Listening to theMovement.
But it's a larger projectoverall, taking the pulse of the
restorative justice movement,and you know we're going to get
(06:00):
into all of that in just amoment, but it's always good to
check in.
So, to the fullest extent thatyou want to answer the question,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I'm actually kind of worn down.
Just to be open and honest, Ihave been bearing the emotional
weight of a couple challengingcases.
One is restorative justice innature, Another is more of an
organizational mediation caseand all spring I have had to
(06:29):
navigate some really difficultterrain to try to build trust
between parties and I'm readyfor some extra self-care and a
break from that hard work.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I imagine part of that is engaging in the lake and
nature and somehow.
But what else does self-carelook like for you?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
After a really tough case, I try to do a sauna.
Anything that kind of helps meto detox is always a healthy
thing.
I'll create my own little happyhours at the end of the day you
know day to have some chips andsalsa and a drink.
That's a pretty standard onefor me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's always good to think about the ways to both
unwind self-soothe but alsoproactively make sure that we
have the capacity to continue todo this work which you've been
doing for decades now, workwhich you've been doing for
decades now.
The way that we often get intothe origins of folks' work is
asking the question like thisYou've been doing restorative
(07:31):
justice work for a while, butyou were probably doing it or
had inklings of this work beforeyou even knew the words.
So how did this get started foryou?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Well, I mentioned in the who Are you that in the
early 90s I got introduced tothe concept through folks
applying it on the Pine RidgeReservation and prior to that I
already was bending towardpeacemaking both in terms of
(08:02):
dialogue and activism, and inthe 80s I kind of felt a tension
between those two.
Like I was close to activistgroups in the Twin Cities.
But at some point I came to aconclusion that activism alone
doesn't necessarily build trustbetween people on a relationship
(08:26):
level.
So I started to exploredifferent ways where
communication and relationshipbuilding and trust building were
connected to peacemaking.
And then once I learned aboutrestorative justice through some
of those Mennonite connectionsand that really opened up a
whole new horizon for me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I want to go back to that tension between
like activism and andpeacemaking right, because one
of the things that I think aboutin my journey when I for folks
who listen to the podcast knowthat I spent a lot of time in
Chicago in some of my formativeyears of restorative justice
(09:07):
work and in Chicago, the modelof community organizing that was
built by Saul Alinsky is veryantagonistic, causing harm while
trying to advocate for thereduction of harm from people
who exist in those powerstructures that are oppressing
(09:29):
people on the margins, people ofcolor, people who have been
disenfranchised by systems andso many other ways, and using
shame in order to try to gettheir way, win the campaigns.
You know, get uh, get their waywhen the campaigns that can be
very, very effective in makingshort term um wins, winning
campaigns.
(09:50):
But, like what you're talkingabout in the um, in the, the
tension between, you know,working for uh, justice, freedom
, liberation for people, uh, whoare on the margins, um, and
building peace at the same time.
Like those, those two thingscan seem in opposition right now
(10:10):
in the moment that we're havingthis conversation, but the
conversation around the secondamendment and and gun rights is
all is all up on people's mindsand, at the same time, the
conversation around abortionrights has still been restoked
and it's very easy to vilify thepeople who are upholding policy
(10:34):
, that many who are more leftleaning, more progressive
leaning, whatever you want tosay.
It's very easy to vilify thepeople who are in opposition to
us, but you know, I imagine insome of the instances that you
were experiencing back in the80s, like some of the same
tensions still existed.
How were you able to navigatethat with this restorative lens?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, you're raising a lot of important things.
There's several layers to thisdiscussion, both how does
activism and peacemaking worktogether?
And then how do you deal withpolarizing issues?
One example that was prettyfoundational for me, that kind
of connects the relationshipside of the equation with the
(11:20):
systemic change side, is when mydaughters were young we had a
Walmart in our community and Inoticed that right in the
entryway, where you know thiswas back in the day when you
could have like gladiator typearcade games right in the
(11:43):
entryway of a Walmart and thesewere like gladiator fights to
the death, you know and you knowhow, like before you put your
quarters in, the visual screenwould show these gladiators
going at it and stabbing eachother and blood splattering and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I had to ask myself.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Do I really want my three-year-old daughter to be
viewing this if we're going tocome into a Walmart each time?
And it just kind of opened up athought like I don't really
personally like this in a publicspace.
And so I knew from my earlieractivist years I could draw
(12:22):
attention to that, I could pickit, I could get some folks, I
could get media attention.
I knew all of those strategiesto try to leverage change.
But I said I'm going to take awhole other angle here.
I'm actually going to try tohave conversations with the main
manager.
And so I set up times to meetwith a manager and focused on
(12:45):
communication, relationshipbuilding.
Is there some common interest,some common ground, rather than
leveraging a force, justassuming that I needed to
leverage force to make changehappen.
The short outcome of this isthat main manager was open to a
scenario of change and then anew manager came in.
(13:08):
But the old manager actuallyhad connections with folks at
the headquarters in Arkansas andhe set things in motion for
discussion at a national levelto consider removing
violence-oriented arcade gamesfrom their entryways.
And then a second manager I gotto know him, had conversations
(13:31):
with him and he set some thingsin motion.
Within 12 months, based on thatrelationship building, walmart
made a national policy to pullviolence-oriented arcade games
from their entryways across thenation.
I mean that's huge systemicchange.
So that was a really big momentfor me to realize that building
(13:55):
a bridge really is not justkind of warm, fuzzy, nice stuff
to do.
It actually can be a strategicway to bring about systemic
change.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
And for those that arelistening and thinking, yes, and
we've tried, they just don'tsee us as human and they don't
value us.
I'm wholly sympathetic to that.
Right At the intersections ofyour identity as a white man,
like those conversations aretaken a little bit more
(14:30):
seriously than it might have ifsomebody else tried to initiate
that conversations at theintersections of other
identities that are often moremarginalized, and even if those
intersections of your identityare what they are, there's not
always going to be thatreciprocity from people who are
going to want to buildrelationships.
What do we do then?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, that's a great thing to bring up and certainly
the last 20 years, last 10 yearsand even the last five years
have heightened our awarenessaround power and privilege
issues for this topic, awarenessaround power and privilege
issues for this topic.
You know, I think what itreally comes down to is where
(15:12):
can trust be built to supplementtruth telling?
So if we think of an X and Ygraph and on one side we have
truth telling and on another wehave trust building, the
question is how can you balanceboth of them, if in fact you
want brave truth to have a forcejust like Gandhi is talking
(15:36):
about Satyagraha truth force andconnect that with the trust
building element so that they'rekind of like working together.
Because I've noticed, ifthere's just truth telling
without trust building, itsometimes creates a little more
tension, a little morealienation.
So I'm a big advocate, even ifit's a matter of communities of
(16:01):
color, trying to have difficultconversations with, with other
stakeholders who are notrepresenting or or having
affinity with those communitiesis to strategize around.
How do you build trust?
The same thing with police.
I did a whole speech at ourlynching memorial here in Duluth
(16:24):
about a year ago.
We have the first lynchingmemorial in the nation here 2003
, and Bryan Stevenson is totallyaware of it and was our keynote
speaker.
I also gave a speech onbuilding truth and trust
together with police andcommunity referencing
(16:46):
communities of color, and we'vehad efforts for them to have
conversations where there was alot of truth telling and it kind
of backfired because there wasnot enough trust building and
when that happens there'sgreater tension for future
(17:06):
conversations.
It actually makes it harder tocome back in the next time to
try to have some kind ofcollaborative conversation.
So I'm really big on theconcept of how truth and trust
have to fold together if youwant people to coexist in the
same community.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, you're touching on what is probably the most
hot button issue of this podcastand we're gonna go there in
just a second.
But I just want to take a pauseto acknowledge that you know,
when the issue of you know, theintersection of restorative
justice and the criminal legalsystem and the intersection of
(17:49):
restorative justice and lawenforcement gets brought up by
people who often listen to thispodcast have an abolitionist
mindset, right, fuck the police,acab, cops are picked, all
those things right, with thattension in mind.
It's about the person and theirjob.
(18:10):
It's not about the person as anindividual.
And I know people who are onthat side of the quote, unquote,
thin blue line see those thingsas inseparable often, right,
and there are other people onthat side of the line saying
like, hey, I'm here trying to dogood for the community.
Maybe, as a representative, I'mtrying to make the change
(18:36):
communities across the countryhave seen the way that, like,
that system does not want to bereformed and so, to truth tell
to that system that hasconstantly violated trust the
other way, right is somethingthat is, I'm going to say for
the purposes of our conversationright now, damn near impossible
to do, and I acknowledge thebenefit of you know, when you
bring up the X and Y axis, thevertical horizontal, I know when
you bring up the x and y axis,um, the vertical horizontal, I
(18:58):
think a lot about like thequote-unquote social discipline
window, where we're talkingabout like expectations and
challenge and limit setting anddiscipline with uh support and
encouragement, uh, people arefamiliar with like the two, with
more and not quadrants, neglect, uh, permissive, punitive,
restorative spaces, and we dowant permissive, punitive,
restorative spaces and we dowant to be in that space that is
(19:19):
restorative, but like that hasto be reciprocal.
And so I guess my question,coming like within, like this,
we can talk about it in like thespecific framing of policing,
if you have, I want to absolveyou of like the responsibility
to like have the solution for,like how do we deal with like
policing in America?
And but like, if you have asolution for or a way forward
(19:42):
that you've seen work in thisexample, or just thinking about
the way that, when trust is notreciprocated like, how do you
then navigate?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Maybe this is an opportunity to bend the
conversation towards thelistening to the movement book.
There's always been kind of atension between social justice
(20:27):
activism and restorative justice, micro response to harm and
conflict issues to say we needto bring together the warrior
impulse for systemic change andthe healer impulse for
relational restoration, and ifyou only do one or the other
you're really not going to havewhat she's calling a full-bodied
(20:50):
approach to movement building.
And so I think that's part ofthe tension there.
In the restorative justiceworld it has a legacy of being a
program, a service provision,an incident response, and then
in more recent years it's likewe got to go upstream more.
(21:13):
We have to deal with conditions, there has to be deeper
community involvement, systemchange, and so all of those
things are converging.
My fear is that, because it'ssort of bogus for progressives
to focus on transformationalchange, that there's actually a
(21:34):
danger of compromising thelegacy of that micro-relational
building.
And I really believe that Faniaunderstands the need to balance
the two, because if thesystemic change upstages the
legacy of trust building andrelationship building and micro
(21:54):
peacemaking, you know, at thosesmall incremental levels it's
just going to turn the movementinto another revolutionary cause
which has its own challengesaround balance and power
leveraging.
So I really approach this issuefrom the standpoint that there
(22:14):
has to be constant effort tobring that healer and warrior
instinct together, rather thanjust letting the warrior
instinct sort of define all ofthe work.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing in, you know, that
aspect to it and I want to like,maybe thread back to what you
experienced at Pine Ridge, rightwhat?
Where I'm thinking about howFania's story and you know Fania
is the dream guest to get onthis podcast, it's going to
happen at some point butthinking about her journey as a
(22:53):
civil rights lawyer right andthen learning indigenous ways of
healing and peacemaking rightis where that dich, like what
stood out to you from thatexperience?
What made this be like?
(23:18):
Oh yeah, this is the thing thatI need to spend.
