Virginia Swain's Musings

Memories of Being in NYC on 9/11/01 by Virginia Swain

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:20:00 +0000

Tenth Anniversary of September 11 Commemoration Brings Back Memories of Being in NYC on 9/11/01

On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, I clearly remember when at 9:00 am on 9/11/01, a security guard ordered me to leave my meeting at the United Nations because they were on on high alert. I left New York three days later, grieving.

Two years earlier, I had been invited to present Reconciliation Leadership and Global Mediation and Reconciliation Service at the Hague Appeal for Peace (in the Netherlands) to develop and support emerging and seasoned leaders in dialogue and deliberation processes needed for this moment in community, institutional, social, ecological and economic global history.

There is a mural in the UN Security Council of a phoenix rising out of the ashes of World War II. After 9/11, I dreamt of a new phoenix rising out of the ashes of the commemoration of September 11th—one where the peoples of this country truly care for each other as well as for the peoples beyond our borders. In my dream, people were encouraging each other to speak to one another, rebuild trusting relationships, step off the treadmill from our busyness and see beyond our roles as victims and perpetrators to our shared humanity.

Since I was in New York City both in 1993 and 2010 during both World Trade Center attacks, I have noticed a natural public engagement process t emerge during emergncies and crises when deep connection with strangers allow an experience of our common humanity when all our defenses are down.

The leadership and development pocesses I have developed in the years since being at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, on the committee of the Tent of Meeting Project for the City of New Haven, CT, creating and implemeting the Celebration of the Children of the World: A Model for Building Global Community, The Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation to Develop Political Will has evolved from these experiential stepping stones applied with refugees and immigrants in the US from post-genocide Rwanda, former Yugoslavia, and in the Philippines debriefing UN Muslim and Christian peacebuilders during the Mindanao Peace Process. These and other case studies can be viewed at

I purposely designed Reconciliation Leadership and frameworks for a GlobalMediation and Reconciliation Service so that leaders and dialogue and deliberation could be in place that would engage people in deep connection from a similar flow as the natural process during a crisis. It is planned that we don’t have to have a crisis to experience the deep connection of our common humanity.

For more on Reconciliation Leadership and the Global Mediation and Reconcilation Service post 9/11:

Reconciliation as Policy: A Capacity-Building Proposal for Renewing Leadership and Development, Virginia Swain and Sarah Sayeed 2005, for Round Table 3 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005. http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_Reconciliation_as_Policy.pdf

A Leadership and Practice to Reconcile Challenges in a Post-September 11th World, Virginia Swain and Sarah Sayeed 2006, for a paper for the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, prepared for the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006. http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_LeadershipChallenges.pdf

September 11 Commemoration Brings Back Memories of Being in NYC on 9/11/01

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:13:00 +0000

On this ninth anniversary of 9/11, I clearly remember when at 9:00 am on 9/11/01, a security guard ordered me to leave my meeting at the United Nations because they were on on high alert. I left New York three days later, grieving.

Two years earlier, I had been invited to present Reconciliation Leadership and Global Mediation and Reconciliation Service at the Hague Appeal for Peace (in the Netherlands) to develop and support emerging and seasoned leaders in dialogue and deliberation processes needed for this moment in community, institutional, social, ecological and economic global history.

There is a mural in the UN Security Council of a phoenix rising out of the ashes of World War II. After 9/11, I dreamt of a new phoenix rising out of the ashes of the commemoration of September 11th—one where the peoples of this country truly care for each other as well as for the peoples beyond our borders. In my dream, people were encouraging each other to speak to one another, rebuild trusting relationships, step off the treadmill from our busyness and see beyond our roles as victims and perpetrators to our shared humanity.

Since I was in New York City both in 1993 and 2010 during both World Trade Center attacks, I have noticed a natural public engagement process t emerge during emergncies and crises when deep connection with strangers allow an experience of our common humanity when all our defenses are down.

The leadership and development pocesses I have developed in the years since being at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, on the committee of the Tent of Meeting Project for the City of New Haven, CT, creating and implemeting the Celebration of the Children of the World: A Model for Building Global Community, The Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation to Develop Political Will has evolved from these experiential stepping stones applied with refugees and immigrants in the US from post-genocide Rwanda, former Yugoslavia, and in the Philippines debriefing UN Muslim and Christian peacebuilders during the Mindanao Peace Process. These and other case studies can be viewed at

I purposely designed Reconciliation Leadership and frameworks for a GlobalMediation and Reconciliation Service so that leaders and dialogue and deliberation could be in place that would engage people in deep connection from a similar flow as the natural process during a crisis. It is planned that we don’t have to have a crisis to experience the deep connection of our common humanity.

