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Marla Maples & Dot Maver | August 8, 2018 | p. 1

Finding Common Ground™ Creating Healthy Human Relations

Marla Maples & Dot Maver Philip: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Finding Common Ground, a Summer of Peace

Summit produced by The Shift Network in partnership with many wonderful organizations. One I want to give a shout out to is the National Peace Academy with Dot Maver here with us today. I'm Philip Hellmich, the director of peace at The Shift Network. I'm here with my dear beloved friend.

Sister Jenna: Om shanti. Om shanti. Om shanti. Hi, everyone. I'm so glad you could join back

with us again. Philip: Yes, Sister Jenna. As people know, Sister Jenna is the founder and pioneer of the

Brahma Kumaris Meditation Centers and the host of America Meditating Radio. We've been having just an incredible journey in this Finding Common Ground. Today I think in this session here, it's been one that I've been really, really looking forward to. I think we're just going to have fun, while also really looking at the subject of creating healthy human relations. Our guests today are Dot Maver and Marla Maples. Our beloved Sister will introduce them in just a second. We encourage you to share any reflections or comments or your own stories at hashtag #SummerOfPeace. Sister, my dear friend, I'll pass it over to you to go ahead and provide a proper introduction here of our guests.

Sister Jenna: Thank you so much, Philip. I hope everyone has been enjoying the summit so far.

I know that we have been. Today, I think what I'll do is introduce my friend Marla who we are going to be traveling to India pretty soon, and I'm looking forward to that. For those of you who might know a little bit about her, she is an actress, a radio and television host. She has produced wonderful, wonderful CDs on meditation and spirituality upliftment. She's been given countless awards and I can read them off right now just to swell up her head a little bit more. But she has been honored by the Wall Street Journal, Make-A-Wish Foundation, the American Family Housing, Feed the Children, Shelter for the Homeless, the City of Hope and so much more. Who we have on The Summit of Peace Common Ground is someone who works from the heart despite whatever all the challenges that she has to endure, has or had to endure. She's not looking at that. She's looking at the goodness of the spirit and what are the activities or choices that she can make to create harmony and common ground. We welcome Marla Maples to the Summer of Peace. Thank you for joining us.


Marla: Thank you, Sister Jenna. It's such an honor to be here and put our hearts together and share our hearts to this beautiful audience. Thank you for having me.

Sister Jenna: Glad to have you. Philip, why don't you introduce Dot since you and Dot go way

back even more than I do? Philip: Absolutely. Dot Maver is a dear friend and just a real source of inspiration for

me. Dot is an educator and peacebuilder whose keynote is inspiring cooperation on behalf of the common good. Dot has worked in education, politics, grassroots community organizing, focused on applied peacebuilding, creating safer communities. Dot was the co-founder of the National Peace Academy, also the Peace Alliance, and first executive director of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding in Gainesville, which just had measurable impact of helping bridge divides in the community. Dot walks the talk and just a real hero and a friend of mine. Dot, thank you for joining this conversation.

Dot: Thank you, Philip. Thank you, Sister Jenna. Thank you behind the scenes Shift

Network and Marla. I'm looking forward to this conversation so much as all of us unite our hearts across distance and speak through the spirit of peace. Yes, it's very beautiful. Thank you.

Philip: All right, Sister Jenna, would you like to open this up here with a question? Sister Jenna: I've got so many things to talk about, but I think in the climate that we're in right

now, and this is both for Marla and Dot, we are witnessing a climate of great opportunity where we can bring the best of ourselves forward. At the same token, we are observing through the media or just through social media or technology that we're also getting a narrative, images, sounds or stories that are not very peaceful, are not creating common ground and are not creating unity. I think my question to both of you is what are some of the tools that you feel that you have worked with that have actually showed how best we can come together?