You know, seemingly, the restof my life doing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I would sum it up this way it's the sacredness of
dyadic conversation.
There's something extremelysacred when harming and harmed
people become vulnerable and getto the point where they find
new strengths to either sharetheir stories of harming or
being harmed.
(23:45):
And in that vulnerability isthe paradox of human connection,
empathy, letting go of hardthings, and that's a.
You know, Mark Umbreit talksabout that as a very sacred zone
and it's a very human zone.
(24:06):
It's at some level it'stranscultural.
When you think about the powerof people connecting on those
deep levels of understanding andempathy, levels of
understanding and empathy andbecause I've witnessed that so
many times at the micro level, Ican never let that go.
I mean, that's what reallydrives me vocationally is the
power of bearing witness tocourageous, offending and
(24:31):
victimized people who arewilling to go to those places
for deeper conversation.
So how I relate that to thewider systemic changes.
There is a need for thatsystemic change, whether it's in
the abolition tradition or thecivil rights tradition or the
(24:53):
Gandhian tradition.
I have no trouble with theconcept of disturbing the status
quo to bring about change, butI never want it to be at the
expense or at odds with thatsacred zone of how dyadic
dialogue is extremely powerfulas a way for people to be able
(25:19):
to coexist in diversecommunities, and whenever I
sense a little bit of eclipsingof that, I tend to be really
tuned into that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Keeping in mind the confidentiality of these
processes and the sacredness ofthese stories, are there
incidents that you've been givenpermission to share about that
really stand out, that reallymade this dyadic dialogue
salient for you, that made itreally click for you over the
(25:49):
years?
Maybe it's the first time thatit really clicked, or maybe just
in a really impactful time overthe years of?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
doing.
Yeah, I appreciate that inviteand yeah, there are stories that
actually went public innewspapers, so there's there's
no breach of confidentiality.
One of the standout ones for mewas on 9-1-1, september 11,
2001.
There was a middle-aged man whowas charged with a hate crime
(26:23):
in Eugene, oregon.
I worked in Eugene for 10 years.
Basically death threats to anIslamic cultural center and
there were several phone callsbut but it involved a verbal, uh
, death threat to people in thewake of 9-1-1 and the short of
(26:43):
it is is that the human rightscommission in the city, which
was pretty progressive for youknow, 20 years ago, routed the
case to my program because theMuslim couple did not want to
look vindictive through acourt-based process.
They really were thankful for acommunity-based process and it
(27:07):
ended up that the responsibleparty was acting more solo it
wasn't really like acting out ofa white supremacist group or
anything like that, but wasacting pretty solo and ended up
willing to take ownership andwas apologetic.
So, amazingly, because of thestakeholders in the district
(27:27):
attorney's office and the humanrights commission, we were able
to have prep meetings within amonth from 9-1-1.
And I think it was a month anda half.
We had a joint meeting whichinvolved kind of a large circle
this is sort of before circleswere even known as circles, but
there was probably 25 people inthe room Two hours of pretty
(27:50):
difficult conversation.
We actually reached an impasseand it was suggested that we
take a break and come back aweek later.
So kind of to come full circleto what you're getting at like.
Have I really witnessed thepower of dyadic conversation?
What basically happened is thatthe Muslim man, who was
(28:12):
primarily the impacted party,kept saying why did you do this,
why did you do this?
He wasn't getting the kind ofanswers that were satisfying him
.
He was a scientist.
He needed something deep aswell as something that made
sense and he kept pressing forthat and the responsible party
struggled with accounting forthat.
(28:35):
When we all came back a weeklater, something had percolated
for the responsible party and hebegan to talk more out of his
backstory and started to accountfor the death of a child at age
one.
That happened in September andhe relived that traumatically
(28:58):
every September and kind of losthis bearings and said a few
other things about his worldviewthat helped him fit some puzzle
pieces together and out of thatsharing, the Muslim man finally
said this is helping me, thisis really helping me now.
(29:19):
And then shift happens.
That's a powerful phrase I usein all my trainings, because
when people finally have enoughverbal gift exchange in dyadic
conversation, they feel likethey can let go of of their
clashing narratives andre-narrate things in a way that
(29:41):
helps them to move forward.
And when shift happens, that'swhen people can talk about the
future and that happens at adeep, sacred, energetic level.
it's not just word content, it'srebuilt trust where trust was
lost.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Or didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Exactly so.
That can happen between policeand people of color, if they're
willing to be vulnerable, totalk about how violence has
affected them.
This has been tried inMilwaukee.
You put together a group ofofficers with a group of
reintegrating offenders, even ifthey're, like in Milwaukee,
(30:24):
predominantly Black and you askthe same question to all of them
how has violence affected you?
You get them talking out oftheir stories and all of a
sudden, everyone's becoming ahuman being.
That's a huge way to dyadicallyopen up some bridges where
(30:44):
there's naturally some walls.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I want to touch on a few things that came up for me
when you were talking about thecase one, the, the impact of.
We came to an impasse and wetook a break and came back right
.
Um, earlier you talked about,you know, the way that
restorative justice, restorativepractices have in some places
(31:08):
that we you and I probablywouldn't like call very
restorative spaces, like, havebecome very programmatic, like,
okay, you have x amount ofmeetings, um, and it needs to
happen in this timeframe.
And if it doesn't happen, okay,we're going to reroute it to
our more punitive ways of being.
It's great that you had, likeone, the ability to have those
pre-meetings so quickly, had theability within the program,
(31:32):
within the context that you hadto, you know, to cycle back for
people who are thinking aboutnavigating conflict and harm in
restorative ways.
It's not a linear thing thatyou can just say, like, we will
resolve this in these threehours today, or, god forbid you
even think about like, hey, inthis half hour quote unquote
circle after school, right,we're going to get us settled.
(31:55):
It's not always like that,right, and there are things that
you can do to help.
I'll say, expedite and makeprocesses more efficient with
pre-work right, but like it'sstill not linear and it still
requires the time.
What I also appreciate, in whichthe story that you shared, is,
(32:17):
you know, the dissatisfaction ofthe person who was impacted.
The man who was impacted, right,people who have been harmed
don't always get the answersthat they're looking for, don't
always get their needs met 100percent, and we, as much as like
(32:38):
I'm an advocate for restorativeprocesses and I imagine you are
right, like this isn't likesome easy thing that like you're
gonna get the results that youwant every time.
In this circumstance, you knowthere was some deeper
understanding, some uh, newtrust built and you know, I'm
assuming people were able tomove on with their lives in ways
(33:00):
that were less, where there wasless fear, right, and less
uncertainty, and so thank you somuch for that story.
And then when you come back andtalk about the way that this
can impact individualrelationships between police
officers and community members,I definitely have seen and
(33:24):
acknowledged the way that thosestories can impact the way that
an officer views somebody in thecommunity or people in the
community view individualofficers and at the end of the
day, it is still the officer'sjob to enforce the law in ways
(33:44):
that are not necessarilyconducive to still building
community trust.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, definitely a tension there between roles,
agendas, paradigms and then sortof having like this unique
opportunity of human connectionin the midst of that wider
context.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Right, right, because you know those things can be,
those dialogues can be harmreductive, right, those
dialogues can be harm reductive,right that can, on like as you
were sharing in those human tohuman interactions, be
restorative, be transformative,help people in tension, navigate
those, those micro situationsand folks who are advocating for
(34:30):
transformative justice, likechanging the conditions under
which harm between, specifically, police and marginalized
communities both you know,communities of color, black
communities, people who aredisabled, people who experience
mental health challenges, etc.
Etc.
Those systemic things stillexist and it's beyond, just like
the incidence of individualharm, that we need to navigate.
(34:53):
I don't want to like linger onthat too much.
There are so many other thingsthat we get to talk about.
You know we talk about on thispodcast.
You know your journey throughthe work and because it's been
decades, I don't want you to golike blow, blow, blow on every
project that you've worked on,everything that, year by year,
has been impactful for you.
(35:14):
But you know your career inthis work has led you through a
lot of different spaces, fromacademia to the criminal legal
system, in lots of, lots ofdifferent contexts, and I'm
curious if there are any otherstories, incidents, learnings
that were really important toyou leading up to where we're
(35:34):
going to get into the genesis ofthe listening to the movement
project in 2015 yeah I think oneum one thing I was aware of
because, because of how somemennonite connections really
opened up things vocationallyfor me, I was aware that, along
with Howard Zare at EasternMennonite University, was
(35:58):
partnered with John PaulLederach, who ended up getting
involved with internationalpeacemaking and went to Notre
Dame.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
He was very active in the 80s with another man called
, called Ronald Craybill, andboth of them initially were
developing dialogue-based modelsfor addressing conflicts within
faith communities.
And there's sort of a joke, aninsider joke that came up like
(36:31):
back in those days, and the jokewas you know, know, why did
these two pioneers, john paulletter rock and ronald crable,
leave the field of churchconflict resolution to do
international peacemaking?
and the answer is, well, becausethe latter was far easier sure
(36:53):
you know, so so they they getinvolved with like african
transitional justice stuff andtribal, uh, working with tribal
conflicts and stuff like that.
But I, I was always aware, uh,since I have a, you know, a
church faith background, whatwould it be like to take what
I'm learning in the criminalrealm with restorative justice
(37:15):
and apply it to faithcommunities?
And so at times I've done, I'vedone a half a dozen church
mediation jobs over the yearsand they're very, very hard,
they're thick, they're tangled,there's toxicity, there is, you
know, family systems times threeto four.
(37:38):
And so that prompted me to domore of the prevention work.
Because I'm watching schools,you know who originally did RJ
as a discipline alternative.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
but and many still are trying.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Trying, but most schools understand that you have
to go upstream and doprevention work and community
building work and supportivework.
That's much wider than justreactionary, and so I started
applying that to the faithcommunities.
What does it look like to startdoing workshops and prevention
(38:13):
work to build cultures ofapology and forgiveness?
And so I have a big side areathere in my.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
What all has that looked like?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, putting up a website that's integrating
restorative justice withpractices for faith communities,
doing some workshops, both inperson and online, that
integrate those traditions withskill building.
The most recent exciting thingis I've partnered with a number
(38:47):
of Black clergy from the southside of Chicago and we're having
a Restorative Church gatheringthe Monday after the NACRJ
conference.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
And we might as well just shout it out right now July
7th through 9th, with apre-conference day on July 6th,
the NACRJ conference ishappening.
It's very soon.
By the time you're listening tothis podcast, it might be too
late for you to make travelarrangements or get a ticket,
but if you are available andwant to connect with so many
(39:21):
restorative justicepractitioners around the world
meet Ted, meet me, meet so manyothers who have been featured on
this podcast you can head overto NACRJorg and find all the
information that you need to getthere.
Sufficient plug, but yeah, Iimagine this work.
(39:42):
I grew up in church.
I've seen the way that churchcommunities deal with conflict
and it ends in people leavingRight.
It ends in individuals leavingoften, but it also looks like
groups of people.
Just just, there's a schismright and new denominations are
started or new churches arestarted because of
(40:06):
irreconcilable differences.
I believe I got thatpronunciation.
Were there any things that sofully acknowledging that so much
of this work is proactive, werethere?
And again thinking about youknow confidentiality and things
that you're able to share?