For more on Reconciliation Leadership and the Global Mediation and Reconcilation Service post 9/11:

Reconciliation as Policy: A Capacity-Building Proposal for Renewing Leadership and Development, Virginia Swain and Sarah Sayeed 2005, for Round Table 3 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005. http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_Reconciliation_as_Policy.pdf

A Leadership and Practice to Reconcile Challenges in a Post-September 11th World, Virginia Swain and Sarah Sayeed 2006, for a paper for the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, prepared for the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006. http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_LeadershipChallenges.pdf

The Power of Mentoring: In Gratitude for Elise Boulding: Events in her honor on October 13 (New York), November 6 (Worcester), November 11 (New York)

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:53:00 +0000

I attended Dr. Elise Boulding's funeral at Wellesley College July 6, on her 90th birthday.

For those who do not know her work, she was professor emerita of sociology at Dartmouth College and former Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association. A partial list of her works: Women: The Underside of History. Children's Rights and the Wheel of Life, Building a Global Civic Culture, Eudcation for an Independent World and Culture of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse University Press). For all her books and her biography, A Life in the Cause of Peace (Mary Lee Morrison), go to amazon.com. For her obituary, go to the New York Times and google Elise Boulding Peace Scholar Dies at 89.

Elise and I met in 1993 just after the death her husband, Kenneth, when she moved to Wayland to live with her daughter. She was grieving the loss of her husband of more than 50 years.

Soon afterwards, she invited me to join her on the Friends Peace Teams she coordinated as well as participate and write a commentary in a several-month seminar at the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century where the proceedings were published in the book, Abolishing War: Dialogue with Peace Scholars Elise Boulding and Randall Forsberg.

Elise always encouraged me to write and speak about the Reconciliation Leadership Certificate Program (RLCP) and the Global Mediation and Reconciliation Service (GMRS) which arose out of my life journey at the United Nations since 1992. She led me in a process where my next steps to accept an invitation to speak at the Hague Appeal for Peace on the RLCP and the GMRS as well as attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University with 75 peacebuilders from all over the world, both in 1999.

When I wrote my memoir, A Mantle of Roses: A Woman’s Journey Home to Peace in 2004, it was Elise who read it and wrote an endorsement for the back cover (see above)

Elise continued to support me when I started teaching the Reconciliation Leadership courses at the UN in 2001. She wrote a welcome letter to my students in place of her being able to join us—urging the application of global citizenship being local and national. Elise encouraged me to start my television show, Imagine Worcester and the World on channel 13, wccatv.com/imagine.

Perhaps the most important part of her teaching for me came when I helped her organize a train the trainer workshop for the Imaging Process she developed with Warren Ziegler. For me, the philosophy and practice of Imaging is essential in all my work-- from 3rd graders who want to reverse climate change at Worcester’s Nelson Place School, to Reconciliation Leaders being trained at the UN, working with climate change, poverty and other global issues like the Millennium Development Goals. It is rare for me not to image daily.

The theory behind imaging is no solution to a local or global challenge will be resolved unless we envision or “see it”. As people imagine a positive future, they then can work back into present time to achieve a positive present with a timeline and concrete action steps. Elise believed that if we can image a solution to a challenge, the solution will happen after we get practical with a timeline and action steps. For examples, here is an image that one of my UN classes “saw” to end poverty. Everyone left the course knowing what they would do that day and following to end global poverty. Participants did a timeline backwards followed by an action plan to make the end of poverty, Millennium Development Goal Goal #1 part of each participant’s life.

My reflection for all who read this is to think about a person who needs our help today and offer support--just as Elise did for me.

On Wednesday, October 13, I will be leading an event at the United Nations in honor of Elise Boulding: Resolution 1325: Women, Peace and Security.

On Saturday, November 6, I will be facilitating an Imaging Workshop in Elise’s honor for Haiti at Notre Dame Educational Bridge Center in Worcester from 9:30-4:30 pm Call me at 508-245-6843 if you’re interested in attending the November 6 Haiti workshop honoring Elise’s work in imaging the solution to challenges. The cost is $50 (includes lunch) payable by check to the Institute for Global Leadership and sent to me at 210 Park Avenue, Worcester, MA 01609. Every participant needs to speak to me first before registering at 508-245-6843.

