I found light and joy at the same moment, and I can say without hesitation that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience. I have had them or lost them together. I was not light myself, I knew that, but I bathed in it as an element which blindness had suddenly brought much closer. I could feel the light rising, spreading, giving form. Since it was not I who was making the light, since it came to me from the outside, it would never leave me. I was only a passageway, a vestibule for this brightness . The seeing eye was in me.
The fundamental premise of compassionate listening is that every party to a conflict is suffering, that every act of violence comes from an unhealed wound. And that our job as peacemakers is to hear the grievance of all parties and find ways to tell each side about the humanity and suffering of the other. We learn to listen with our "spiritual ear," to discern and acknowledge the partial truth in everyone—particularly those with whom we disagree. We learn to stretch our capacity to be present to another's pain.
~ from "Just Listen" by Leah Green in "Yes!", Winter, 2002