Were there any stories of youknow the ability to repair harm
(40:28):
between either individuals orgroups of folks in church
communities and faith-basedcommunities that are really
salient for you.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
One short example that was a small example was I
led a grieving circle for about12 people who left a church
because of dysfunction andleadership tensions and and
things were just kind ofbreaking apart.
But all all 12 of these adultsmoved out of this church at
(41:04):
different stages over about ayear long and then they weren't
really connected.
And so there was one of themreally thought, you know, it'd
be really nice if there could besome kind of gathering of these
people who left.
So I was able to prepare folksand then hold about a four hour
grieving circle with a potluckafterwards, and that was really
(41:27):
helpful for them to kind of havethe equivalent of like a
funeral service, have theequivalent of like a funeral
service, but also to think about, you know, who are we going
forward now without having tocarry some of those lonesome
hurts?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Sometimes, when we are faced with harm, and in this
circumstance right, there isnot willingness for people to
reconcile between aggrievedparties or parties that are in
tension, right, we can still usethese practices to meet folks'
needs for whether belonging,needing to acknowledge the harm
(42:07):
that happened to them, gettingcommunity support and ways
forward to have that harmprevented moving forward.
It might not always look likebeing in community with harm
prevented moving forward.
It might not always look likebeing in community with each
other moving forward.
I think a lot of the times uh,the I don't I don't know the
exact circumstances of this, but, like this happens a lot of the
times, with abuse right, whereit is not healthy for either
(42:29):
party for them to reconcile andbe back together.
But you know, both can moveforward in a good way, not even
ever having to interact with theothers, if they're both getting
support in a restorative wayfrom their community members,
and so you know, thank you forsharing that story.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Absolutely.
I love your phrase goingforward Because when I define
what is restorative justice,people think classically oh,
it's about bringing a victimoffender together for
face-to-face dialogue you knowwhat ends up on Oprah's show,
(43:10):
and I say no, it's not aboutthat.
It's about helping harming andharm people to move forward in
their lives, no matter who theymeet with, and explaining that
many times it's not possible orappropriate for harming and harm
people of the same case to cometogether.
Once you redefine restorativework as people moving forward
together in healthy, healingmanners, then you start to think
outside the box.
(43:31):
Who are the other conversationpartners that could help be part
of their encounter moment?
You know that would help themto set some things to rest or to
be dignified or validated.
And I'm actually going to bepart of a panel in Chicago on
talking about use of surrogatesfor sexual harm cases and we'll
(43:58):
spotlight a case I did aboutfive years ago of both a
victimized and offending partywho contacted our center.
Independent from each other,wanted restorative dialogue in
their own journeys and were wellsuited to actually be dyadic
(44:21):
partners after a seven-monthpreparation.
So I'm going to feature that asa way to really widen the
opportunities for people to havedeep restorative conversations
without the possibility of themmeeting with their actual case
counterparts.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's again.
You know I appreciate that youhighlighting that, the seven
months that it took to evenbegin to prepare, like for that
conversation, and like sevenmonths happened and people
aren't ready, like we don't goforward because, like we don't
want to cause more harm when we,when we do that, when we do
(45:28):
that and there's this immensesense of urgency for folks to
resolve conflict and harm, butthis process is too urgent to
rush we a little bit more.
I am thinking I just want tocall back for some folks who
maybe haven't listened to thispodcast for a long time, back to
an episode where we featuredMia Hunt of Hidden Water, nyc,
talking about the way that theyhave done circles for people who
(45:49):
have been impacted by childhoodsexual abuse, for a little bit
more of a deeper dive on thattopic.
You know you've done this workextensively.
You know faith communities,criminal legal system, some
places like, again, academia,schools, individual incidents of
harm as serious as sexualviolence.
(46:12):
It led you to this place in2015, where you know you gave
your definition of restorativejustice and lots of different
people define restorativejustice in different ways and
use the framing in differentways, in different ways and use
the framing in different ways.
(46:33):
It started a series ofconversations in partnership
with EMU and I'm curious whatwas the genesis of that and how
has it manifested since?
What have been some keylearnings for you?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, there were three stages.
Emu got some grant money andthe initial stage was just
bringing together some of thethought leaders in the movement.
For even to ask the question isrestorative justice a social
movement?
It's worth saying that the wordmovement can mean multiple
(47:07):
things to different people, andwhen Howard Zare used the word
movement 30 years ago, even hewas thinking more in terms of
like a river that has a movementand a river that gets bigger
and bigger when othertributaries come into it.
He wasn't thinking of it asmovement in the sense of like
the abolition movement, thecivil rights movement.
(47:38):
But eventually, I would sayafter 2010, it started.
New conversations were happeningaround this.
This is not just a program,it's not a service, it's not an
intervention, that's, you know,just for isolated things.
This has a whole paradigmaticopportunity to change systems on
all levels and indigenoustraditions.
Don't think of it in any way aslike a side dish.
(48:01):
It's like the air they breathe,it's the values they live at
every level, and so, by the time2015 came around, there was a
heightened sense of restorativejustice as being re-understood
as a true social movement withtransformative elements, and
then the tension is okay.
If that's what it really is.
(48:22):
What does that mean forre-understanding its beginnings?
What does that mean for theclassic realm of interventions?
You know it raised new kinds ofquestions.
It also raised what I call thefrontier zones, and the book
Listening to the Movement reallycomes out of the third stage of
(48:43):
EMU's effort to try to capturewhat are those frontier zones
that show that this is muchwider than just a criminal
program, you know, foraddressing harmful incidents.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, and you know of those.
It's funny for me to be havingthis conversation with you now,
already having interviewed manyof the contributing authors and
having read most of the bookalready.
Right, Also acknowledging thatmuch of the book was written two
(49:18):
, three, four years ago.
At this point, right, what weresome key learnings for you, as
you were hearing from all thesedifferent voices who had been
practicing these ways of beingand like these programs in
different ways across differentsectors?
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I would say the primary one was recognizing that
communities could bere-empowered and even at some
level to be independent, withdefining restorative, holistic
work in those communitieswithout heavy reliance on
(50:01):
traditional systems, traditionalsocial work systems,
traditional justice systems.
And so the whole concept ofhubs, you know, which we see in
Oakland and Chicago andelsewhere, is an example of
saying we don't need to beheavily partnered or reliant on
all these traditional systems,as if we're thinking in terms of
(50:24):
reform, we can do wholesomestuff as community-based
stakeholders.
And so I would say the bookkind of starts to reflect some
of that push off where you don'thave to envision like
traditional systems somehowbending and reforming and
(50:46):
partnering.
It's more like we're just goingto move forward with good,
wholesome stuff and we're reallynot that interested in waiting
for judges and prosecutors andprobation officers to somehow
see the light.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, I've been attributing this quote to Miriam
Kaba and she might have said itin one way.
I recently heard Nils Christytalked about the idea also that,
like, and we've outsourcedcommunity care to social
services as well.
I think that might be the piecethat she's tagged on um in the
conversation with uh Daniel Roge, which will air in the coming
weeks, talking about the waythat social work um has to
(51:38):
change with this kind ofparadigm, and conversations with
um Ethan Ucker.
Uh about, you know, the waythat the criminal legal system
is engaged in dealing withintercommunal violence.
Like there are myriad ways thatwe as community members can
deal with these things withouthaving to engage those
(51:58):
stakeholders.
And in my understanding ofrestorative justice work because
I came into this work really in2014, like, just like around
the time when you and manyothers who had been doing this
work for a long time like we'restarting to um center more
(52:19):
community driven uh ways ofbeing and doing this work.
Like that has just been myorientation to all of this Um
and shout out to Cheryl and Oraand Pam and Tomas and Miriam and
like all the other teachers umwho have been um who who helped
me get to that space.
Um, what has been the impact ofthese conversations that you've
(52:42):
seen across um practitioners,people who have been doing this
work, maybe in more system,aligned ways over the years, in
response to both theconversations and the book as
it's come out?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, I think, doesn't the subtitle have both
the phrase opportunities andchallenges?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Growth and new challenges.
Growth and new challenges.
Okay, growth and new challenges.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
I think at one point we had a working title that
showed opportunities andchallenges, and I think we're
still in that zone where therecent growth has been amazing
and wonderful, but you know thatwhenever there's wider, faster
growth, it creates unforeseenchallenges around how is all
(53:31):
this holding together and whatare the continuity elements?
So, being connected to NACRJ,I'm really mindful that there
are still conversations that areperennial around what are the
common denominators or commonroots?
When there's that muchcommunity empowerment and, you
(53:54):
could say, autonomy, which is,in my mind, a good direction
because I'm a really big fan oflocalized power rather than
local efforts having to bebeholden to something beyond the
local realm, it brings a newchallenge.
(54:14):
How does it all hold together?
You know, in New Zealand andCanada and Belgium they have
systems that sort of integrateeverything together, at least at
a criminal level.
That creates standards,continuities, model replication.
We don't quite have that in theUnited States because we sort
(54:36):
of prize experimental, beingexperimental with new ventures.
So I probably could say alittle more, but I'll just
summarize it by saying for everypositive growth we're still
seeing new challenges forholding things together.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, what this?
This might be a retread of aquestion that I already asked,
so the response might be similar.
But what has surprised you themost?
Both?
I'm not thinking so much fromthe content, but from the impact
(55:21):
that um you've seen of thisbook and this project um over
the last few years?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
I think one thing that surprised me if I was able
to sort of compare a perspectivenow from even 10 years ago is
the growth of the circle model.
10 years ago I would havethought more in terms of, okay,
there's different dialoguemodels and they all kind of have
(55:53):
their strengths and limits andhere's how they kind of balance
with each other, and I primarilytrain and use conference model
more than circle model.
But I have seen an assumptionthat the circle model is the
dominant model for restorativedialogue work because it's so
(56:14):
versatile and it covers allprevention and intervention and
can adapt in all sorts ofcommunity ways.
The surprising thing for me isthat I don't see enough
conversation around strengthsand limits of models and I've
(56:35):
done a little bit of workshopwork on this very topic because
if restorative practitioners arenot aware of strengths and
limits of the model they use andthey kind of make the
assumption that this model ispeople, the only way people get
what I call model loyalty, ifthat's primarily how they're
trained and and their avenue oflearning.
(56:57):
Restorative work is based on amodel that that eventually
creates new challenges aroundthe the growth and spread.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yeah, and I think, speaking to circles really
specifically over the last twoyears and speaking about
pandemic times, although we havedone things on Zoom that are
circle-like, none of thosethings are actually circles in
my view, and so you are havingto employ a conferencing model
(57:31):
or conferencing methodologypractice, because you're not in
that physical space with peopleand like there are other nuances
as well.
But I think, speaking from mytraining perspective, what we do
at Amplify RJ, it is much moreabout teaching people the
underlying framework of thoserestorative questions and
(57:54):
holding space for people inwhatever way that manifests.
Right, Because there is ascript for a circle that you can
do, there is a script for a oran outline for a conferencing
thing that you can do.
But if that is not what is bestconducive to your situation
like that's probably not whatyou should do, whether that is
culturally right, People are notgoing to be culturally
(58:17):
responsive or receptive to acircle, or you know, or the
conferencing model.
You have to be adaptable andthank you so much for
highlighting that.
You know these conversations canhappen in multiple ways.
These dialogues can happen inmultiple ways.
One right way of doing things.
(58:50):
There are multiple ways ofdoing even circle work, even
restorative work.
