Aljosie Aldrich Harding and Host Serena Bian
What Does Love Have To Do With It? Bringing Mystery to Peacebuilding (part 2)
The subject tonight is Love
And for tomorrow night as well,
As a matter of fact
I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die! —Hafiz
Crisis, war, injustice, and violence have a certain logic—and social change processes working to address these challenges carry a similar, reactionary logic. How can love help us to step out of the perceived reality of “what is possible” in building peace during conflict? Turning points in conflicts and crises are often mysterious, require acts of enormous creativity, and a willingness to risk. Social change is an artistic act, mobilizing love and prophetic imagination–and it requires us to step into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence. Conversations in the series:
Deepa Patel: In the first conversation in this peacemaking series, meet Deepa Patel, a facilitator specializing in interdisciplinary collaboration and a passion for the arts, social justice, conversation, and living a contemplative life. She was born in Kenya to Indian parents and lives in England. Her current work is with The London College of Fashion, UNHCR, and the University of Sheffield in refugee camps in Jordan and Africa.
Aljosie Aldrich Harding: In the second conversation in this peacemaking series, we listen for what Love has to say—creator and divine love, romantic love, the love that cries out for justice, familial love, love for community, love that is disciplined, love that is courageous. Aljosie Aldrich Harding is an elder whose lifelong social justice and peacebuilding work is rooted in a profound relationship with Love. We hear about Aljosie’s spiritual biography, her work as an elder who accompanies young activists in finding their wholeness, and rich, beautiful stories of her life and love with the late Vincent Harding.
Kalyanee Mam: In the last conversation in the series, meet Kalyanee Mam, a filmmaker who was born in Cambodia, escaped the Khmer Rouge, and has spent most of her life trying to understand the root cause of war, destruction, and displacement and how we can return home again. Her debut documentary feature, A River Changes Course, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
Aljosie Aldrich Harding
Reared in segregated North Carolina, Aljosie began learning, teaching, and building social justice skills along with organizing in the 1960s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lome, Togo, West Africa. She has been a servant-leader at the Institute of the Black World (Atlanta), a think tank and advocacy organization, and the Learning House (Atlanta) an independent Afrocentric freedom school. She has worked in community organizing in several southern and northern cities and in empowerment building with women’s circles, organizations, and colleges. With her co-worker, partner, and late husband, Vincent Harding, she built intergenerational relationships with social justice and peace organizations across the United States and abroad. Her organizational links have included the Bruderhof, Soka Gakkai International, Young Adult Quakers, the Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Walter Rodney Symposium and Foundation, Tewa Women United, Kid Cultivators, and the Yale-National University of Singapore. As a spiritual guide (director) she shares healing justice practices in all her organizational work.
Serena Bian
Serena is pursuing a life that remains attentive to the tenderness of a snail’s soft body and reverent to the miracle of its spiraled shell. Working with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Serena serves as a Special Advisor and brings a spiritual and systemic understanding to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation. As a chaplain-in-training, Serena is pursuing questions of how we chaplain the end of extractive systems that isolate communities from themselves and one another. She is involved with multi-generational, multi-spiritual communities like the Nuns and Nones, devoted to courage, peacebuilding, and love. She participates on the Board of Commonweal and CoGenerate.
