 Christchapel at Gustavus Adultual May Day Peace Conference, Growing Peace Builders. We gather to pause from our normal Wednesday activities and to focus our attention on what we can each do to build a more just and peaceful world. Let us pray. Holy one, known by many names, we gather this morning to deepen our understanding about the ways that make for a more just and peace-filled world. To that end, may we be moved beyond indifference and complacency so that we might contribute our talents to the world's renewal. May we lift up visions that inspire peacemaking movements, recognize the dignity of human beings, unite the insights and scholarship of many disciplines, and lift up the wisdom of sages, prophets, and saints. Let us commit to becoming ever more impassioned and compassionate people. May we find the courage to be ethical leaders. May we foster behavior to preserve and enhance our communities. As we are enriched by this time together, let us celebrate the times we are co-creators of a better world in the moments when we build a legacy of encouragement and hope. It is now my pleasure to welcome Gustavus President Rebecca Bergman for a greeting. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here on this beautiful blue sky, sunny, warm spring day. Oh, wait. Skip the warm part. We're not there yet. But one of these days, it's going to feel like a beautiful gusty spring day. I'm so glad you're all here for our annual May Day Peace Conference. The May Day Peace Conference was established at Gustavus in 1981. May Day is the international distress call. Those who hear it are called to respond. Likewise, the May Day Peace Conference was established to inspire attendees to take action, action for justice and peace throughout the world. And here we are over 40 years later. And the purpose for this conference is still equally relevant. The Gustavus vision statement says that we will equip our students to lead purposeful lives and to act on the great challenges of our time. Justice and peace are certainly amongst the great challenges of our world right now. We know many challenges of our world are linked to issues of justice and peace. And I'm so pleased that you are here today and hope that you leave inspired to work in your local or global community for peace. This conference was started and underwritten with funding by the late Florence and Raymond Spanberg. We are grateful for their vision for this conference. Two members of the Spanberg family are here with us today. Michael and Elaine, could I ask you to please stand to receive our gratitude for your continued support of this conference? And a special thank you to the 2022 conference organizers led by Dr. Glenn Cranking, who serves as chair of the May Day Conference Committee and members Barb Larsen-Taylor from the Office of Marketing and Communication and Emma Anderson, a junior student. Could I also ask the three of you to please stand for our gratitude? It is now my great pleasure to invite Dr. Cranking to the podium to introduce our speakers. Thank you, President Bergman. Maya Satoro serves as a consultant to the Obama Foundation, working closely with their international team to develop programming in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to her work with the Obama Foundation, she was the director of the Mutsunga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where in addition to leading outreach and development initiatives, she also taught leadership for social change, history of peace movements, peace education, and conflict management for educators. She was awarded a master's degree in secondary education from NYU's College of Education and a PhD in multicultural education from the University of Hawaii. For many years she worked at the University of Hawaii College of Education, where she taught multicultural education, social studies, methods, and peace education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Maya has published a book, a number of book contributions, as well as a picture book, entitled Ladder to the Moon, and is currently under contract to write a young adult novel entitled Yellowwood. Maya sits on many voluntary boards and is co-founder of the Nonprofit Seeds of Peace, which creates peace-building action plan workshops for educators, families, and community leaders, and is the co-founder of the Institute for Climate and Peace, which advances effective and inclusive processes to build peaceful and climate-conscious futures for the well-being of all. Kerry Urosevich, MA PhD, is the lead for network design and innovation for Hawaii's early childhood action strategy, a cross-sector collective impact effort to improve the system of care for Hawaii's youngest children and families. She previously served in both Governor Neil Abercrombie's and Governor David Ega's administrations with the Executive Office on Early Learning. Over the last 25 years, Kerry's work has been rooted in conflict resolution, peace-building, policy, and violence prevention, including 10 years working with communities and organizations in transition through her meditation and facilitation consultancy. Kerry is a member of the competitive Omidyar Fellows Leadership Program, serves as affiliate faculty at the Matsunga Institute for Peace at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and is co-founder of Seeds of Peace, an organization focused on raising peace-building leaders. Kerry serves as a volunteer board member to Hawaii Appleseed and Epic Ohana Incorporated and is an appointed board member on Hawaii's Early Intervention Coordinating Council and Hawaii State Early Learning Board. Kerry received her PhD in political science with a specialization in