It doesn't just have to be thatcircle model, which was the
model that I was brought up in,right, but there are definitely
different ways to navigateconflict navigate harm, build,
maintain, repair relationships.
Yeah, Thank you.
Thank you so much for that pairrelationships.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Yeah, let me add one more pieceto the same topic.
I'm really thankful that peopleare finding their they're
trusting their own intuitions todo what I call blended models.
And the last time I did aworkshop on circle conference
(59:34):
strengths and limits, I found Iwas getting people to just talk
out of their experiences.
Most of the participants werealready comfortable with
blending aspects from bothmodels that they kind of drew
from, and I think that's awonderful thing.
I do that too when I'm workingwith larger groups.
I'll do opening and closinggo-arounds, but in the middle
(59:55):
I'll facilitate a little morelike a conference, which for me
is actually less scripted in theway I do.
Facilitation and ultimately thestrength that conferencing has
over circling is the realm ofresponse.
That's the dyadic magic.
(01:00:16):
You know when people can canrespond either by echoing what
they've heard or responding fromthe heart back and and if
circles set up that traditional,you know, go around, speak your
truth, your truth, speak yourthoughts, speak your perspective
.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
And wait for the talking piece to come around.
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
It can really mute the power of direct response,
and so if it's a peacemakingcircle, at least you know more
narrowly without a dimension ofresponse between the most
harming and harm people present,they can get muted out, so that
those are some pieces I'mreally mindful of from the kind
(01:00:56):
of work that I do.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
I know that there is a attention for me and this is
something that I've had tonavigate as someone who grew up
in this work with circle beingthe thing Right.
Also preserving like excuse me,I'll say the sanctity of circle
process Right and that's notalways possible in the spaces
(01:01:20):
that you're in and being okaywith blending that to serve the
needs of the people that you are, that you're in dialogue with,
that you are helping to navigatetheir conflict and harm is
important.
It doesn't have to be like thispure.
This is the only way thatthings can be.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
We've covered a lot and I want to make sure that we
get to all the questions thateveryone answers when they come
on the podcast.
But before we do, is thereanything else that you want to
shout out about the book?
Well, it's going to be 40% offat Chicago.
We hope to have copies for salethere and we'll also have
flyers, I think, for anyonewho's listening now.
(01:02:03):
It's a great book that givesthe foundation of indigenous
principles.
There are strong themes ofaddressing race relations all
through the book.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
It gives some of those frontier zones where
restorative justice is appliedto brand new areas, such as
earth care and environmentaljustice which is an episode that
we already ran featuring, uh,valerie serrell, just because it
was earth day and we wanted torun with it ahead.
So you can already go back andlisten to that episode and then
(01:02:38):
go read the chapter in the book.
But, um, yes, covering so manyaspects, so many frontiers, so
many horizons.
I interrupted you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Is there anything else?
That's fine.
It's just a great book to sortof benchmark both growth and
challenges of this time we're inright now.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Beautiful, All right.
So the questions that everyoneanswers when they come on the
podcast, without knowing it.
You've already answered one ofthem when you gave your
definition of restorativejustice, so I'm not going to ask
you that again.
But what I am going to ask youis, as you've been doing this
work, what's been an oh shitmoment, a mistake or something
that you would do differentlynow?
(01:03:18):
Or you're looking back and likehow could I do that and what
did you learn from it?
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
no-transcript to address unintended consequences,
meaning that when things don'tgo well, when process choices
were poorly formed, that you goto parties with humility and
still try to dignify yourrelationship and communication
(01:04:07):
with them and I have had to dothat now and then over the years
.
It's really hard to admit likeI could have made a much better
process choice.
But one that really stands outfor me in several cases is that
when I've gotten involved withshuttled communications where
it's not appropriate for partiesto come together either too
(01:04:29):
soon but they're wanting tocommunicate things either by
writing or by giving permissionUh, I, I have found myself in
this in some really difficultgray areas about representing
the words of one party toanother.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Projecting your perspective onto their words.
Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Some of that comes through the telephone game.
But even in shuttling a writtenpiece, I'm aware of the limits
of that because there's not thatenergetic dimension you get,
you know, like when an animal isnear you and you're reading
each other.
You don't get that from just awritten piece.
And there have been times wheresome shuttle communications led
(01:05:10):
to some unintentionalconsequences, maybe even some
re-victimization, and each timeI catch myself around wow, there
really are limits to a processwhere you're helping people to
be empowered to say and hearwhat they really need to say and
(01:05:31):
hear.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
When you encounter those things, you know.
You talked about the need toacknowledge the unintended
consequences of your actions.
Consequences of your actions.
How do you best prevent thatgoing forward?
Because, like shuttlecommunications, like is,
continues to be a part ofpractice when we are dealing
(01:05:53):
with people who are not at aplace where they can be in the
same space together.
How do you prevent that harmfrom happening to the best of
your?
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
ability.
I think the most practical wayand I'm even kicking myself for
not doing this better insomething that was about a month
ago is that first, you're neverfacilitating heavy duty things
alone.
You're always partnered up witha team of co-facilitators two,
three, four of you and then,practically, if you have an
intuition that you're entering asensitive zone of shuttle
communications, that you'rereally pre-briefing with your
(01:06:36):
facilitator team around.
Are we really doing the best wecan here?
Are we aware of some risks?
Could we set some betterboundaries?
Could we lower someexpectations and just talk that
through?
Because without that talkingthrough it's easy to kind of do
(01:06:57):
things, just because you'reeager for the process to move
forward.
So taking the time to pre-briefis probably the best option.
Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah, thank you for that learning.
This one is challenging in adifferent way.
You get to sit in circle withfour people, dead or alive.
Who are they and what is theone question you ask that circle
?
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Well, the person that came to my mind, uh, is
actually a friend of mine wholives on pine ridge.
Um, he's a lakota man who comesfrom the red cloud clan.
He's been a friend of minesince the very year that I first
was introduced to restorativework.
We used to do furniturerestoration work together in a
(01:07:49):
shop and we got to know eachother and we still keep in touch
.
I'd love to be in a circle withhim and his wife and maybe a
couple other people they mightchoose to talk about the impacts
of the pandemic, on thereservation.
Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
As you've been sharing.
You've dropped so many gems.
What is one thing?
Maybe it's a mantra, maybe it'san affirmation maybe it's a key
learning that you want to makesure everyone listening to the
podcast knows.
Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
I think I'd like to just reframe the protest line no
justice, no peace.
I've thought a lot about whatthat means in our society and I
actually have a whole article onit that tries to come at it
from a restorative perspective.
But one of the things that hasbeen meaningful to me that kind
(01:08:48):
of pulls us back into themesthroughout our whole podcast
here is that how you definejustice is really vital in that
phrase, because if you arethinking in terms of traditional
justice as necessary to bringabout peace, as necessary to
(01:09:12):
bring about peace, you arebasically operating in a
contestual paradigm, a frameworkwhere there tends to be
win-lose in a court context andwe're frustrated if someone gets
acquitted, and so our conceptof justice on that phrase in my
mind generally leans toward atraditional understanding of
justice, as you know bringingtruth and then bringing a
(01:09:35):
punitive outcome.
If you redefine justice in arestorative manner, it actually
builds a different way ofthinking about the peace that
comes after, and I would reallysuggest that if we understand
that phrase as deep relationshipbuilding with respect and
(01:09:56):
responsibility those three Rsthat are so vital to any kind of
justice process that that isgonna build a more lasting peace
on any level.
So that's kind of what I'd liketo leave folks to chew over.
Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah, I'm sitting in deep reflection with that um,
for for a couple reasons.
One, because the line thatfollows up no justice, no peace
in a lot of the protests thatI've been at is no racist police
, right and um that like thatcan be um and, like you know,
(01:10:42):
we're coming back to that, thatwhich is very present where
we're at, and that's both noracist individuals who are
fulfilling that role.
But what does it look like totransform that institution or
transform the conditions underwhich that institution of
policing has to exist?
And what you're talking aboutis the definition of peace and
(01:11:06):
the definition of justice.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
How and where can people support you and your work
in the ways that you want to besupported Financially?
I mean a big part of my work, Ifeel like, is pro bono and then
, of course, a lot of mytraining in workshop work.
(01:11:55):
You know, I do try to make aliving by it, but I'm not
salaried with my center and Ifeel a calling to this work.
So I tend to say yes to thingswhere I should probably be a
little more measured if it'sgoing to demand a lot of my time
without any pay.
So people can just support inany way they're led to.
Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Yeah, I mean so, like part of that looks like book
sales, but like that's not likea big chunk of it, like is there
a specific place that peopleshould go?
Is it the center's site whereit's make a donation, or is it
somewhere else?
Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
I, I see yeah, our uh university of minnesota duluth
site has a place for donation,and that money would support the
amount of pro bono frontierwork we're doing with things
like sexual assault or orcommunity building or pulling
regional folks together forlearning.
(01:12:50):
We don't have a budget for mostof this stuff, and so that
would be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Present day.
David, here I'm going to switchup the ask from Ted at the end
of that episode to remind youthat, if you appreciated this
conversation, if you and if youhave the financial means, please
support his family, as they'reuh still paying off the medical
expenses from his battle withcancer.
Uh link to the GoFundMe is inthe description.
We'll be back with anotherepisode of this restorative
(01:13:21):
justice life very, very soon.
Um, until then, take care andbe safe.
Hi, my name is David Ryan Barsega, castro, harris all
five names for all theancestors, and today, november
2nd, when this is posting, isDia de los Muertos, all Saints
Day, day of the Dead, all SoulsDay, depending on your cultural
background.
So I'm sharing another episodefrom this Restorative Justice
Life archives, featuring TedLewis.
(00:20):
Ted was a Titan in therestorative justice community
and he passed away this summerafter a bottle with brain cancer
.
So re-airing this conversationis a small way to honor him and
his legacy.
As I was listening back to thisconversation, I was reminded of
so many things, but what struckme most were that how, even
though this conversationhappened a couple years ago, so
(00:43):
much of what we talked aboutwhen it comes to political
discord and working with peoplewho don't agree or can't seem to
come together, is so relevantto what's happening literally
right now.
But also, along with that,there are so many ways to go
about doing restorative justicework, there's so many approaches
, and that everyone's approachis needed so we can build a
(01:06):
world where people are in goodrelationship with each other,
with themselves, where thoserelationships are rooted in
equity and trust, and evenacross our cultural differences,
our religious backgrounds, theway that we've been socialized
to think about safety andprotection.
Restorative justice frameworks,philosophy, values give us
(01:27):
guidelines to give us ways tonavigate all of those things.
Before I turn it over to myselffrom the past to introduce the
rest of the conversation, I wantto share that Ted's family has
a GoFundMe to continue to keepup with the medical expenses
that they incurred over thecourse of his fight with cancer.
So if you have the means,please give what you can.
(01:47):
That GoFundMe will be linked inthe description.
I hope you enjoy and learn fromthis conversation with Ted.
Ted, welcome to thisRestorative Justice Life.
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, foremostly, I'm a lover of Lake Superior.
I live very close to the NorthShore line in Duluth, Minnesota,
and I love cold water and Ijust can't get enough of that
lake.
Who are you?
I am someone who got introducedto restorative justice on Pine
(02:20):
Ridge Reservation.
It was back in the early 90s,through some Mennonite workers
that were adapting a restorativedialogue process for the Lakota
indigenous folk there, and eversince, then, I've been sort of
grabbed by restorative work formy vocation.
