We’re not so very different after all

This post from Jack is so useful and powerful that I’m quoting it whole here:

 

One of my seatmates from Phili to Boston last night was Portland’s city planner, a gentle giant of an AfricanAmerican man who spent the post-war Bosnian years doing amazing work in economic development and country re-building.

He lead the first public school integration in the country, a school where Serb, Croat and Muslim children went to school at the same building in 8 hour shifts in order to prevent any inter-contact. Taking key leaders and school administrators for a month in Geneva, he asked them to start by sequestering themselves in the three segregated groups and dream of the future they wanted for their own ethnic children.

When they assembled together to share the newsprint report outs, the dreams were identical. He then asked one of the participants to lead the group in a song all knew from before the wars and the group simply melted.

When they returned to the community, the community embraced the plan for two reasons. One was their faith in their leaders. The other was that when the children were asked to dream, they dreampt of a learning community of all being together.