Marla: Dot, you want to go or do you want me to start? Dot: Why don't you start, Marla? Marla: Thank you. I know personally through a lot of experience it's very, very

important for me to start my day in a place of gratitude, number one. I don't always wake up happy like I appear to the world. At those times I have to really do my best to step into the gratitude and think about what do I have to share with the world versus, "Oh, my gosh, my daughter is away at school and doesn't really need me. Where's the job that I thought I was going to get?" But


immediately, instead of looking at those things that may be challenging to me, I step into, "How can I help? How can I share?" and gratitude. Those are important ways to start the day. Then I start again by having something healthy like a hot water and lemon, a little sprinkle of Himalayan sea salt. I'll do about a 20-minute meditation. That is truly just about quieting my mind and getting into focus with all this beautiful energy that surrounds us, this universal collectivity that takes us out of our physical for a moment to remind us that we are so much more. If I start my day like that, then I'm better equipped to handle what happens when I walk out into the world, when I open up my Instagram and I see because I posted this beautiful photograph on Friday of the Empire State Building being so beautiful and lit up and then I read these, I say, "Oh, my gosh, people are really still filled with hate and insecurity and also misunderstanding of others." It does. I start my day in that way. It equips me to be able to come from a place of love versus coming right back with judgment. That's just a part of what I do. I'll leave the floor to you now.

Dot: Thank you and I second everything that you are saying. I think a personal

practice is critical. I so appreciate how Shift Network's Summer of Peace is taking that purview from the personal to the interpersonal to the collective, and that as we take our personal practice out into the world, as you say, that's where it's challenging. For me at the heart of everything is, yes, gratitude is an attitude and the spirit of cooperation and truly co-operation. I really sense and know in my heart that I'll say the revelation of our time is a recognition, a realization of our oneness as a human family. We're not quite there yet, and it's why it's so painful all the time. But when we begin to understand that unmet needs drive behavior and live accordingly, that we really know that to create healthy relations in life and the conditions for a culture of peace, we can learn basic peacebuilding skills like learning to resolve conflict before it escalates to violence. Conflict may be inevitable, but violence is not. As we step out one-on-one with groups, for me that's always the key is that cooperative and loving nature.

Philip: I love these insights. I love the gratitude and the attitude of gratitude. I

empathize with Marla. Some days I wake up it's, "Okay, where is the gratitude? Got to work on it here." I love this personalized foundation. Let's go a little bit deeper here. When in the moment and you're interacting with people who you may fundamentally disagree with either ideas or something, how do you stay centered and approach that person from a place of love while still disagreeing and looking for the opportunities of bridging and finding common ground?

Marla: That is guaranteed we will always be challenged in that way when we are human

beings, isn't it? Philip: Yes.


Marla: No matter how much peace we create with our friendships, in our bonds, in our community, we are here to learn. We are here to grow. We're here to expand. We're going to have opportunities that force that, and as we know, quite often it is in our own families. I just remember my family is from the South and I live in California, so you can imagine the difference in politics as I was raising my child and having to listen, learning to listen, not having to be right. That's the hardest thing of all, easy in concept but one of the most difficult things. I found when I'm standing in that place with someone that I do love but I disagree so greatly with, I'm just taking that simple time to take a breath and listen. Even if I can't do it physically with my hand, if I can do it with my hand, I'll reach out and touch their heart. But if I can't just send that energy of, "Okay, heart here, feel," and you really will feel someone that's in a lot of pain and in a lot of distress. When you can take that time to feel that other human being, then suddenly you don't have to be so right yourself and you listen. If I can find a way to compliment that person for a certain gift that they have or just say something positive that has nothing to do with the issue we may be arguing about, it brings immediate common ground. Then hopefully, we can talk through how we can cooperate, as you say, and how we can coexist.

Sister Jenna: That's a wonderful answer. That is so spot on because I think we're looking at a

culture in which one of the things needed is for us to be able to listen and to listen with compassion. But I think what you said really was highlighted for me was that I don't have to be right. I think that's a big component in creating some sort of a harmony or a commonality between people with different views, even though you have love for the person.