Who?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I am someone who comes from an overseas
background.
My parents were missionaries in.
Portugal of all places.
So when I was a boy I lived inPortugal and moved early on back
to Minnesota.
So I'm kind of a biculturalperson and I think that fed my
(03:07):
capacity to be a mediator,facilitator between you know,
two parties.
Who are you?
A consultant for?
The Center for RestorativeJustice and Peacemaking at
University of Minnesota, basedhere in Duluth, and that center
(03:35):
is distinguished as being theoldest academic based center for
restorative justice worldwide,started by Dr Mark Umbreit in
1994.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
1994.
Who are you?
I have Mennonite connections.
I didn't grow up in thatreligious tradition but in
college years I was sort of wonover by the peacemaking
tradition, the servanthoodtradition within the Mennonite
world.
And Mennonites were prettyinstrumental, starting in
Ontario and in Indiana,preceding some of the modern
expressions of restorative work.
So that's a big part of my ownsense of rootage in terms of
(04:14):
tradition and restorativebackground for me who are you?
I'm a poet, an artist on theside.
I'm a poet and artist on theside.
I've always liked creative work.
At times I find sort of aconvergence of my creative
(04:36):
activities and the restorativework is when I do trainings,
workshops, presentations.
I just love coming up with newmetaphors and images and
pictures and all of that for meis a very creative activity and
a type of teaching restorativework to other people.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And finally for now, who are you?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I'm Ted Lewis and I love watching the planets.
One of my hobbies is to trackplanets in the sky.
Whenever I can go to thelakeside and look at the eastern
horizon.
I just really enjoy looking atstars and planets and their
movement.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, thank you, ted, so much for sharing just those
bits about who you are.
We're going to get into all theintersections of those and how
they apply to this restorativejustice life right after this.
Thank you so much, ted, forbeing with us on this
restorative justice life.
I'm very excited to have thisconversation for a couple
reasons.
One it's always good to talk toone of the folks who've been
(05:40):
doing this work almost sinceI've been alive.
But it's also really excitingto talk to you because you are
one of the editors of thisproject that culminated in a
book called Listening to theMovement.
But it's a larger projectoverall, taking the pulse of the
restorative justice movement,and you know we're going to get
(06:00):
into all of that in just amoment, but it's always good to
check in.
So, to the fullest extent thatyou want to answer the question,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I'm actually kind of worn down.
Just to be open and honest, Ihave been bearing the emotional
weight of a couple challengingcases.
One is restorative justice innature, Another is more of an
organizational mediation caseand all spring I have had to
(06:29):
navigate some really difficultterrain to try to build trust
between parties and I'm readyfor some extra self-care and a
break from that hard work.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I imagine part of that is engaging in the lake and
nature and somehow.
But what else does self-carelook like for you?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
After a really tough case, I try to do a sauna.
Anything that kind of helps meto detox is always a healthy
thing.
I'll create my own little happyhours at the end of the day you
know day to have some chips andsalsa and a drink.
That's a pretty standard onefor me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's always good to think about the ways to both
unwind self-soothe but alsoproactively make sure that we
have the capacity to continue todo this work which you've been
doing for decades now, workwhich you've been doing for
decades now.
The way that we often get intothe origins of folks' work is
asking the question like thisYou've been doing restorative
(07:31):
justice work for a while, butyou were probably doing it or
had inklings of this work beforeyou even knew the words.
So how did this get started foryou?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Well, I mentioned in the who Are you that in the
early 90s I got introduced tothe concept through folks
applying it on the Pine RidgeReservation and prior to that I
already was bending towardpeacemaking both in terms of
(08:02):
dialogue and activism, and inthe 80s I kind of felt a tension
between those two.
Like I was close to activistgroups in the Twin Cities.
But at some point I came to aconclusion that activism alone
doesn't necessarily build trustbetween people on a relationship
(08:26):
level.
So I started to exploredifferent ways where
communication and relationshipbuilding and trust building were
connected to peacemaking.
And then once I learned aboutrestorative justice through some
of those Mennonite connectionsand that really opened up a
whole new horizon for me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I want to go back to that tension between
like activism and andpeacemaking right, because one
of the things that I think aboutin my journey when I for folks
who listen to the podcast knowthat I spent a lot of time in
Chicago in some of my formativeyears of restorative justice
(09:07):
work and in Chicago, the modelof community organizing that was
built by Saul Alinsky is veryantagonistic, causing harm while
trying to advocate for thereduction of harm from people
who exist in those powerstructures that are oppressing
(09:29):
people on the margins, people ofcolor, people who have been
disenfranchised by systems andso many other ways, and using
shame in order to try to gettheir way, win the campaigns.
You know, get uh, get their waywhen the campaigns that can be
very, very effective in makingshort term um wins, winning
campaigns.
(09:50):
But, like what you're talkingabout in the um, in the, the
tension between, you know,working for uh, justice, freedom
, liberation for people, uh, whoare on the margins, um, and
building peace at the same time.
Like those, those two thingscan seem in opposition right now
(10:10):
in the moment that we're havingthis conversation, but the
conversation around the secondamendment and and gun rights is
all is all up on people's mindsand, at the same time, the
conversation around abortionrights has still been restoked
and it's very easy to vilify thepeople who are upholding policy
(10:34):
, that many who are more leftleaning, more progressive
leaning, whatever you want tosay.
It's very easy to vilify thepeople who are in opposition to
us, but you know, I imagine insome of the instances that you
were experiencing back in the80s, like some of the same
tensions still existed.
How were you able to navigatethat with this restorative lens?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, you're raising a lot of important things.
There's several layers to thisdiscussion, both how does
activism and peacemaking worktogether?
And then how do you deal withpolarizing issues?
One example that was prettyfoundational for me, that kind
of connects the relationshipside of the equation with the
(11:20):
systemic change side, is when mydaughters were young we had a
Walmart in our community and Inoticed that right in the
entryway, where you know thiswas back in the day when you
could have like gladiator typearcade games right in the
(11:43):
entryway of a Walmart and thesewere like gladiator fights to
the death, you know and you knowhow, like before you put your
quarters in, the visual screenwould show these gladiators
going at it and stabbing eachother and blood splattering and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And I had to ask myself.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Do I really want my three-year-old daughter to be
viewing this if we're going tocome into a Walmart each time?
And it just kind of opened up athought like I don't really
personally like this in a publicspace.
And so I knew from my earlieractivist years I could draw
(12:22):
attention to that, I could pickit, I could get some folks, I
could get media attention.
I knew all of those strategiesto try to leverage change.
But I said I'm going to take awhole other angle here.
I'm actually going to try tohave conversations with the main
manager.
And so I set up times to meetwith a manager and focused on
(12:45):
communication, relationshipbuilding.
Is there some common interest,some common ground, rather than
leveraging a force, justassuming that I needed to
leverage force to make changehappen.
The short outcome of this isthat main manager was open to a
scenario of change and then anew manager came in.
(13:08):
But the old manager actuallyhad connections with folks at
the headquarters in Arkansas andhe set things in motion for
discussion at a national levelto consider removing
violence-oriented arcade gamesfrom their entryways.
And then a second manager I gotto know him, had conversations
(13:31):
with him and he set some thingsin motion.
Within 12 months, based on thatrelationship building, walmart
made a national policy to pullviolence-oriented arcade games
from their entryways across thenation.
I mean that's huge systemicchange.
So that was a really big momentfor me to realize that building
(13:55):
a bridge really is not justkind of warm, fuzzy, nice stuff
to do.
It actually can be a strategicway to bring about systemic
change.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
And for those that arelistening and thinking, yes, and
we've tried, they just don'tsee us as human and they don't
value us.
I'm wholly sympathetic to that.
Right At the intersections ofyour identity as a white man,
like those conversations aretaken a little bit more
(14:30):
seriously than it might have ifsomebody else tried to initiate
that conversations at theintersections of other
identities that are often moremarginalized, and even if those
intersections of your identityare what they are, there's not
always going to be thatreciprocity from people who are
going to want to buildrelationships.
What do we do then?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, that's a great thing to bring up and certainly
the last 20 years, last 10 yearsand even the last five years
have heightened our awarenessaround power and privilege
issues for this topic, awarenessaround power and privilege
issues for this topic.
You know, I think what itreally comes down to is where
(15:12):
can trust be built to supplementtruth telling?
So if we think of an X and Ygraph and on one side we have
truth telling and on another wehave trust building, the
question is how can you balanceboth of them, if in fact you
want brave truth to have a forcejust like Gandhi is talking
(15:36):
about Satyagraha truth force andconnect that with the trust
building element so that they'rekind of like working together.
Because I've noticed, ifthere's just truth telling
without trust building, itsometimes creates a little more
tension, a little morealienation.
So I'm a big advocate, even ifit's a matter of communities of
(16:01):
color, trying to have difficultconversations with, with other
stakeholders who are notrepresenting or or having
affinity with those communitiesis to strategize around.
How do you build trust?
The same thing with police.
I did a whole speech at ourlynching memorial here in Duluth
(16:24):
about a year ago.
We have the first lynchingmemorial in the nation here 2003
, and Bryan Stevenson is totallyaware of it and was our keynote
speaker.
I also gave a speech onbuilding truth and trust
together with police andcommunity referencing
(16:46):
communities of color, and we'vehad efforts for them to have
conversations where there was alot of truth telling and it kind
of backfired because there wasnot enough trust building and
when that happens there'sgreater tension for future
(17:06):
conversations.
It actually makes it harder tocome back in the next time to
try to have some kind ofcollaborative conversation.
So I'm really big on theconcept of how truth and trust
have to fold together if youwant people to coexist in the
same community.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, you're touching on what is probably the most
hot button issue of this podcastand we're gonna go there in
just a second.
But I just want to take a pauseto acknowledge that you know,
when the issue of you know, theintersection of restorative
justice and the criminal legalsystem and the intersection of
(17:49):
restorative justice and lawenforcement gets brought up by
people who often listen to thispodcast have an abolitionist
mindset, right, fuck the police,acab, cops are picked, all
those things right, with thattension in mind.
It's about the person and theirjob.
(18:10):
It's not about the person as anindividual.
And I know people who are onthat side of the quote, unquote,
thin blue line see those thingsas inseparable often, right,
and there are other people onthat side of the line saying
like, hey, I'm here trying to dogood for the community.
Maybe, as a representative, I'mtrying to make the change
(18:36):
communities across the countryhave seen the way that, like,
that system does not want to bereformed and so, to truth tell
to that system that hasconstantly violated trust the
other way, right is somethingthat is, I'm going to say for
the purposes of our conversationright now, damn near impossible
to do, and I acknowledge thebenefit of you know, when you
bring up the X and Y axis, thevertical horizontal, I know when
you bring up the x and y axis,um, the vertical horizontal, I
(18:58):
think a lot about like thequote-unquote social discipline
window, where we're talkingabout like expectations and
challenge and limit setting anddiscipline with uh support and
encouragement, uh, people arefamiliar with like the two, with
more and not quadrants, neglect, uh, permissive, punitive,
restorative spaces, and we dowant permissive, punitive,
restorative spaces and we dowant to be in that space that is
(19:19):
restorative, but like that hasto be reciprocal.
And so I guess my question,coming like within, like this,
we can talk about it in like thespecific framing of policing,
if you have, I want to absolveyou of like the responsibility
to like have the solution for,like how do we deal with like
policing in America?