conflict resolution and systems design from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, master's degree in international policy from the Montero Institute of International Studies and a graduate certificate in non-profit management. She's also a Gusti, a Gusti alum. She is a parent of three children who ground her work in all of her, everything she does. We welcome Dr. Soterra and Ursovich to the Gustavus campus and look forward to their message of peace-building. Aloha Kakiaka and good morning, Gustavus. It is so nice to be back on campus on this warm, sunny morning. We'd like to begin our morning together by first acknowledging those who have made this happen as is customary in Hawaii. We'd like to present the following partners with Lei. We acknowledge that the Lei represents the circle of community that we are trying to create, our expanding Ohana, our family, with Gustavus. We acknowledge that what affects you affects us. With this Lei, we bring you in close in with affection and mutual kuleana or responsibility for building peaceful and just communities. And this Lei represents the shared values of Gustavus Adolphus College and seeds of peace, excellence, community, justice, service, and faith. So if we could please ask President Bergman, Michael Spanberg, Elaine Larson, Barb Larson Taylor, Glenn Cranking, Emma Thompson, and Chaplain Siri to please come up. So if we could please have a round of applause for all of those that made this happen. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much for everything you've done to execute yet another May Day celebration and elevating the critical, hard, and joyful topic of peace building. And more importantly, thank you for walking the talk. You are truly peace builders in the work that you do for Gustavus and for our extended communities. And now to set the tone, we'll be sharing the big welcome, which can be found in your programs. I'm so honored to welcome you all here to Gustavus' May Day celebration focused on peace building. Please take a moment right now to allow yourself to fully arrive. Allow the dust to settle in your mind, bring your attention to your body, your breath, this present moment. You have arrived and welcome. We welcome your excitement and your trepidation, your clear inquiries, your big question mark faces. We welcome your wide eyes and open hearts right alongside your side eyes, your cynicism and your skepticism. You are welcome here. Your culture is welcome, your ethnic origin is welcome, your race, your skin hue, accent, food preferences, and all the complexities that make up your cultural identity are welcome here. The histories, the hearstories, and experiences of your ancestors are honored and welcomed. We welcome you with all the connections you bring in with you to your children in your lives, your partners, siblings, parents, the animals in your lives, and other loved ones in the community. You are welcome here. We welcome your spiritual practice, your religious affiliation, your spiritual walk, however you hold that aspect of your life, you are welcome here. Your love is welcome here. How you love, who you love, and your understanding of what love is are all welcome. We welcome you in all of the ways that your sexuality has and is unfolding. We welcome you in all of the ways that your gender has and is unfolding. We welcome you in your ignorance, in your privilege, your grief, your guilt, and your shame. You are welcome here. Your quirks and ambiguities are welcome, your humor, your silent contemplation. We welcome the parts of you that you're still figuring out. We welcome you in your roles as entrepreneurs, activists, healers, parents, caretakers and students, artists, change agents, educators, and warriors. We welcome you at whatever level of mental and physical wellness you are currently functioning. We welcome your introversion and your extroversion. We welcome all of the experiences that led you to this very moment. Thank you for surviving. We welcome your wounds and your scars. Thank you for bringing your ancestors with you today. We welcome them with us. We welcome your sacred connections to the lands on which you are conceived, the lands that hosted your births, and the lands of your ancestors, the lands at which we are standing upon today and all of the life that came before us, the animals, the indigenous peoples of this land, the Dakota people. We welcome you to Christ Chapel, where we have prepped the soil for you to sow the seeds of your own leadership. Let your roots sink into this nutrient-dense soil, intertwined with the roots of everyone else around you, as we collectively build our capacity to lead change. Settle in. Welcome. Thank you. Can I just say, you guys are beautiful. I am so delighted to be in your midst and to be an honorary gusty now. Really, this community has so lovingly embraced me and I wanted to just say a special mahalonui. To get us going, we are going to do a little think-pair-share, and we'd like you now just to think of your definition of peace building. Peace in action, you know, peace is not an inert thing. It is something that is in need of an enlivened energy every day, right? And so, what do you see as your peace priority? I want you to connect with one or two people beside you and articulate your definition of peace building. What does that look like? And then, after five minutes, back and forth, we will have a couple of people in the audience hopefully share your definitions. Sound good? All right, go for it. Maybe you should give the other one to your mom. My mom, I feel tall. You are with those heels. Okay, so we have the wonderful Barb Larsen here who's going to come around, and Emma, I