Marla: It is different views. We're seeing it from a different view and our life

experiences and our community creates what view we see it from. That's what I'm really trying to understand as I travel around the country and the world. Yes.

Dot: Yes, I agree. Radical listening is one of the keys and I would say listening through

the heart. I have a coffee cup here. You may be able to see it. You're looking at it, if I were to ask you which side the handle is on, obviously, for me it's on the right as I look at it, and for you it's on a different side. Philip, you asked, "What would we do? What would I do?" Often, we meet in a very polarized kind of way. But if we can find where we agree, for example, "Oh, I so appreciate that we're both interested in helping children," if that's what we're discussing, or "We're both interested in creating a better world for those who are farming," or whatever it is and lift it. We literally lift it, because what we know is that the spiritual store is inexhaustible. Sometimes we forget that and we're on the more mundane playing field, all the time, so a deep breath, a connection through thinking and listening through the heart, and then the capacity to lift whatever it is that the conversation is, because otherwise, as we know, it can be a slippery slope.


Sister Jenna: Dot and Marla, right now parents are going through an extremely challenging time to raise their children. They're getting mixed reviews of leadership. They're getting mixed reviews of values. Parents are also having to check themselves to see how best to parent in such opportunistic times is how I want to put it. Both Dot and you, you're both working with youths and you're looking to them as the future of positivity, the future of peace, the future of sustainability, the future of everything good. Could you touch on the role of leadership? What is the role of leadership today? What do you think is its responsibility? How can we inspire leadership to begin to inspire the youths of our generation?

Dot: Yes. I'm happy to begin this one because this is one of my favorite topics which

started for me couching softball in my 20s, numerous years ago now. What developed for me was the realization of a shared responsibility, shared leadership model, Sister Jenna, and so we actually are all our own CEOs. We are all leaders in our own right of our own sphere of influence and responsibility. If we have the capacity to encourage our children to think of themselves that way as a natural leader and, of course, we're now talking social emotional skill set, which we know is a better predictor of a child's future than their intelligence quotient, than their IQ. That to me is basic peacebuilding skills. If we equip our children that way, they come to know themselves as leaders. Then we have a shared leadership, shared responsibility model out here. That's where we have to head because the time of individualization, we nailed that, check. You say it beautifully, Marla, as I was reading some of your pieces in one of your interviews, spot on about teamwork. It really is about group at this moment in time.

Sister Jenna: Thank you. Beautiful. Marla? Marla: Yes, I have the opportunity to meet more closely a lot of youth. They seem to

come to me recently. Beyond the work that I've done with different organizations, just my daughter and her friendships and these kids that are struggling so hard to everything they think the world needs them to be. There's a lot of disconnect between their soul, their heart and their mind. I think that's a true problem we are facing today. I hate to say problem, but it's something that I want to see us find a way together to lift up. I'm working one-on-one with a lot of these amazing kids that are really challenged emotionally with how they can be true to themselves and create what they feel this pressure to do in our world today. I think what you're saying, I know it’s so right. I'm not the boss of my child. We're not the boss of them. We're leaders together. Again, it's the listening to what is important to them. How do we get them to tap into their true gifts? Not those this culture that we live in is creating and that our education system is creating.


Dot: I was just going to say, Marla, as you say that, and this is kind of a very big picture, but even children understand and certainly the Parkland School shooting survivors understand this and speak to this. We're in the midst of an all-systems breakdown out here on this planet. I think we need to speak with our children as leaders in whatever field we find ourselves in about what's actually happening because that's the reality and we're not going to fix that. We are going through a chrysalis experience as humanity on the planet. We can't save the caterpillar. We need to encourage the butterfly. What does that look like? They know better than we do. To really help draw that forth, that just really totally inspired me, what you just said, Marla. That's exactly spot on. What's in your heart? What world do you see that's going to create healthy relations for yourself, for you with your family, in schools? If we only address the problems, we're going to get more of that. We know that.