On Wednesday, November 11, I am honoring Elise again for the Imaging teaching at the UN. All who come will bring their images to dedicate in the Dag Hammarskjold Meditation Room.

Above is a picture of our last visit on April 15, 2010, the week before her final illness. It was a joyful visit in spite of the fact she had misplaced her hearing aid and we had to write notes to one another. Now I am lead tours to the UN on global issues, am an executive coach using the imaging process as well as working with others to address the global problematique.

Who will you mentor today?

“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive"

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:44:00 +0000

Passion as Fuel for Your Life and Work: The First Step of Mission-Focused Leadership

“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. What the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman, advisor to Martin Luther King

Once you have become re-acquainted with and act from what makes you come alive, then you have taken the first step towards becoming a mission-focused leader--bringing meaning, purpose direction for your life. Mission-focused leaders are focused practical idealists who empower others to act from their potential.

What makes you come alive is fuel to give you energy for your life and work—an essential ingredient in these tough times.

It is at this point that you can write a personal mission statement. Richard Bolles writes “mission is not a “problem to be solved in a day or a night. It is a learning process which has steps. Each step has to be mastered in turn before the next can be approached. An important step, he writes, it to “exercise the talent which you particularly have, your greatest gift, in which you most delight”, in the place that appeals to you the most and or those purposes which most need to be done in the world.”

Webster’s Abridged Dictionary states: “a mission is a continuing task or responsibility that one is destined or fitted to do or specially called upon to undertake.” The major synonyms listed in Webster are “calling” and “vocation”. In my consulting experience, people are hungry for authentic leadership, to have meaning and purpose in their lives. Besides having the confidence and trust in oneself and one’s abilities, a mission statement process gives a seasoned or emerging leader a foundation upon which to be successful in work and life, to find one’s passion and power. Power is no longer defined as “control” or “power over anyone. Power is being re-defined as integrity, clarity, intention and confidence.

The leader’s personal mission statement can set the tone and agenda for their organization’s involvement with a lively and interactive exchange, resulting in personal and organizational buy-in from all stakeholders.

Mission-focused leaders understand that their work is just part of a strategic planning process to achieve their goals. Along with mission statement preparation are visioning, writing goals/objectives, developing action plans, implementation, follow up and evaluation.

The passion as fuel and mission statement process stands at the foundation of the Institute for Global Leadership. Through the development of their personal mission statements, participants appreciate and draw on core gifts and strengths they’ve taken for granted. They acquire valuable competencies, including introspection, reflection, self-awareness, listening skills; clarity of one’s own needs and agenda; balance and wellness in one’s daily life; and sharing feedback without alienating their colleagues.

To read Virginia Swain’s article: Mission Possible! A Clear Statement of Purpose is an Important Fist Step in Breathing Life into a Business or Organization, go to www.global-leader.org/WhyMissionStatements.html.

For information on Leading Life from Your Passion Certificate Program, go to http://www.global-leader.org/gl_upcomingevents.htm.

In an excerpt from the introduction of Virginia Swain’s memoir, A Mantle of Roses: A Woman’s Journey Home to Peace, she writes: “I am an ordinary woman with extraordinary experiences. My story begins in 1979 when I felt a prompting I couldn't ignore. Because I have a certainty of what I am being led to do with my life, I understand now how I can make a difference in the world.” www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_mantle.html.

For a review http://www.stratletter.com/brev.lasso?id=243327329442348.

For information on one-day trips to the United Nations for yourself or your group, http://www.global-leader.org/gl_untours.html

How we can learn from an unlikely political figure, Lee Atwater

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:30:00 +0000

As I observe the lack of civility and destabilization in local and international political life, I remember Lee Atwater. Chief political advisor to the first President George Bush, Atwater sabotaged Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign with his Willie Horton strategy. He suggested Mr. Dukakis name furloughed rapist Willie Horton his running mate. He told Mr. Bush his vision of a kinder, gentler America wouldn’t win any votes.

All that changed when Mr. Atwater learned he had a brain tumor. Suddenly he saw that what was missing in society was what was missing in himself -- a little heart and a lot brotherhood. He apologized to Mr. Dukakis. He wrote about his spiritual awakening, turning to the Bible instead of The Art of War, realizing too late how much he missed spending time with family and friends. He realized his emphasis on greed and materialism had overtaken him. His fatal illness gave him an awareness of a “tumor of the soul” that was in him and in the American political leadership.