guess, and to come around and with the microphones so that everyone can hear your definitions of peace building. So let's popcorn. Let's have people raising their hands and popping up and sharing. Don't be shy because there is no wrong definition. All of your definitions are equally legitimate, and I believe, and we want to hear them. Go ahead. Sue and I have been in St. Peter's since 1958 as I came as a student. I worked here all my life. I've watched this place reach out to minorities, particularly, it's a wonderful place, giving you an opportunity for all the students that are here. Sue and I are pleased to live in this town and be part of this campus. Peace building is community, and it is outreach, and the continuity that you represent is lovely. Over the decades, I have shared a writing called Jaciderada. I don't know how many people remember that. I send that out regularly, and I have personalized it. I encourage people to find other essays that are meaningful to them. Personalize it by editing it and sharing it with others. Beautiful, yes. Peace building is words, poetry, writing, philosophy, and you make an excellent point when we weave that with our own lives, when we change it to make meaning of it, it's extra special. Thank you. For me, I graduated from Mankiro High School, and I remember hearing John Kennedy talk about the Peace Corps, and so I fell in love with the Peace Corps and went three times. And it was two years in Venezuela, 14 months in Romania, and then 12 months in Costa Rica. And I believe in the mission, and that was my country. Service, reaching across cultures, across boundaries, across oceans and continents, and that exchange is really vital. Thank you. Sorry. I think peace building is really about cultivating a space where people can come together despite their differences and despite their backgrounds, and they can really strive to accomplish a similar goal, even despite those differences. And I think it also means being able to come just as you are, but being willing to kind of be open to new ideas and new things, and to also, I guess, just kind of be willing to learn about other people's perspectives, even if they're different from your own. Beautifully said. I was talking with these amazing students here, Glade and Hallie, and they taught me so much, and Glade was talking about how with building peace that it's not something you're ever going to be done, you're always constantly building more peace, and I really loved that, and I'm so thankful that Glade taught me that. Yeah, peace is a process. That's something that we emphasize a lot, the need to continue practicing and learning and growing at every turn, and learning from one another as you're pointing out, and having that deep listening capacity, the curiosity that is required to listen deeply and learn and be open is really an essential ingredient, so thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so we wanna emphasize, and I wanna have Carrie now share some of our story and our philosophy, but wanna emphasize that you are all peace builders, those definitions that you gave were not only excellent but vital. Keep them in mind today, and the day's moving forward. There is no wrong definition. Today is about making sure that you figure out how you enter the stream. What are your priorities? What are the possibilities that are inherent, and where are the resources that are coming up in your life and in your community that enable you to move forward with optimism, with care, and commitment? And so we did not spell seeds of peace wrong. I just wanna clarify that. Gustavus did prepare me better. There was real intentionality about why we formed seeds of peace, so Mai and I both teach at the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii, and one thing we noticed in a lot of our evaluations is our students said, gosh, I really needed these skill sets when I was young. My families, my family needed these skill sets, my community, my sports team, and I wanna learn more. And so what we did is we started these workshops and we decided that rather than just focusing on children, we needed to focus on the adults because we recognize that adults send mixed messages, often what we model and what we teach and say don't match, and so how do we as adults close that gap in what we're modeling for our young people and what we're teaching our young people? We also recognize that our young people get mixed messages, so they could be at school learning that hitting, for example, is not acceptable and that they should be responding to their anger in more positive ways, but yet they go home and they get hit by parents who don't know how to manage their anger. So what do children do with that? And so what we wanted to do is make sure that our young people are surrounded in their schools, in their homes, and in their community with similar messaging and modeling about what peace building looks and feels like. It's hard work. A lot of this work is grounded in social and emotional learning methodology and oftentimes those skills are seen as soft skills. I think Maya and I would argue that they're very, very hard skills and they're daily skills that we have to practice. And so how do we do a better job of doing that? And so Maya and I sat down and said, okay, of all of the peace building leaders that we know globally and locally, what skill sets do they have? So we literally brainstormed on a napkin, all the skill sets, and ironically, they all started with the letter C. So we had 32 C skills, and that was too many to try to create a framework. And so what we identified was a key seven that you see up here, and we put them into an algorithm and we recognize