Sister Jenna: Can I jump in right here because one of the big concerns is the fact that the

generation of this time are seeing role models that are perhaps acting from a different base of awareness that our great, great grandparents didn't teach us, and so what is it that we can share? Like Marla was saying, "I'm concerned about my daughter and my daughter's friends that they are in this pressure-based society of giving everything of themselves externally to be something in the world." What are those tools? What are those tools that we can not only share with our children but model as parents, as friends and as guides? What ideas, what projects, what things can we have up available for them to kind of redirect their energy knowing that it's more of a value-based, virtue-based affair if you want to feel fulfilled? Did that question made sense to anyone because it did for me?

Marla: It did. I had the chance to do a talk up at Harvard a couple of weekends ago with

a dear friend of ours Kunal Sood. There was young fellow who was 16 years old that have created, I wish I could think of the name of it now, but he created a foundation which allows kids to donate their time to give back to other foundations. He's giving the money where they can create and control how they share this and how they get involve and create foundations as this youth, in their 16, 17, in their teens, that they can come together as a community and learn the importance of doing this. I was so blown away by this young man that was committed to going to schools all around and making it a challenge. He goes at it like a challenge for them to go out, give, do charity and do sharing. I'm really, really impressed with that. I think I'm seeing extraordinary children growing up now that are tapping into what it is that their voice is and they're having the confidence. This is just as a start. Write down your dreams. Write down when you have those moments. Write down what you're passionate about. Then I just ask God, "Please bring in the people that can help me create this. This that I know is so true to my heart that I've written down on this page. Please help bring those people to me because together we're going to help lift each other."


Together we're so much stronger than I can be. That's how you can come into my life.

Sister Jenna: Thank you. Dot: I would like to name some resources, Sister Jenna. There are so many resources

out there, and once again, encourage parents to take a look at social, emotional learning and you can just Google that. But Kids for Peace out of San Diego, weday.org, the youth organizations Kids Create Peace that you're supporting, and the one that's supporting anti-bullying and spirituality for kids. Many of these kinds of organizations, and Philip, Summer of Peace with US Youth Rising and Global Youth Rising, and many countries taking a look at how we educate, draw forth the natural peacebuilding skills inherent. It's not rocket science, but you're right, Sister Jenna, to call forth the naming of it. Empathy, conflict resolution, peer mediation, anger management, understanding that unmet needs drive behavior. How do we learn that? What do we do to address our feelings? It needs assessment. That's basic nonviolent communication.

Sister Jenna: I have to tell you the Parkland students, the mothers on demand and just the

younger generation, it's almost as if they just got it. Dot: Exactly. Sister Jenna: They are not going to sit back anymore and wait for the savior to come and

rescue anyone. They're going to become the rescuers. I think it's bringing to life this incredible awakening for all generations, whether you're 90 years old or ten, they're waking everyone up. Whatever is the cause of awakening, the awakening is happening. This is the time for the awakening.

Dot: Yes, I agree with that. It's pain and suffering so often as we know in our lives

that's bringing us to that realization of beauty, and we all walk the path of beauty.

Sister Jenna: Beautiful. Philip? Philip: I want to build on all these. It's interesting when I worked at Search for Common

Ground, the head of the youth program said, "Youth aren't the future, they're the present." He pointed out that a lot of the peacebuilding programs had young people like you're pointing out, Sister Jenna, Marla and Dot, who are already engaged. It's interesting to have that fundamental shift like they are a part of the larger equation. We're all in this together. I want to come back to just the intensity of the times and the pressure that we're all feeling. Just the pressure we're feeling like, wait, all-systems breakdown I think, Dot, you had said. Adults and children both, let's come back to just a bit deeper in how we stay positive


and hopeful, while also acknowledging the challenges. Not being Pollyanna, rather it's like, yes, here are the challenges and we could list a whole group of them and how do we stay engaged, optimistic and positive? I'd love to throw that out there.

