Twenty Catholic and Protestant representatives of local government, education, agriculture, business, and the voluntary sector from Northern Ireland spent a week in Richmond in September 2006 to study the city’s approach to reconciliation. They remarked on the power of physical contact when they were asked to link hands and walk silently in single file along the historic trail of Enslaved Africans. In this walk through history, ‘one community was allowed to face its pain, and the other its shame,’ they said.
Take off your shoes
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With many physical spaces still closed, we can still create sacred space for healing through conversation. Rob Corcoran describes how this has happened in his trustbuilding work over the years.
Later, we asked the group to divide into pairs. Each person was asked to briefly outline a situation where he or she was in conflict with another family member and then attempt to describe that conflict from the viewpoint of the other person. We then repeated the exercise around their experiences of sectarian division.
For many, the experience was hard at first. ‘By telling the other side’s story it was as if I was letting my side down and giving credence to the other side’s beliefs,’ reported one woman. ‘I felt guilty, disloyal to my group,’ said another participant. But several also remarked on the feeling of responsibility of trying to tell the other side: ‘You begin to doubt. Have I got this right?’
‘I felt liberated from fear of the unknown,’ said a young man from Belfast. ‘Sometimes, when you think about the other side and express it, you exorcise your demons. You are liberating yourself. It’s more than tolerating; it’s respecting, not necessarily agreeing.’
The tagline of this website is ‘creating a space for change.’ In our trustbuilding work with Initiatives of Change we often say that each person has a sacred story, a narrative that is precious to them. Listening to that story, however difficult or painful is an act of hospitality. When we step into another person’s life or home, or when we invite them into ours; when we engage with them in conversation of the heart, we are entering their sacred space or welcoming them into ours.
Like Syngman Rhee, we enter sacred spaces humbly, taking off our shoes, leaving our assumptions, our opinions, our prejudices, and our pride at the door. We open our minds and our hearts to what may be revealed. In these sacred spaces, trust may be built, and change may become possible.
This reflection was originally published on 25 February 2021. To view the original post, please visit Rob Corcoran's website.
Rob Corcoran is a trainer, facilitator, writer, racial healing practitioner and international consultant who has led countless workshops among diverse and polarized groups across the globe. From 2006 to 2016 he served as the national director of our team in the United States where, in 1993, he founded Hope in the Cities, which is based in Richmond, Virginia. Rob has been instrumental in guiding the creation of the Trustbuilding Program and has actively participated in supporting these teams with their projects.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.