that if we don't have peace within, if we don't know how to respond to anger and frustration and rage in ways that are constructive, we're gonna have a really hard time with peace with others and working effectively with others. We all see this in our families, we see it in our workplaces, and we're seeing it throughout the globe. People are having a hard time working together and reaching common ground. And once you hone those skill sets in working with others, you then can be more peaceful in community and lead community-driven change. And so throughout today, we're gonna be talking with students about how do you instigate that social change that you wanna see? How do you lead from behind, lead from the side, lead from out front? Use your superpowers to make those changes that you wanna see. We all wanna see change. I think all of us, it's been a painful few years, trying to navigate the political divides, trying to navigate responses to a pandemic, and it's been hard. So when we think to ourselves, what is my superpower? What is my strength that I can bring to bring people together? And so with that, we formed Seeds of Peace. So I want you all to be thinking today about two different things. One is what is my superpower? What is my gift that I can bring to my family, that I can bring to my workplace, that I can bring to my community to elevate peace, justice, and equity? They're so critically important right now. And so I'm gonna ask you all to please make that commitment today. And don't oversimplify peace. Peace is hard, it's rigorous, but you're up to the challenge. But you have to think of it in these multi-dimensional ways, and really think about this equation in your own lives and communities. For us, a big part of this is shifting the way that we look at leadership and moving into a model of leadership that is navigational. Of course, that's natural for us in Hawaii. We are surrounded by ocean. But the idea is that navigational leaders listen deeply to their environment. They bend their ear low to the surface of the ocean. They listen to the wind. They look to the horizon, but they also bring with them ancestors and tradition. Navigational leaders are needed right now, all of you are, because we are navigating through many storms and uncharted territory. We voyage the world using everything around us. You have everything that you need. Each person can build peace with the ecosystems already around you and the gifts and superpowers that you have. So look to the stars, even though you're not surrounded by a lot of ocean, you have lakes. And the idea is that we need to be brave. And if you are thinking of yourselves right now as navigators, we're entering into the doldrums, perhaps. You're having to be patient and redirect your course. You have to also think about, ultimately, your destination. And you have to be courageous about moving forward in a world that's divided by values and perspectives and assumptions, and we have a bifurcated media, and we have to navigate together to collectively protect our planet, to really identify our own roles as captains as we close the divides and forge connections. So we really hope to inspire you today to look to the people, culture, art, ideas, organizations around you, and also to listen to that navigational courage, conviction, and guiding star, purpose within you as you build personal, interpersonal, and community peace and move through the storms of pandemic, conflict, and uncertainty in our time. Now, the good news is that conflict is really productive. It's nothing to be afraid of. Lean into your discomfort and think about the conflicts around you. It's not just fundamental to human existence, but it is also something that allows us to understand where we need to place our energies, our resources, our attention, where we need to infuse a situation with new light. And so conflict can't always be resolved, but we believe it can always be transformed. Make conflict something that is productive and seeds of peace. We look historically at what has driven rights for girls and women, the passage of environmental protections, the end of slavery rights for workers, rights for our LGBTQ plus friends, the protections of democracies. All of this has required conflict. Conflict when we wrestle with it and we begin to braid into it our commitments is a really powerful thing. And so one thing that we hope is that all of us lean into our discomfort. And when you see conflict, you note that this is an opportunity to ground ourselves in doing the hard work together. And so I would encourage all of you, and I'm really looking at the students, especially right now, you're on the precipice of change, of stepping into meaningful and purposeful work. And so putting peace and justice and equity at the center of everything that you do had a conversation with Emma yesterday. And I shared with her that being really clear about your North Star is really important. And we'll talk a little bit about that later. And you'll have an opportunity to talk with your seat mates about what your North Stars are because that is what will guide you as you continue this work. And so what we always try to reinforce in our workshops is it doesn't matter what industry you get into, if you get into finance or engineering, teaching or healthcare, banking, insurance, marketing, policing, social work, policy making, peace and justice and equity should be at your center. So can you imagine if our banking leaders had those three values at the center of the work that they did, right? Or the engineers were designing for peaceful and just communities, right? That's what we're trying to instill at all of our leaders and making sure