Dot: My turn to start perhaps. I'll refer to Gandhi very quickly. Despots, tyranny,

dictatorships, et cetera, they don't rule the day ultimately. Love and truth always win. Now, I didn't quote that exactly but that's from Gandhi, and that's true. If we look back at the long arc of human evolution, we've actually come a long way, Philip. In direct answer on the Western world, just take a look at the dark ages. Who could have imagined, with all that was going on at that moment in time that we were just a step or maybe two from a Renaissance like we have never seen, which brings me to my third point, the arts and music. I love to play the guitar as you know, and so will three of us will be playing at the Jersey Shore in the United States in August. When we sing together our hearts beat as one. That's a literal kind of biofeedback truth. That's a wonderful thing. We forget the fun, the play, the joy of life sometimes in the moment, and that's critical for children. Nature, play, et cetera.

Marla: It's critical for adults too, isn't it? I live in the big city and if I don't take my time

out to go hit some softballs, hit a little tennis, hug a tree in Central Park, I am a tree hugger and I will do that because we need to immerse ourselves in this world. I saw a healer yesterday and I said my neck, something is wrong. She says, "Because you're reaching out like this. You so want to help. But sometimes you have to pull back, allow things to come." I said, "Oh, pull back. You're right." I've been like, "What could I do more?" Pull back and reground yourself a little bit. But speaking to the arts, oh, my, one of my closest, closest friends that I write music with, her beautiful daughter, also such a talent, had a mental break. It's only through what she's been doing with photography and getting in the studio that she's able to tap in and be in totally in focus with that truer higher part of herself. My daughter, with all the pressure on her now, she's painting.

Sister Jenna: Good for her. Marla: She says, "I can't sleep anyway at night so I just decided to paint." She's creating

these incredible works of art. I'm like, "Baby, that's on Styrofoam?" I said, "We've got to make sure that Styrofoam lasts forever." It's beautiful because I'm seeing that when we get in that zone, sports was always my zone as I know it has a lot to do with yours, Dot. That's the place that I had clarity. I think coming together with sports, music and arts. This is so important to have in our schools for kids. We have to make sure that our education system for our kids has art back at the core of it.

Sister Jenna: Yes.


Philip: Yes. On a personal note here, I'm just loving the softball references. Sister Jenna: I'm so like no sporting. I have no sports in my bones. Philip: I have just a little anecdote. I used to coach the Search for Common Ground

softball team, which was in the congressional league. I took it from last place to first out of 220 teams. Then after we won, the league split because of a fight between Democrats and Republicans.

Sister Jenna: Oh, no. Philip: We have the common ground softball tournaments. Marla: That's all we want to fix. That's all we need to fix in the world right now is peace

between Democrats and Republicans. We'll all be fine. Philip: Yes. I want to empathize there, Marla, when you talked about going home. You

have family from rural Georgia. I come from rural Indiana and I have ten siblings. I love my family. We're also politically diverse. After the elections, how to engage with one another keeping family love first. Then there's this peacebuilder part of me that knows if we battling like this, it's going to spiral down. That tension right now in the US, I know there's a lot of positive work in this area and yet that's really.

Sister Jenna: How are you feeling? How are you feeling about it, Marla, personally being in

some sense connected or closely linked to it? Marla: Yes, obviously, I felt so much tremendous judgment from both sides, which is

tricky because, yes, we did divorce 20 years ago, but he is always family. He's the father of my child. There's always that interconnectivity and there's always that care. People don't divorce because they agree on everything, right? There are issues that you obviously don't. But I talked to a lot of my friends that you would all know and I won't mention names that are in the empowerment spaces and are much more liberal and that have been in my world. I'm in entertainment industry so you know what I've been exposed to there. In the beginning, they were so angry. I said, "Guys, if you're going to match anger with anger, we're just going to have fires. Please, if we're going to be the spiritual beings that walk in this Earth, pray for. Don't try to destroy, pray for. Everyone has a heart. We all have each side. We have our light. We have our dark." What do we do? We teach our kids this spirituality for kids. We raise the volume on the light. We lower the volume on the dark. I think that's what was creating such conflict. Really, this last year and a half is each side was raising the volume on their fears, on their anger and on their frustration.