Lee Atwater’s life and death demonstrate how the practice of accountability rather than blame, forgiveness rather than revenge, and reconciliation rather than perpetration are essential for co-existence. Without them, humanity will repeat the suffering and horror of the last century’s wars and this century’s ethnic conflict.

At the international level, if we understand how the United Nations runs, we can empower it to combat the world’s instability by playing a stronger role in peacebuilding through the new United Nations Commission on Peacebuilding. Many Americans think the United Nations is impotent, not realizing that if we want to change the UN it has to be done through each country -- especially the country with the most power, the United States. Despite a movement at the end of World War II to strengthen the UN, the attempt failed, and now 192 countries work in their own self-interest to resolve problems rather than keeping collective and global interests in mind. The Security Council veto that strangles political will remains the stronghold of the five countries who were the victors of World War II. As one of those victors and the strongest of the five -- the only superpower -- we are accountable to strengthen the United Nations so that there is political will to enact its resolutions.

Closer to home, in Worcester, where we have more influence in our daily lives, public citizens can begin to address our spiritual vacuum in our own backyards. Change has a ripple effect. By reflecting on what is truly important, we can alter our behavior accordingly. We can get off that treadmill of old habits.

If I have an unresolved argument with my neighbor that has escalated into an intractable silence, I can step off the treadmill of ill will, take that first step and say hello.
If I know a gang member that is ready to reclaim his/her freedom, I can offer a helping hand to step off that treadmill of revenge.

Or if I have a sense of mistrust in the way my life is going, I can step off the treadmill of inertia and change direction, at whatever age. One of my mentors, Dr. Elise Boulding, Professor Emeritus of Dartmouth College, got her PhD at 50 and has written several dozen books since then.

People can stop being immobilized in their powerlessness. The first step is to rebuild trust within ourselves, our family and our neighborhood.

We can extend that olive branch. The ripple effect of our actions begins a turn of events. The way we treat our most vulnerable fellow citizens is a sign of our own health.
I dream of a new phoenix rising out of the ashes of our incivility—one where the peoples of this country truly care for each other as well as for the peoples beyond our borders. Lee Atwater’s final message inspires me to encourage people to speak, to care for one another, to rebuild trusting relationships by apology and atonement, and step off the treadmill, looking out beyond our roles as victims and perpetrators to our shared humanity.

Broken Open by the Darkness of Death: A Solstice Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Virginia Swain) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Broken Open by the Darkness of Death: A Solstice Reflection

I have just been to a friend's funeral and said goodbye to two other dying friends. I write this on the shortest day of the year asking readers to reflect on their lives just as I did when my life got broken open by the darkness of death.

Blessings to you,

Virginia Swain 12/21/09

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll never forget August 15, 1979. It was hot and sultry, not uncommon for August in New England. I was at work at the Pepperidge Farm Mail Order Company in Clinton, CT, going through a particularly grueling morning when, at 11:15, the receptionist buzzed me. My brother, Bobby, was on the line.

"Ginge," he said, his voice strained, "can we have lunch? Janna won't see me."

I cradled the phone in my neck, trying to sort through papers while I listened to my brother. My boss came into my office motioning that he needed me right away. "Bobby," I said, "I'm not even eating lunch today. It's crazy around here."

"But I need to see you," he said. Ten years my junior, Bobby treated me like a second mother and often turned to me for help.

"How about next week? Can we meet then?"

"Okay," he said, sounding disappointed. "If you don't have time, I'll wait." There was a pause. He said nothing for a moment. Then he said, "I really need to see you today. But if you don't have time, I'll wait." I went about my day, thankful that I had time to do my work without interruption.

The next morning the phone rang at 5:30 a.m., startling me awake. Through my half asleep state, I heard my mother's voice, breaking. "It's about Bobby...He was killed last night by a drunk driver on Avon Mountain. Dad is on his way to identify his body at the morgue."

An unexpected sound escaped from my mouth to voice the shock, the pain and yes, the denial. No, no, it can't be true. These things don't happen to us, they happen to other people. I was numb with shock. The memory of the previous day's conversation came flooding back to me in a rush--how could it be? I didn't believe it. I started screaming. My screaming woke up my stepdaughter, Amanda. "Mom, what's wrong?"

I couldn't stop screaming. Oddly, it occurred to me that I had never screamed like that before. It surprised me. I didn't know I had it in me. Haphazard memories flooded in of Bobby's life and our relationship. I was the oldest and he the youngest in a family of four children. I was his second mother as I was often left in charge when my parents went out of the house. So we had a bond that came from the lullabies I sang to him as I rocked him as a child, from the stories I read to him. He turned to me for emotional help often as he had turned to me yesterday. And I hadn't been available. It was the screaming of guilt, flying out from deep within.