that when they go out into the workforce, regardless of sector, that that's how they show up. You all have agency. Be the heart of your ecosystems, your spheres of influence. You can start by simply implementing three tools into your daily lives that promote seeds within, seeds with others and seeds in community. One thing we also wanted to really highlight is these skills, courage, critical thinking, compassion and conflict resolution, commitment, collaboration and connection really need to be practiced as a constellation. Otherwise we might misstep. So for example, if you have courage but you don't have compassion, you could cause a lot of destruction, right? Or if you have critical thinking but you don't have courage, you could be really apathetic and not know how to take action. And so we wanna make sure that as you're thinking about how you show up in your spaces, that you're practicing all of these skill sets together. As you listen to us share these skills, we'd like you to remember the words of Sharon Salisberg in the way that she talks about our responses to stress and a refocus on peace building. All right, maybe close your eyes a little bit. Now the reason we wanna share this passage is because peace and love are often thought of simply as soft things. And we want you to think of them not as ineffectual or abstract or utopian but as really practical, you know, things to be brought into daily life commitment and identity. And so this helps us to understand the interplay between soft and strong. When I want to summon strength and power in the midst of awfulness and hate, I contemplate water. Our ideas of strength so often surround images of things that are hard like rock or a clenched fist. Perhaps that's why we think love doesn't include strength, just softness. We are thinking in only one dimension. We are thinking simplistically. When I think of water, I think of it in all its manifestations. Look at the many ways we experience water. It trickles, spurts, floods, pours, streams, soaks and shows itself in many more modes. All of these convey evanescence, release, flow. They're all about not being stuck. Water is flexible, taking the shape of whatever vessel it flows into. It's always interacting, changing in motion, yet revealing continual patterns of connection. Water can be so expressive, a signal of our most heartfelt feelings. We cry tears of sorrow, tears of outrage, tears of gratitude, and tears of joy. Water can be puzzling, seeming weak or ineffectual, yielding too much, not holding firm. And yet, over time, water will carve its own pathway even through rock. And yes, water freezes, but it also melts. So human beings have always found uplift and inspiration in metaphors like water, but we also take inspiration from one another, from other people, their strength and resiliency in the face of difficult circumstances, the way that each of you undoubtedly have had to unfreeze yourselves and make change in your own life. Many of you are in places of transition. I know some of my friends here in the audience certainly are, where you're having to think about the new flows and directions that your streams are taking in the river of your life. I've really been moved by people who act in ways that seek change, but also tap into that inner strength when water has been shown to carve its way through rock and difficult. Circumstances can be like that rock. So today we wanna uplift your exemplary qualities in your strength as well as your flexibility and recognize that we, at Seeds of Peace, have a strength-based approach. Yes, there are problems in the world. Yes, we have weaknesses. It is those who have experienced sorrow and challenge and even despair who are the most beautiful and the most strong and the most resilient. And those who are traumatized are the ones who know how to grow. And post-traumatic growth is a real powerful thing. So you inspire us as we recognize the gifts that you bring to the project of peace-building. We wanna think about that algorithm. Peace within, peace between, and peace in service to others. So peace within as an example means having the skills of courage to be both centered and sturdy and engage in the hard work of moving forward with that flow, right? Now, for instance, we have to have the courage to take different perspectives. Think about the other. What is the other fearful of? What is the other love that could be jeopardized at this moment? What are the universal needs that are at play in the other, right? And so in so doing, we can still stand firm courageously in our convictions but really begin to rewrite stories from the perspective of distant and different others and have the courage to flexibly move between our convictions and the needs of others to make space for real communication. Excellent. And so with peace with others, having the commitment to listen fully and to engage mindfully and thoughtfully rather than reactively. And so one of the tools that you can take away from today is what we call second to your listening. So as you are listening to the other, even more importantly when you're listening to the other and you're feeling agitated, listen on two different levels. You're listening for the facts and the story and the perspective that's coming from the other person but what you're also listening for are the values that that person is holding that is driving that person's position, that person's feelings. And so once you start to understand those values, that's when you can start to find common ground. It's very easy to push back on the story because it's not perhaps a story that you share but the values is where you can find that touch point, that common ground. And I