America’s Soul Community Supports H.R.6843 – #2

Workshop #2 of a Three-Workshop Series: America’s Soul Community Supports The Building Civic Bridges Act  H.R. 6843

Online. Bring paper and colored markers.

To register for today’s event, scroll all the way down and click the “Register” button.

If you’ve attended Workshop #1, you can participate in Workshops #2 and #3. 

The dates and times for the whole series are here, with more details about what is covered in each session below:

• Workshop #1: Sunday April 24, 3:00-5:00 pm EDT.
• Workshop #2:  Monday, April 25, 6-8 pm EDT
• Workshop #3: Wednesday, April 27, 6-8 pm EDT

To address and heal US polarization and division, the Bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship in the US House of Representatives proposes an Office of Civic Bridgebuilding led by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D) and Rep Andy Barr (R) and 18 other representatives as a way forward for social cohesion, through passage of H.R. 6843 Building Civic Bridges Act. Cut and paste this link for more on the Act:  https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6843/all-info?r=8&s=1

Closely collaborating with partners and the planning team, Robert Kauffman, Sonrisa O’Toole and Lisa Singh, Reconciliation Leaders Krista Conlon and Virginia Swain of the Institute for Global Leadership will facilitate three imaging workshops (the first has two dates 4/4/22 and 4/24/24) described below to support H.R. 6843, drawing on the imaging work of internationally renowned sociologist and economist Drs. Elise and Kenneth Boulding.

The Institute is a hosting partner for America Talks, National Conversation Week and a partner of the Listenfirstproject.org and thetrustnetwork.net. 

Imaging plays a key role in resolving challenges in our community. We believe we cannot resolve a challenge at the level it was created, but we can imagine finding a solution in the future. The imaging process motivates present behavior using images of the future, using our imaginations to “see” a solution. Working backwards into present time to achieve that ideal future-present helps to create a timeline and action plan so we can take immediate steps toward the imagined solution. 

Workshop #1:  Sunday April 24, 3:00-5:00 pm:  Imaging

Imaging the passing of H.R. 6843: What can we dream? Develop our individual images within the America’s Soul Community framework to support H.R. 6843.

Workshop #2: Monday, April 25, 6-8 pm:  Group Imaging

Discuss and arrange images as a shared quilt — a community process for a composite image to re-share individual images and talk more about how the images connect to one another, resulting in the group arranging the images together in a quilt. This collaborative effort will open doorways to enact H.R. 6843.

Workshop #3: Wednesday, April 27, 6-8 pm:  Timeline & Action Plans 

Timeline: Standing in December 2023 and looking back – how does this future you have imaged come about? Looking back, remember/imagine some key events that have happened since April 2022. Include major benchmarks and larger social trends. What happened each month? This year (2022)? Next year (2023)?

Action plans: think through what you individually might do now, this year, to help bring about this future world you have experienced in your imagination. Think about the action settings available and list them: your family, neighborhood, community settings, workplace, organizations you engage in, where you shop, etc. Think about your objectives; allies; how you will relate to decision makers. Flesh out a specific project to realize your vision and share in closing plenary.

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This series is facilitated to restore faith in American leadership for the common good by the Institute for Global Leadership. (https://global-leader.org/americas-soul-cafes/)

Background:

Reconciliation Leaders are practical idealists for community, spiritual and faith traditions from all career paths, cultures, disciplines, and age groups. Trainees are ready to gain leadership, facilitation, trust-building, mediation, and conflict transformation skills based on mission-focused service combined with an academic curriculum. The certificate program was developed and implemented by Virginia Swain at the United Nations in an invited presentation at the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace and is now offered to restore faith in American leadership. Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Elise Boulding was Virginia Swain’s mentor and taught her the imaging process which Virginia used in her UN program. Learn more at www.global-leader.org.

America’s Soul Community is a project of The Institute for Global Leadership whose mission is to provide confidential, compassionate, and skilled guidance, consultation, and training to help leaders and teams through change, challenges, and crises. It recognizes all human beings, institutions, nations, and multilateral entities for their uniqueness, need and capacity for transformation.

Virginia Swain, the founder and director of The Institute for Global Leadership and America’s Soul Community, was in New York City on 9/11 and had a dream that evening in which a Phoenix rose from the ashes of Ground Zero. The Phoenix identified itself as our global Soul and offered a message of hope to people who were being invited to heal themselves, soul by soul into a higher spiritual and moral societal cohesion. Virginia’s memoir, My Soul’s Journey to Redefine Leadership: A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of 9/11 chronicles the events that precede and follow her dream (www.virginiaswain.com/new-book).

Through the America’s Soul Community, participants are invited to offer their soul gifts to the Phoenix, show their commitment to heal America and enact H.R. 6843.

These workshops are intended to support a new American leadership in a chaotic time. We need to regain the spiritual and moral essence for ourselves and for America. Our meetings are conducted in a safe environment called a sacred container. We are informed by deep listening. We take on the important questions about our nation’s future and our role in creating that future.

For more on the sacred container, imaging, and its usefulness in addressing global challenges in the United Nations over the past 30 years, go to https://global-leader.org/building-trust-in-peacebuilding-interventions/.

The Community’s purpose is to promote collaboration, team building and individual staff development, and to create a collective vision for the peoples of the United States and the Congress through the Institute for Global Leadership and America’s Soul Community, both dedicated to restoring faith in American leadership.

To learn more about the imaging process:

See https://www.amazon.com/Future-Images-Processes-Elise-Boulding/dp/0803957904
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/258618
https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1988.tb02061.x
To learn more about how America’s Soul Community works, read Virginia’s blog: https://virginiaswain.com/964-2/ 

Our Planning Team:

Reconciliation Leader Krista M. Conlon is a software engineer for Wells Fargo and lives on Long Island, New York. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristaconlon/
Robert Kauffman is an architect and lives in Atlanta Georgia https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-kauffman-0012408/
Sonrisa O’Toole is a mental health provider and lives in Nashua New Hampshire https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonrisa-otoole-2538b2235/
Lisa Singh is an organization development consultant, mediator and coach https://www.linkedin.com/in/ljsingh
Reconciliation Leader Virginia Swain works with Friends Committee on National Legislation is a career and life direction coach, mediator and leadership consultant and lives in Worcester, MA https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginiaswain2/