I was unable to take in the enormity of Bobby's life ending. A cold dread enveloped me as we drove the hour to my Grandfather Pop's house that morning where the family gathered. We all sat there, alternately staring in disbelief and holding each other. We were crying, broken, bereft, but still not quite believing. The details of the accident started dribbling in--a drunken driver… 60 m.p.h… killed instantly.

The doorbell rang. It was my oldest friend Pam with a casserole of macaroni and cheese, freshly baked from the oven. We hugged, wordless. I thanked her for the act of kindness. After I helped myself, I took a bite and found I couldn't swallow it. How strange--my most rudimentary of human reflexes was suspended.

The phone calls came in from people far and wide. Loved ones, friends, acquaintances, Bobby's friends...all unbelieving...could the worst be true? Bad news travels fast. People came from Bobby's circle which extended beyond our town to the medical school community where he had finished his first year that June. Friends came from Amherst College, his alma mater, his medical school and from Kingswood-Oxford School, a private school all four of us children had attended and where Bobby had taught math and science during the two years previous to medical school.

My father came in after he had identified Bobby's body. Now we knew it was true.

He couldn't speak. He couldn't cry either. He crumpled into Pop's favorite chair. The silence dragged on among us. It was as if the rest of us weren't there. He was in his own world and we were cut off from him. I watched the second hand on Pop's grandfather clock tick away, for hours it seemed, as people came and went to offer comfort and support. When would this day ever end? When it did, would I wake up and realize this was a bad dream?

I sleepwalked through the two days before the funeral. My son, Tad, came home after climbing Mt. Washington with his dad, Tom. My heart broke open again as I told them what had happened and saw how upset they were. On the day of the funeral, my friend, Susan, drove three hours to stand in the church driveway as we drove in, her face full of compassion and concern. We didn't say anything, we just held one another. Then I saw Janna, Bobby's girlfriend. I turned my back on her angrily, remembering how Bobby was so upset by her refusal to see him. Walking into the church, I was stunned by the numbers. The church held 2,000 people. So many were here mourning one so young.

The words the Episcopalian priest spoke that day were simple but challenging for me.

Our prayers this morning for Robert Burrough Swain III express to God our gratitude for this open, lovable, committed young man...But there is another intercession that I fear each of us must offer in a manner that best suits himself or herself. Intercession is needed for understanding and explanation of this tragic event. Why did this have to happen to Bobby? Is there no standard of fair play in life? Has God no control over the world that He so lovingly created? Has He no heart that can express itself in what for Him would be some insignificant event, but for us a catastrophe? Does life end just like that with nothing permanent or different left in the world because Bobby was here? I can't answer your questions. I can only ask the questions that I seek answers to. But they come crowding in upon us at a time like this--confusing, depressing, and endless questions. And I am sure that none of us can, this morning, find any answers to them. But this flood of questions can perhaps force us to take that leap of faith into the unknown, trusting our deepest emotions and convictions regarding the shape of that creative power that designed the universe...

I did not trust my deepest emotions and convictions about God. I didn't even know what a leap of faith was. When I left the church to go home after our family gathering, I had no resources, no previous experience to help me to cope with tragedy. I was stripped bare. Nothing in my belief system offered me comfort or solace. I didn't have a personal relationship with God. I'd never felt so low. In the months ahead, the depression lasted, punctuated by loud outbursts and fits of crying. My family, my friends--everyone was estranged by my anger, even my mother. I sealed myself off from the world I had known.

In the next year I was to experience two more deaths--the deaths of my marriage and of my father. I even contemplated my suicide, angrily planning to drive my car into a cement abutment on Route 95. My mother called my therapist. I was angry at her for doing that, not even seeing how concerned she was. Either I was angry or I was crying. My anger erupted everywhere. And then there were the long moments of uncomfortable silence when I was alone in despair and it made me crazy. I took long walks on the beach near my home on the Connecticut shore, planning how fast I would drive my car into the cement abutment on Route 95. I was convinced no one understood or cared about me.

I cut off all my relationships--nobody could approach me. I was hanging on to life by a thread, obsessed by the thought of death, angered by incredible loss.

In retrospect, I see now that this was the beginning of my spiritual journey. It was this darkness, so bleak, this emptiness, so vast, which began my search for a personal relationship with God.

Reflection Question for Readers:

Have you had an experience of darkness which broke you open?