And but like, if you have asolution for or a way forward
(19:42):
that you've seen work in thisexample, or just thinking about
the way that, when trust is notreciprocated like, how do you
then navigate?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Maybe this is an opportunity to bend the
conversation towards thelistening to the movement book.
There's always been kind of atension between social justice
(20:27):
activism and restorative justice, micro response to harm and
conflict issues to say we needto bring together the warrior
impulse for systemic change andthe healer impulse for
relational restoration, and ifyou only do one or the other
you're really not going to havewhat she's calling a full-bodied
(20:50):
approach to movement building.
And so I think that's part ofthe tension there.
In the restorative justiceworld it has a legacy of being a
program, a service provision,an incident response, and then
in more recent years it's likewe got to go upstream more.
(21:13):
We have to deal with conditions, there has to be deeper
community involvement, systemchange, and so all of those
things are converging.
My fear is that, because it'ssort of bogus for progressives
to focus on transformationalchange, that there's actually a
(21:34):
danger of compromising thelegacy of that micro-relational
building.
And I really believe that Faniaunderstands the need to balance
the two, because if thesystemic change upstages the
legacy of trust building andrelationship building and micro
(21:54):
peacemaking, you know, at thosesmall incremental levels it's
just going to turn the movementinto another revolutionary cause
which has its own challengesaround balance and power
leveraging.
So I really approach this issuefrom the standpoint that there
(22:14):
has to be constant effort tobring that healer and warrior
instinct together, rather thanjust letting the warrior
instinct sort of define all ofthe work.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing in, you know, that
aspect to it and I want to like,maybe thread back to what you
experienced at Pine Ridge, rightwhat?
Where I'm thinking about howFania's story and you know Fania
is the dream guest to get onthis podcast, it's going to
happen at some point butthinking about her journey as a
(22:53):
civil rights lawyer right andthen learning indigenous ways of
healing and peacemaking rightis where that dich, like what
stood out to you from thatexperience?
What made this be like?
(23:18):
Oh yeah, this is the thing thatI need to spend.
You know, seemingly, the restof my life doing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I would sum it up this way it's the sacredness of
dyadic conversation.
There's something extremelysacred when harming and harmed
people become vulnerable and getto the point where they find
new strengths to either sharetheir stories of harming or
being harmed.
(23:45):
And in that vulnerability isthe paradox of human connection,
empathy, letting go of hardthings, and that's a.
You know, Mark Umbreit talksabout that as a very sacred zone
and it's a very human zone.
(24:06):
It's at some level it'stranscultural.
When you think about the powerof people connecting on those
deep levels of understanding andempathy, levels of
understanding and empathy andbecause I've witnessed that so
many times at the micro level, Ican never let that go.
I mean, that's what reallydrives me vocationally is the
power of bearing witness tocourageous, offending and
(24:31):
victimized people who arewilling to go to those places
for deeper conversation.
So how I relate that to thewider systemic changes.
There is a need for thatsystemic change, whether it's in
the abolition tradition or thecivil rights tradition or the
(24:53):
Gandhian tradition.
I have no trouble with theconcept of disturbing the status
quo to bring about change, butI never want it to be at the
expense or at odds with thatsacred zone of how dyadic
dialogue is extremely powerfulas a way for people to be able
(25:19):
to coexist in diversecommunities, and whenever I
sense a little bit of eclipsingof that, I tend to be really
tuned into that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Keeping in mind the confidentiality of these
processes and the sacredness ofthese stories, are there
incidents that you've been givenpermission to share about that
really stand out, that reallymade this dyadic dialogue
salient for you, that made itreally click for you over the
(25:49):
years?
Maybe it's the first time thatit really clicked, or maybe just
in a really impactful time overthe years of?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
doing.
Yeah, I appreciate that inviteand yeah, there are stories that
actually went public innewspapers, so there's there's
no breach of confidentiality.
One of the standout ones for mewas on 9-1-1, september 11,
2001.
There was a middle-aged man whowas charged with a hate crime
(26:23):
in Eugene, oregon.
I worked in Eugene for 10 years.
Basically death threats to anIslamic cultural center and
there were several phone callsbut but it involved a verbal, uh
, death threat to people in thewake of 9-1-1 and the short of
(26:43):
it is is that the human rightscommission in the city, which
was pretty progressive for youknow, 20 years ago, routed the
case to my program because theMuslim couple did not want to
look vindictive through acourt-based process.
They really were thankful for acommunity-based process and it
(27:07):
ended up that the responsibleparty was acting more solo it
wasn't really like acting out ofa white supremacist group or
anything like that, but wasacting pretty solo and ended up
willing to take ownership andwas apologetic.
So, amazingly, because of thestakeholders in the district
(27:27):
attorney's office and the humanrights commission, we were able
to have prep meetings within amonth from 9-1-1.
And I think it was a month anda half.
We had a joint meeting whichinvolved kind of a large circle
this is sort of before circleswere even known as circles, but
there was probably 25 people inthe room Two hours of pretty
(27:50):
difficult conversation.
We actually reached an impasseand it was suggested that we
take a break and come back aweek later.
So kind of to come full circleto what you're getting at like.
Have I really witnessed thepower of dyadic conversation?
What basically happened is thatthe Muslim man, who was
(28:12):
primarily the impacted party,kept saying why did you do this,
why did you do this?
He wasn't getting the kind ofanswers that were satisfying him
.
He was a scientist.
He needed something deep aswell as something that made
sense and he kept pressing forthat and the responsible party
struggled with accounting forthat.
(28:35):
When we all came back a weeklater, something had percolated
for the responsible party and hebegan to talk more out of his
backstory and started to accountfor the death of a child at age
one.
That happened in September andhe relived that traumatically
(28:58):
every September and kind of losthis bearings and said a few
other things about his worldviewthat helped him fit some puzzle
pieces together and out of thatsharing, the Muslim man finally
said this is helping me, thisis really helping me now.
(29:19):
And then shift happens.
That's a powerful phrase I usein all my trainings, because
when people finally have enoughverbal gift exchange in dyadic
conversation, they feel likethey can let go of of their
clashing narratives andre-narrate things in a way that
(29:41):
helps them to move forward.
And when shift happens, that'swhen people can talk about the
future and that happens at adeep, sacred, energetic level.
it's not just word content, it'srebuilt trust where trust was
lost.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Or didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Exactly so.
That can happen between policeand people of color, if they're
willing to be vulnerable, totalk about how violence has
affected them.
This has been tried inMilwaukee.
You put together a group ofofficers with a group of
reintegrating offenders, even ifthey're, like in Milwaukee,
(30:24):
predominantly Black and you askthe same question to all of them
how has violence affected you?
You get them talking out oftheir stories and all of a
sudden, everyone's becoming ahuman being.
That's a huge way to dyadicallyopen up some bridges where
(30:44):
there's naturally some walls.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I want to touch on a few things that came up for me
when you were talking about thecase one, the, the impact of.
We came to an impasse and wetook a break and came back right
.
Um, earlier you talked about,you know, the way that
restorative justice, restorativepractices have in some places
(31:08):
that we you and I probablywouldn't like call very
restorative spaces, like, havebecome very programmatic, like,
okay, you have x amount ofmeetings, um, and it needs to
happen in this timeframe.
And if it doesn't happen, okay,we're going to reroute it to
our more punitive ways of being.
It's great that you had, likeone, the ability to have those
pre-meetings so quickly, had theability within the program,
(31:32):
within the context that you hadto, you know, to cycle back for
people who are thinking aboutnavigating conflict and harm in
restorative ways.
It's not a linear thing thatyou can just say, like, we will
resolve this in these threehours today, or, god forbid you
even think about like, hey, inthis half hour quote unquote
circle after school, right,we're going to get us settled.
(31:55):
It's not always like that,right, and there are things that
you can do to help.
I'll say, expedite and makeprocesses more efficient with
pre-work right, but like it'sstill not linear and it still
requires the time.
What I also appreciate, in whichthe story that you shared, is,
(32:17):
you know, the dissatisfaction ofthe person who was impacted.
The man who was impacted, right,people who have been harmed
don't always get the answersthat they're looking for, don't
always get their needs met 100percent, and we, as much as like
(32:38):
I'm an advocate for restorativeprocesses and I imagine you are
right, like this isn't likesome easy thing that like you're
gonna get the results that youwant every time.
In this circumstance, you knowthere was some deeper
understanding, some uh, newtrust built and you know, I'm
assuming people were able tomove on with their lives in ways
(33:00):
that were less, where there wasless fear, right, and less
uncertainty, and so thank you somuch for that story.
And then when you come back andtalk about the way that this
can impact individualrelationships between police
officers and community members,I definitely have seen and
(33:24):
acknowledged the way that thosestories can impact the way that
an officer views somebody in thecommunity or people in the
community view individualofficers and at the end of the
day, it is still the officer'sjob to enforce the law in ways
(33:44):
that are not necessarilyconducive to still building
community trust.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, definitely a tension there between roles,
agendas, paradigms and then sortof having like this unique
opportunity of human connectionin the midst of that wider
context.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Right, right, because you know those things can be,
those dialogues can be harmreductive, right, those
dialogues can be harm reductive,right that can, on like as you
were sharing in those human tohuman interactions, be
restorative, be transformative,help people in tension, navigate
those, those micro situationsand folks who are advocating for
(34:30):
transformative justice, likechanging the conditions under
which harm between, specifically, police and marginalized
communities both you know,communities of color, black
communities, people who aredisabled, people who experience
mental health challenges, etc.
Etc.
Those systemic things stillexist and it's beyond, just like
the incidence of individualharm, that we need to navigate.
(34:53):
I don't want to like linger onthat too much.
There are so many other thingsthat we get to talk about.
You know we talk about on thispodcast.
You know your journey throughthe work and because it's been
decades, I don't want you to golike blow, blow, blow on every
project that you've worked on,everything that, year by year,
has been impactful for you.
(35:14):
But you know your career inthis work has led you through a
lot of different spaces, fromacademia to the criminal legal
system, in lots of, lots ofdifferent contexts, and I'm
curious if there are any otherstories, incidents, learnings
that were really important toyou leading up to where we're
(35:34):
going to get into the genesis ofthe listening to the movement
project in 2015 yeah I think oneum one thing I was aware of
because, because of how somemennonite connections really
opened up things vocationallyfor me, I was aware that, along
with Howard Zare at EasternMennonite University, was
(35:58):
partnered with John PaulLederach, who ended up getting
involved with internationalpeacemaking and went to Notre
Dame.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
He was very active in the 80s with another man called
, called Ronald Craybill, andboth of them initially were
developing dialogue-based modelsfor addressing conflicts within
faith communities.
And there's sort of a joke, aninsider joke that came up like
(36:31):
back in those days, and the jokewas you know, know, why did
these two pioneers, john paulletter rock and ronald crable,
leave the field of churchconflict resolution to do
international peacemaking?
and the answer is, well, becausethe latter was far easier sure
(36:53):
you know, so so they they getinvolved with like african
transitional justice stuff andtribal, uh, working with tribal
conflicts and stuff like that.
But I, I was always aware, uh,since I have a, you know, a
church faith background, whatwould it be like to take what
I'm learning in the criminalrealm with restorative justice
(37:15):
and apply it to faithcommunities?