Sister Jenna: That's so true. Philip: Yes. Sister Jenna: Yes. I just want to say that even when we met with Oprah a while back, when I

saw you, you protect yourself. I think you protect yourself by maybe walking with that spirit of gratitude. You know what dark looks like and you say, "I'm not going to feed that." I'm just wondering, how best any techniques or any thoughts, between Marla and Dot, that we can add more light? I know The Shift Network, the American Meditating Radio, your work, I know we're doing the work. But for those who are watching this and listening to it, what can do immediately now to add to the light of what's going on around us?

Marla: Community. Go, Dot. I love that you have these incredible organizations you're

so active with. [29:53] Dot: Back at you. But I want to just say based on what you just shared, Marla, and

addressing your question, Sister Jenna, the anger piece. Anger is like a fossil fuel, right, and it burns really hot so we can burn the house down if we all get angry, figuratively speaking. There's a Tibetan practice of Tonglen, which I will say, Sister Jenna, in answer to your question, is my go-to place for decades now. Anger, what's just below, and sometimes a little deeper below anger and sometimes violence, is a deep, deep caring. The person may, whoever it is, care so much that we could get violent over how much we care about this particular thing, whatever it is. To understand that and then to Tonglen, which is to breathe in a deep breath where I take in that sticky kind of anger, oh, hotness, into my heart and my heart becomes I think of it as kind of a washing machine of love. The detergent is love. If we kind of wash that until it is, as you say, Marla, light, so the dark goes down, the light increases. Then as I exhale, I'm exhaling through my heart light, love, joy, whatever it is in the moment but it's always about love. That technique, Sister Jenna, has I will tell you saved me so many, many times, particularly when I was a bit younger. I have a very strong will and there's part of me when you get really passionate about something, of course, you can break it. Tonglen is one of those skill sets.

Sister Jenna: Thank you. Marla? Marla: Yes. I love that and I sort of do something similar to that myself. Again, it's just

being so clear in the moment and taking the time to be proactive, not reactive. It doesn't mean that what you're saying doesn't deserve to be heard, but not to do it out of that reactivity. I think that is where we have to just have practice. Again, I come back to community, people that support us in it. I say to people wherever you live, find a community that feeds your soul and that you can feed the soul of


that community. The first thing I do when I travel to different places is, first, I find where's the most organic vegan-eating places and I go where people talk to God. Usually in those areas, you start hearing. You get the vibration of where things are happening. It's important wherever we go to leave a little bit of our light and to create community. I feel that's so important and I hope that everyone that's listening can just be open to asking those questions and finding that community that together they can support each other.

Dot: Yes. Sister Jenna: Beautiful. Dot: Based on what you said earlier also, Marla, about you don't always have to be

right. For a long time, the first thing I put into my front rein when I step into a group setting, and particularly, if it's a mixed group setting, is connect.

Marla: Yes, I agree. Philip: I just want to echo all of these. I just love hearing this. Anger is electricity I think

Gandhi said, and it could be used for major transformation and that thing about connecting. One of my fun games is when I'm with people is, "What's the commonality I can find with this person?" Focus on that and then the conversation comes to life, whether it's softball or something else. As you were describing these techniques, I know both of you are also rooted in organizations that are having measurable impact in transforming conflict. You're both are supporting major groups that are doing really frontline peacebuilding work. What you describing are techniques that we can apply in ourselves and that is being helpful. I don't know if either of you want to mention examples of some of the most inspiring stories of the groups that you support where you see them applying the principles you're talking about.