always like to share the story of I was involved in an activity, a project, and there was one gentleman that he and I were like oil and vinegar and had a hard time working together but the one thing that we had in common is we were both parents. And so we would continually connect around our kids. I would ask him about his weekend with his kids. It was our touch point and it was what allowed us to continue to work effectively together. So I challenge you to please commit to listening fully to the other. It's a practice that we all can practice every day there's lots of opportunity to practice our listening skills. And then someone mentioned here being the connection be a convener. So one of the things that we would like for you to think about as a tool in your own life potentially is where are places where you can bring people together and in so doing make sure that you are casting the net widely and you are thinking about who has been in the shadows that you can bring into the light who has been on the periphery that you can bring into the center whose voices are missing. Remember there's this notion that nothing for us without us so often as advocates as educators as mentors we do things for other people and then we don't invite the people we are trying to help to be in the room in order to offer their real perspective and to share their interests, their cares, their fears, their worries and the opportunities in their own lives. So I'm thinking about young people especially, right? So often we'll do things on behalf of young people and we won't bring young people into convenings and really respect them and make them thought partners. So wherever you do convene think about not only who is missing but you know who the stakeholders are more broadly that could really lend something to that convening and make sure that they are part of the process of peace building from the start. Maya, can I add another tool? So I'm gonna go off script and just add an additional tool and this comes from my husband's Aunt Janet who was a kindergarten teacher, retired now. She was actually from Wisconsin so nearby and was hit by a train in her car because the draw on the train tracks was broken. She survived and after many surgeries we've had lots of time with Aunt Janet and in conversations I said to her, having survived such a traumatic accident what did you take away from that? And she said, I recognized my role in other people's lives and I've made a commitment to myself that no matter who I interact with every day all day my role and my job is to make their day a better day. It could be the person at the grocery store, it could be the bank teller, it could be my kids which is often hard when it's people closest to us with every action and with every word that I'm making their day a better day. And so I was like, oh that's nice. And then we challenge our participants to try this for a 24 hour period. This even means when you're driving and you're getting agitated. How do you make that driver next to you their day a better day? So I'll encourage you also to really hone your connection skills, to connect with every person that you're engaging with throughout the day, see them, acknowledge them, honor them, listen to them and make their day a better day. So Aunt Janet's tool I have done and I just wanna add it is harder than you think and it is more powerful than you can imagine. Take three days, just three days and do what Carrie just asked you to do. You know, every single person you encounter can you make their day better by virtue of that encounter. Even the person who was rude to you and is supposed to be serving you. Even the person who was behaving selfishly as your spouse, even though he's supposed to love you. You know, can you make their day better? And let me just say that when you do that just for three days you realize, wow, I am powerful. There is a lot that I can do in my own life and environment and those ripples of empowerment, they widen and you start feeling that there is actually so much that I can do to make this world a better place. So actually do it. Are you gonna do it? Yes, okay, I wanna hear about it. So you know, really to review the three tools or four tools that we've talked about, this idea of building peace within, that courage, a good way to do that is to perspective take. So rewrite stories from the perspective of distant and different others, change the ending of stories, look at media from 10 different sources to get a fuller picture of the truth. That's gonna give you courage because you're not going to fear the other. It's not gonna, that other is not gonna feel so strange and far away and you're gonna find courage in the connection and that overlap, whether it's as parents or whatever. Building peace with others is also about nourishing that commitment, that deep listening through second-tier listening, listen to the truth behind and beneath words. Listen to the truth of feeling, use your intuition and don't simply listen to respond, right? Building peace in community is being a convener, a connector and really looking at the whole tapestry of the human experience, thinking about who is missing and know that you have the power to invite. You don't have to wait to be invited and then know your own capacity to make other lives better immediately, practice it every day. In our workshops, every participant works on a peace-building action plan over a five-month period with support from Seeds of Peace facilitators in between our workshops and the idea there is that you have sort of a four-step action plan that you work on, hopefully with the support, the feedback and the thought partnership of others. So we bring together