And so at times I've done, I'vedone a half a dozen church
mediation jobs over the yearsand they're very, very hard,
they're thick, they're tangled,there's toxicity, there is, you
know, family systems times threeto four.
(37:38):
And so that prompted me to domore of the prevention work.
Because I'm watching schools,you know who originally did RJ
as a discipline alternative.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
but and many still are trying.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Trying, but most schools understand that you have
to go upstream and doprevention work and community
building work and supportivework.
That's much wider than justreactionary, and so I started
applying that to the faithcommunities.
What does it look like to startdoing workshops and prevention
(38:13):
work to build cultures ofapology and forgiveness?
And so I have a big side areathere in my.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
What all has that looked like?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, putting up a website that's integrating
restorative justice withpractices for faith communities,
doing some workshops, both inperson and online, that
integrate those traditions withskill building.
The most recent exciting thingis I've partnered with a number
(38:47):
of Black clergy from the southside of Chicago and we're having
a Restorative Church gatheringthe Monday after the NACRJ
conference.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
And we might as well just shout it out right now July
7th through 9th, with apre-conference day on July 6th,
the NACRJ conference ishappening.
It's very soon.
By the time you're listening tothis podcast, it might be too
late for you to make travelarrangements or get a ticket,
but if you are available andwant to connect with so many
(39:21):
restorative justicepractitioners around the world
meet Ted, meet me, meet so manyothers who have been featured on
this podcast you can head overto NACRJorg and find all the
information that you need to getthere.
Sufficient plug, but yeah, Iimagine this work.
(39:42):
I grew up in church.
I've seen the way that churchcommunities deal with conflict
and it ends in people leavingRight.
It ends in individuals leavingoften, but it also looks like
groups of people.
Just just, there's a schismright and new denominations are
started or new churches arestarted because of
(40:06):
irreconcilable differences.
I believe I got thatpronunciation.
Were there any things that sofully acknowledging that so much
of this work is proactive, werethere?
And again thinking about youknow confidentiality and things
that you're able to share?
Were there any stories of youknow the ability to repair harm
(40:28):
between either individuals orgroups of folks in church
communities and faith-basedcommunities that are really
salient for you.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
One short example that was a small example was I
led a grieving circle for about12 people who left a church
because of dysfunction andleadership tensions and and
things were just kind ofbreaking apart.
But all all 12 of these adultsmoved out of this church at
(41:04):
different stages over about ayear long and then they weren't
really connected.
And so there was one of themreally thought, you know, it'd
be really nice if there could besome kind of gathering of these
people who left.
So I was able to prepare folksand then hold about a four hour
grieving circle with a potluckafterwards, and that was really
(41:27):
helpful for them to kind of havethe equivalent of like a
funeral service, have theequivalent of like a funeral
service, but also to think about, you know, who are we going
forward now without having tocarry some of those lonesome
hurts?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Sometimes, when we are faced with harm, and in this
circumstance right, there isnot willingness for people to
reconcile between aggrievedparties or parties that are in
tension, right, we can still usethese practices to meet folks'
needs for whether belonging,needing to acknowledge the harm
(42:07):
that happened to them, gettingcommunity support and ways
forward to have that harmprevented moving forward.
It might not always look likebeing in community with harm
prevented moving forward.
It might not always look likebeing in community with each
other moving forward.
I think a lot of the times uh,the I don't I don't know the
exact circumstances of this, but, like this happens a lot of the
times, with abuse right, whereit is not healthy for either
(42:29):
party for them to reconcile andbe back together.
But you know, both can moveforward in a good way, not even
ever having to interact with theothers, if they're both getting
support in a restorative wayfrom their community members,
and so you know, thank you forsharing that story.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Absolutely.
I love your phrase goingforward Because when I define
what is restorative justice,people think classically oh,
it's about bringing a victimoffender together for
face-to-face dialogue you knowwhat ends up on Oprah's show,
(43:10):
and I say no, it's not aboutthat.
It's about helping harming andharm people to move forward in
their lives, no matter who theymeet with, and explaining that
many times it's not possible orappropriate for harming and harm
people of the same case to cometogether.
Once you redefine restorativework as people moving forward
together in healthy, healingmanners, then you start to think
outside the box.
(43:31):
Who are the other conversationpartners that could help be part
of their encounter moment?
You know that would help themto set some things to rest or to
be dignified or validated.
And I'm actually going to bepart of a panel in Chicago on
talking about use of surrogatesfor sexual harm cases and we'll
(43:58):
spotlight a case I did aboutfive years ago of both a
victimized and offending partywho contacted our center.
Independent from each other,wanted restorative dialogue in
their own journeys and were wellsuited to actually be dyadic
(44:21):
partners after a seven-monthpreparation.
So I'm going to feature that asa way to really widen the
opportunities for people to havedeep restorative conversations
without the possibility of themmeeting with their actual case
counterparts.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's again.
You know I appreciate that youhighlighting that, the seven
months that it took to evenbegin to prepare, like for that
conversation, and like sevenmonths happened and people
aren't ready, like we don't goforward because, like we don't
want to cause more harm when we,when we do that, when we do
(45:28):
that and there's this immensesense of urgency for folks to
resolve conflict and harm, butthis process is too urgent to
rush we a little bit more.
I am thinking I just want tocall back for some folks who
maybe haven't listened to thispodcast for a long time, back to
an episode where we featuredMia Hunt of Hidden Water, nyc,
talking about the way that theyhave done circles for people who
(45:49):
have been impacted by childhoodsexual abuse, for a little bit
more of a deeper dive on thattopic.
You know you've done this workextensively.
You know faith communities,criminal legal system, some
places like, again, academia,schools, individual incidents of
harm as serious as sexualviolence.
(46:12):
It led you to this place in2015, where you know you gave
your definition of restorativejustice and lots of different
people define restorativejustice in different ways and
use the framing in differentways, in different ways and use
the framing in different ways.
(46:33):
It started a series ofconversations in partnership
with EMU and I'm curious whatwas the genesis of that and how
has it manifested since?
What have been some keylearnings for you?
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, there were three stages.
Emu got some grant money andthe initial stage was just
bringing together some of thethought leaders in the movement.
For even to ask the question isrestorative justice a social
movement?
It's worth saying that the wordmovement can mean multiple
(47:07):
things to different people, andwhen Howard Zare used the word
movement 30 years ago, even hewas thinking more in terms of
like a river that has a movementand a river that gets bigger
and bigger when othertributaries come into it.
He wasn't thinking of it asmovement in the sense of like
the abolition movement, thecivil rights movement.
(47:38):
But eventually, I would sayafter 2010, it started.
New conversations were happeningaround this.
This is not just a program,it's not a service, it's not an
intervention, that's, you know,just for isolated things.
This has a whole paradigmaticopportunity to change systems on
all levels and indigenoustraditions.
Don't think of it in any way aslike a side dish.
(48:01):
It's like the air they breathe,it's the values they live at
every level, and so, by the time2015 came around, there was a
heightened sense of restorativejustice as being re-understood
as a true social movement withtransformative elements, and
then the tension is okay.
If that's what it really is.
(48:22):
What does that mean forre-understanding its beginnings?
What does that mean for theclassic realm of interventions?
You know it raised new kinds ofquestions.
It also raised what I call thefrontier zones, and the book
Listening to the Movement reallycomes out of the third stage of
(48:43):
EMU's effort to try to capturewhat are those frontier zones
that show that this is muchwider than just a criminal
program, you know, foraddressing harmful incidents.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, and you know of those.
It's funny for me to be havingthis conversation with you now,
already having interviewed manyof the contributing authors and
having read most of the bookalready.
Right, Also acknowledging thatmuch of the book was written two
(49:18):
, three, four years ago.
At this point, right, what weresome key learnings for you, as
you were hearing from all thesedifferent voices who had been
practicing these ways of beingand like these programs in
different ways across differentsectors?
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I would say the primary one was recognizing that
communities could bere-empowered and even at some
level to be independent, withdefining restorative, holistic
work in those communitieswithout heavy reliance on
(50:01):
traditional systems, traditionalsocial work systems,
traditional justice systems.
And so the whole concept ofhubs, you know, which we see in
Oakland and Chicago andelsewhere, is an example of
saying we don't need to beheavily partnered or reliant on
all these traditional systems,as if we're thinking in terms of
(50:24):
reform, we can do wholesomestuff as community-based
stakeholders.
And so I would say the bookkind of starts to reflect some
of that push off where you don'thave to envision like
traditional systems somehowbending and reforming and
(50:46):
partnering.
It's more like we're just goingto move forward with good,
wholesome stuff and we're reallynot that interested in waiting
for judges and prosecutors andprobation officers to somehow
see the light.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, I've been attributing this quote to Miriam
Kaba and she might have said itin one way.
I recently heard Nils Christytalked about the idea also that,
like, and we've outsourcedcommunity care to social
services as well.
I think that might be the piecethat she's tagged on um in the
conversation with uh Daniel Roge, which will air in the coming
weeks, talking about the waythat social work um has to
(51:38):
change with this kind ofparadigm, and conversations with
um Ethan Ucker.
Uh about, you know, the waythat the criminal legal system
is engaged in dealing withintercommunal violence.
Like there are myriad ways thatwe as community members can
deal with these things withouthaving to engage those
(51:58):
stakeholders.
And in my understanding ofrestorative justice work because
I came into this work really in2014, like, just like around
the time when you and manyothers who had been doing this
work for a long time like we'restarting to um center more
(52:19):
community driven uh ways ofbeing and doing this work.
Like that has just been myorientation to all of this Um
and shout out to Cheryl and Oraand Pam and Tomas and Miriam and
like all the other teachers umwho have been um who who helped
me get to that space.
Um, what has been the impact ofthese conversations that you've
(52:42):
seen across um practitioners,people who have been doing this
work, maybe in more system,aligned ways over the years, in
response to both theconversations and the book as
it's come out?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, I think, doesn't the subtitle have both
the phrase opportunities andchallenges?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Growth and new challenges.
Growth and new challenges.
Okay, growth and new challenges.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
I think at one point we had a working title that
showed opportunities andchallenges, and I think we're
still in that zone where therecent growth has been amazing
and wonderful, but you know thatwhenever there's wider, faster
growth, it creates unforeseenchallenges around how is all
(53:31):
this holding together and whatare the continuity elements?
So, being connected to NACRJ,I'm really mindful that there
are still conversations that areperennial around what are the
common denominators or commonroots?
When there's that muchcommunity empowerment and, you
(53:54):
could say, autonomy, which is,in my mind, a good direction
because I'm a really big fan oflocalized power rather than
local efforts having to bebeholden to something beyond the
local realm, it brings a newchallenge.
(54:14):
How does it all hold together?
You know, in New Zealand andCanada and Belgium they have
systems that sort of integrateeverything together, at least at
a criminal level.
That creates standards,continuities, model replication.
We don't quite have that in theUnited States because we sort
(54:36):
of prize experimental, beingexperimental with new ventures.
So I probably could say alittle more, but I'll just
summarize it by saying for everypositive growth we're still
seeing new challenges forholding things together.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, what this?
This might be a retread of aquestion that I already asked,
so the response might be similar.
But what has surprised you themost?
Both?
I'm not thinking so much fromthe content, but from the impact
(55:21):
that um you've seen of thisbook and this project um over
the last few years?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
I think one thing that surprised me if I was able
to sort of compare a perspectivenow from even 10 years ago is
the growth of the circle model.