Marla: Let me think. We did a Spirituality for Teens group years ago, and it was

awakening for me in a painful way and in a good way. I think it brought a lot of awareness because we were working with kids that were on the borderline of going to Rikers Island. They were just at that age if they didn't straighten up their act they were going to be pretty much in the prison system forever. We were applying the lessons that we apply to our youth in that group. We had gangs, like, four different gangs from New York on the same space. It was beautiful when they did these exercises with art, did these exercises with sand and sugar, like how do you get the sugar out of the sand? How do you pick the crystals out with the power of words and what an effect it can have? What happened in that moment, we saw them standing face to face, none of them want to go to jail. They didn't want to go to jail. No matter what their environment has been and the things they've done, they really found a commonality there. But I sat with a


group and I remember thinking, "If I can just go there and I'll just radiate love, it will be great. I'll just walk in the door and I'll just be all love and we're all going to like kumbaya." I sat at the table and there was the most beautiful young man. I was trying to really connect with him, he goes, "Ma'am, you're sitting too close to me. Please move away from me." I'm said, "I'm so sorry." He goes, "Ma'am, you stink. You really stink." Literally I was asking, "Is my breath bad?" I was asking all my friends, "Is my breath okay?" There like, "No, no, no. Your breath is fine." But what was heartbreaking to me is that he wasn't ready to let love in. He couldn't let it in. It was ugly. I can't understand it. I can't really understand what he is going through because I have not been there. I wrote a song called “One World of Love” about it with my friend Joan because I want to tear down the walls around my heart to really see what you see and that's it. How can we see through their eyes so we can have more empathy and come in not thinking, "Oh, we've got all the answers and I'm just all love"? It's not true in every case. I'm still learning how do we connect to those kids and adults that just levels and levels and levels of protection around their hearts.

Sister Jenna: Philip, I'm hoping that we can integrate playing one of Marla's songs. It's my

favorite. It's called A Prayer to Humanity. I think if you hear it, I think it will just be so in tuned with our conversation today because it seals what she just said, why we need this, because sometimes we're not just ready for love. We're not ready for it.

Philip: I definitely want to hear that. Let me hear Dot's example here. First, I just want

to say, Marla, I am deeply touched about that humility of "I want to help and I don't know how." Just that humility and "I don't have the answers and I want to help and love," and that touches my heart. That's beautiful. I can empathize with that being in that situation too many times. Let's hear Dot's example and then I want to hear this song.

Dot: My example comes from the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for

Peace because we realized way back when with a number of these groups, National Peace Academy and others, that we really have to immerse in these techniques and peacebuilding skillsets ourselves and be that, like, walk that, live that. It isn't about offering really to anybody. You're so right, Marla, about all of that. The way we learned and we see nonviolent communication. Thanks to Miki Kashtan, we had a rebel and a government person who had a very polarized situation in a country in Asia. They sat together in a fishbowl and it was amazing. It was an eye-opener. I think the more that we are willing to immerse ourselves and become these waves of life. It's what you said earlier, Sister Jenna, that the children, they are this way of life. To acknowledge that, appreciate and name that, the better off we are. It really isn't about doing anything. It really is about being a human being in the midst of all this and working to create those


conditions for healthy relations. That's one of the stories that touched me the most.

Marla: Thank you for that. Thank you so much. Sister Jenna: Thank you. It's been very rich. I've really enjoyed today's conversation

tremendously. I felt the authenticity of it so weaved through the whole program since we began. I loved it. Didn't you, Philip?