10 years ago I would havethought more in terms of, okay,
there's different dialoguemodels and they all kind of have
(55:53):
their strengths and limits andhere's how they kind of balance
with each other, and I primarilytrain and use conference model
more than circle model.
But I have seen an assumptionthat the circle model is the
dominant model for restorativedialogue work because it's so
(56:14):
versatile and it covers allprevention and intervention and
can adapt in all sorts ofcommunity ways.
The surprising thing for me isthat I don't see enough
conversation around strengthsand limits of models and I've
(56:35):
done a little bit of workshopwork on this very topic because
if restorative practitioners arenot aware of strengths and
limits of the model they use andthey kind of make the
assumption that this model ispeople, the only way people get
what I call model loyalty, ifthat's primarily how they're
trained and and their avenue oflearning.
(56:57):
Restorative work is based on amodel that that eventually
creates new challenges aroundthe the growth and spread.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yeah, and I think, speaking to circles really
specifically over the last twoyears and speaking about
pandemic times, although we havedone things on Zoom that are
circle-like, none of thosethings are actually circles in
my view, and so you are havingto employ a conferencing model
(57:31):
or conferencing methodologypractice, because you're not in
that physical space with peopleand like there are other nuances
as well.
But I think, speaking from mytraining perspective, what we do
at Amplify RJ, it is much moreabout teaching people the
underlying framework of thoserestorative questions and
(57:54):
holding space for people inwhatever way that manifests.
Right, Because there is ascript for a circle that you can
do, there is a script for a oran outline for a conferencing
thing that you can do.
But if that is not what is bestconducive to your situation
like that's probably not whatyou should do, whether that is
culturally right, People are notgoing to be culturally
(58:17):
responsive or receptive to acircle, or you know, or the
conferencing model.
You have to be adaptable andthank you so much for
highlighting that.
You know these conversations canhappen in multiple ways.
These dialogues can happen inmultiple ways.
One right way of doing things.
(58:50):
There are multiple ways ofdoing even circle work, even
restorative work.
It doesn't just have to be thatcircle model, which was the
model that I was brought up in,right, but there are definitely
different ways to navigateconflict navigate harm, build,
maintain, repair relationships.
Yeah, Thank you.
Thank you so much for that pairrelationships.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Yeah, let me add one more pieceto the same topic.
I'm really thankful that peopleare finding their they're
trusting their own intuitions todo what I call blended models.
And the last time I did aworkshop on circle conference
(59:34):
strengths and limits, I found Iwas getting people to just talk
out of their experiences.
Most of the participants werealready comfortable with
blending aspects from bothmodels that they kind of drew
from, and I think that's awonderful thing.
I do that too when I'm workingwith larger groups.
I'll do opening and closinggo-arounds, but in the middle
(59:55):
I'll facilitate a little morelike a conference, which for me
is actually less scripted in theway I do.
Facilitation and ultimately thestrength that conferencing has
over circling is the realm ofresponse.
That's the dyadic magic.
(01:00:16):
You know when people can canrespond either by echoing what
they've heard or responding fromthe heart back and and if
circles set up that traditional,you know, go around, speak your
truth, your truth, speak yourthoughts, speak your perspective
.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
And wait for the talking piece to come around.
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
It can really mute the power of direct response,
and so if it's a peacemakingcircle, at least you know more
narrowly without a dimension ofresponse between the most
harming and harm people present,they can get muted out, so that
those are some pieces I'mreally mindful of from the kind
(01:00:56):
of work that I do.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
I know that there is a attention for me and this is
something that I've had tonavigate as someone who grew up
in this work with circle beingthe thing Right.
Also preserving like excuse me,I'll say the sanctity of circle
process Right and that's notalways possible in the spaces
(01:01:20):
that you're in and being okaywith blending that to serve the
needs of the people that you are, that you're in dialogue with,
that you are helping to navigatetheir conflict and harm is
important.
It doesn't have to be like thispure.
This is the only way thatthings can be.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
We've covered a lot and I want to make sure that we
get to all the questions thateveryone answers when they come
on the podcast.
But before we do, is thereanything else that you want to
shout out about the book?
Well, it's going to be 40% offat Chicago.
We hope to have copies for salethere and we'll also have
flyers, I think, for anyonewho's listening now.
(01:02:03):
It's a great book that givesthe foundation of indigenous
principles.
There are strong themes ofaddressing race relations all
through the book.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
It gives some of those frontier zones where
restorative justice is appliedto brand new areas, such as
earth care and environmentaljustice which is an episode that
we already ran featuring, uh,valerie serrell, just because it
was earth day and we wanted torun with it ahead.
So you can already go back andlisten to that episode and then
(01:02:38):
go read the chapter in the book.
But, um, yes, covering so manyaspects, so many frontiers, so
many horizons.
I interrupted you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Is there anything else?
That's fine.
It's just a great book to sortof benchmark both growth and
challenges of this time we're inright now.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Beautiful, All right.
So the questions that everyoneanswers when they come on the
podcast, without knowing it.
You've already answered one ofthem when you gave your
definition of restorativejustice, so I'm not going to ask
you that again.
But what I am going to ask youis, as you've been doing this
work, what's been an oh shitmoment, a mistake or something
that you would do differentlynow?
(01:03:18):
Or you're looking back and likehow could I do that and what
did you learn from it?
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
no-transcript to address unintended consequences,
meaning that when things don'tgo well, when process choices
were poorly formed, that you goto parties with humility and
still try to dignify yourrelationship and communication
(01:04:07):
with them and I have had to dothat now and then over the years
.
It's really hard to admit likeI could have made a much better
process choice.
But one that really stands outfor me in several cases is that
when I've gotten involved withshuttled communications where
it's not appropriate for partiesto come together either too
(01:04:29):
soon but they're wanting tocommunicate things either by
writing or by giving permissionUh, I, I have found myself in
this in some really difficultgray areas about representing
the words of one party toanother.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Projecting your perspective onto their words.
Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Some of that comes through the telephone game.
But even in shuttling a writtenpiece, I'm aware of the limits
of that because there's not thatenergetic dimension you get,
you know, like when an animal isnear you and you're reading
each other.
You don't get that from just awritten piece.
And there have been times wheresome shuttle communications led
(01:05:10):
to some unintentionalconsequences, maybe even some
re-victimization, and each timeI catch myself around wow, there
really are limits to a processwhere you're helping people to
be empowered to say and hearwhat they really need to say and
(01:05:31):
hear.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
When you encounter those things, you know.
You talked about the need toacknowledge the unintended
consequences of your actions.
Consequences of your actions.
How do you best prevent thatgoing forward?
Because, like shuttlecommunications, like is,
continues to be a part ofpractice when we are dealing
(01:05:53):
with people who are not at aplace where they can be in the
same space together.
How do you prevent that harmfrom happening to the best of
your?
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
ability.
I think the most practical wayand I'm even kicking myself for
not doing this better insomething that was about a month
ago is that first, you're neverfacilitating heavy duty things
alone.
You're always partnered up witha team of co-facilitators two,
three, four of you and then,practically, if you have an
intuition that you're entering asensitive zone of shuttle
communications, that you'rereally pre-briefing with your
(01:06:36):
facilitator team around.
Are we really doing the best wecan here?
Are we aware of some risks?
Could we set some betterboundaries?
Could we lower someexpectations and just talk that
through?
Because without that talkingthrough it's easy to kind of do
(01:06:57):
things, just because you'reeager for the process to move
forward.
So taking the time to pre-briefis probably the best option.
Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah, thank you for that learning.
This one is challenging in adifferent way.
You get to sit in circle withfour people, dead or alive.
Who are they and what is theone question you ask that circle
?
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Well, the person that came to my mind, uh, is
actually a friend of mine wholives on pine ridge.
Um, he's a lakota man who comesfrom the red cloud clan.
He's been a friend of minesince the very year that I first
was introduced to restorativework.
We used to do furniturerestoration work together in a
(01:07:49):
shop and we got to know eachother and we still keep in touch
.
I'd love to be in a circle withhim and his wife and maybe a
couple other people they mightchoose to talk about the impacts
of the pandemic, on thereservation.
Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
As you've been sharing.
You've dropped so many gems.
What is one thing?
Maybe it's a mantra, maybe it'san affirmation maybe it's a key
learning that you want to makesure everyone listening to the
podcast knows.
Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
I think I'd like to just reframe the protest line no
justice, no peace.
I've thought a lot about whatthat means in our society and I
actually have a whole article onit that tries to come at it
from a restorative perspective.
But one of the things that hasbeen meaningful to me that kind
(01:08:48):
of pulls us back into themesthroughout our whole podcast
here is that how you definejustice is really vital in that
phrase, because if you arethinking in terms of traditional
justice as necessary to bringabout peace, as necessary to
(01:09:12):
bring about peace, you arebasically operating in a
contestual paradigm, a frameworkwhere there tends to be
win-lose in a court context andwe're frustrated if someone gets
acquitted, and so our conceptof justice on that phrase in my
mind generally leans toward atraditional understanding of
justice, as you know bringingtruth and then bringing a
(01:09:35):
punitive outcome.
If you redefine justice in arestorative manner, it actually
builds a different way ofthinking about the peace that
comes after, and I would reallysuggest that if we understand
that phrase as deep relationshipbuilding with respect and
(01:09:56):
responsibility those three Rsthat are so vital to any kind of
justice process that that isgonna build a more lasting peace
on any level.
So that's kind of what I'd liketo leave folks to chew over.
Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah, I'm sitting in deep reflection with that um,
for for a couple reasons.
One, because the line thatfollows up no justice, no peace
in a lot of the protests thatI've been at is no racist police
, right and um that like thatcan be um and, like you know,
(01:10:42):
we're coming back to that, thatwhich is very present where
we're at, and that's both noracist individuals who are
fulfilling that role.
But what does it look like totransform that institution or
transform the conditions underwhich that institution of
policing has to exist?
And what you're talking aboutis the definition of peace and
(01:11:06):
the definition of justice.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
How and where can people support you and your work
in the ways that you want to besupported Financially?
I mean a big part of my work, Ifeel like, is pro bono and then
, of course, a lot of mytraining in workshop work.
(01:11:55):
You know, I do try to make aliving by it, but I'm not
salaried with my center and Ifeel a calling to this work.
So I tend to say yes to thingswhere I should probably be a
little more measured if it'sgoing to demand a lot of my time
without any pay.
So people can just support inany way they're led to.
Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Yeah, I mean so, like part of that looks like book
sales, but like that's not likea big chunk of it, like is there
a specific place that peopleshould go?
Is it the center's site whereit's make a donation, or is it
somewhere else?
Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
I, I see yeah, our uh university of minnesota duluth
site has a place for donation,and that money would support the
amount of pro bono frontierwork we're doing with things
like sexual assault or orcommunity building or pulling
regional folks together forlearning.
(01:12:50):
We don't have a budget for mostof this stuff, and so that
would be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Present day.
David, here I'm going to switchup the ask from Ted at the end
of that episode to remind youthat, if you appreciated this
conversation, if you and if youhave the financial means, please
support his family, as they'reuh still paying off the medical
expenses from his battle withcancer.
Uh link to the GoFundMe is inthe description.
We'll be back with anotherepisode of this restorative
(01:13:21):
justice life very, very soon.
Um, until then, take care andbe safe.
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