Philip: Yes, I'm deeply, deeply touched and just grateful. Yes. Marla: Me too. Philip: I'd love to hear a song and then a closing. Sister Jenna: I don't know if she's going to sing it. But we do have the album. Are you going to

sing it, Marla? Marla: No, I can't sing it just like this. Sister Jenna: Can you just say the words? Marla: But what we could do is we can maybe put it in. Sister Jenna: That's what I thought. Marla: We'll add it in. That would be beautiful. Yes. It was just a message where I was

tuning in and tapping in saying, "God, let me just be a vehicle. Let me be a vehicle." I just got to the studio and started speaking and it came. Yes, it's beautiful when you just let go of yourself and you let this come through. Compassionate mind, prayer for humanity. Yes, I'd love to share it.

Philip: Yes, well, we'll add that here. Marla: Thank you. Philip: Well, my friends, I just wanted to play softball with everyone. Marla: Yes, this coming Thursday. Sister Jenna: I'll watch and I'll take numbers. Philip: Dot was a pitcher I imagine. You played pitching?


Dot: The hot corner, third base. Philip: Third base? Marla: You got a great arm then. I pitched and played second base. Philip: Oh, okay. Marla: I played second base, yes. Philip: I also played second base, yes. Marla: That's how I got, yes. I was sliding in the second base last year and I kind of got

that head thing and then I slid in and there are two guys that came and one turned me this way, the other turned me that way. It's taken me a little while to get the kinks out, but I'm ready to go back now. That's life, right?

Philip: That is life. Yes. I'm sorry, sports is something I just love and I love Dot taught me

that, what the root word for competition is. What is the root word for competition?

Dot: Competere. To come with petere/petition. It's at the heart of the Olympics. We

petition with one another to raise together, bring out the best in one another. Marla: Oh, that's good. That is so good. Thank you. Sister Jenna: Yes. Let's have some closing remarks and takeaways. Philip: Any final word, Marla and Dot? Marla: I just want to say how grateful I am to have the chance to sit here with you. I feel

more alive after having this conversation with all of you. I feel that together we're doing something really special. I just pray for all of you listening that you too feel it because you were included in everything that we're sharing here and listing more together.

Philip: Dot? Dot: Yes. I second that. I too experience the significance of this connection today and

what's going out on the ether, the ripple effect of the pebble in the pond which is true no matter where we are. Although it may be true our new segments are polarizing and coming from a fear-based place, we don't have to do that. We can appreciate one another, love more, and begin to name in our own lives to our


friends, family and others what it is that's happening in this world that makes our hearts sing.

Sister Jenna: Listen. Yes. Beautiful. Listen more. Dot: Yes. Sister Jenna: Listen more. Dot: Radical listening. Sister Jenna: Radical listening and community. I took that away from today's conversation.

Listening, community, team dynamics, trusting that the youth really know what to do and we just need to be there to support, guide and follow their directions really, and gratitude. We opened up the conversation today, everyone, with gratitude and being able to sink in a few minutes of introspection, reflection, meditation for at least 20 minutes so that when you go out there in the world, you can cope because you're pretty much charged up. You're fueled up. You got your internal ammunitions of thought and power to be able to accomplish something great.

Philip: Yes. Sister Jenna: All right, Philip. Thank you. Philip: I just want to say just a lot of gratitude for Marla, Dot, Sister Jenna, and everyone

here who's joined us. I love the authenticity and the heart. We're all in this together. That's for everybody who's listening to this, so a lot of gratitude. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Share your comments at hashtag #SummerOfPeace. Marla, tell us about this song that we're going to add to the end of this recording.

Marla: I have an album called The Endless. I have beautiful thought leaders from the

Dalai Lama to Deepak to Michael Bernard Beckwith to Tara Sutphen, Gurutej all in this album, and what Sister Jenna is talking about is the meditation that leads off the album. That is what I'd love to share. It's on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify now, and I want to be able to distribute it more. It's on my website too, but it's just about the compassionate mind. It's so important for us to create a prayer to humanity.

Philip: Great. We'll have the chance to hear that. Marla: Thank you. I'll give it to you.

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