school, community, family, youth and we try to get them all to work together and we know that each person has powerful peace actions inside of them that can be enlivened. The first thing we do is we envision the harvest. It's really critical that we see the blooms that we smell and if we can't envision it, we really can't build it. So what does your most peaceful and just family workplace community look and feel like? What is your North Star? You're really being able to see that, articulate that is a critical place to start. This is backwards mapping at its best and carries an expert in design thinking and you really have to begin with that envisioning of the harvest. Then you prepare the soil and pull those weeds. Who do you need on your team to grow, to make that harvest work? You know, what are some skills that are missing? You know, where can you find strength and solace and partnership and where are the barriers to peace that you need to pull out those weeds? And then we plant the seeds. What seeds or tools do you need to plant and grow your harvest? And don't forget, we have to nurture to sustain, right? That's the fourth part. How will we grow this in the future? Don't let peace building be a one-off activity. It's a process. It requires ongoing commitment. How will you stay strong? Later today we'll be looking at resilience and that involves some self-care and commitment building and courage development. But if you can find a partner and spend a little bit of time right now talking to that partner for five minutes about what your harvest might look and feel like. What is the beloved family, school, workplace, or community that you can imagine, one that is just and peaceful? What does that change mean? What will it look like once that change is never complete, right? But enlivened and that process is started. So turn to someone and talk about what is your harvest? Okay, five minutes. You can choose your setting. So you can ask yourself, what is the most peaceful and just family look and feel like? What is my most peaceful and just workplace look and feel like? So select your setting and that might make it feel more tangible. Okay, one more minute. We would love to hear from a few people about your harvest. So Barb is there again with her microphone and Emma. So let's popcorn, popcorn those hands up. Let's see a few hands. Over here we were discussing how we feel like the most peaceful and just environment is one where we're just able to come as we are and everyone around us is just understanding of us and our values and just accepts us for that. And it's just like a kind and welcoming environment. Great, and is that a school environment? Do you think a community one, a family one? Yeah, we were talking about how that works in school and classrooms and friend groups and just work environments and other places where we feel like that really shows just how other people are accepting and. Yeah, so, oh, sorry. We were talking about like a classroom environment where all the people present in the environment are like feel comfortable and they feel valued for like what they know and they can contribute in just a way that they aren't being judged but they're also like constructive to the conversation that's happening. So just like a welcoming and peaceful classroom environment. So thank you. And you said another C word, constructive. I would say commitment. So when you tell someone you're gonna do something actually like kind of like going through with it and being honest to yourself and also with others rather than for instance just there's like communication is good but also can you go through on what you're gonna say to the person? A big part of my harvest revolves around connection with children. I'm a former kindergarten teacher and now a grandmother of five and they make my heart sing. They're innocent. They're beautiful. They see the world in a non-judgmental way and I think if we could retain that beauty that we see in the lives and the eyes of children we would make so many gains in having a peaceful world. I think kindergarteners should run for president. We were kind of talking about how in the world it should be clear what people believe and not a shock. I think just kind of like a precedent an example we had was it's a pleasant surprise when you pass a church and they have like a rainbow flag or something and you're like, oh, I know this church if I was like part of the LGBT plus community I would be accepted here and it shouldn't like while it is a nice surprise now to see that outside of church that shouldn't be it shouldn't be a surprise. It should be like a known thing that I can go somewhere and be safe and accepted for that. So that's how you build pieces like people know what you stand for and you're accepting of all people. Thank you. So these are beautiful harvests, right? And so the idea of beginning to envision your harvest is to really believe that it is possible and to really concretize your peace actions, ground it in context and place. And so thinking about like, okay, if I have a classroom where everyone's voice is being honored, where everyone can make a contribution, where everyone feels safe being who they are and representing their passions and commitments and ideas, what does that look like? How are the chairs situated, right? How is the process of classroom? How do you build intellectual safety? Is that through the commitment of a contract that you build with one another and a discussion of everyone's universal needs in that space? Then you can begin thinking about the tools that you'll use in other words, right? And this idea of everyone knowing what you stand for, what you believe in, how do you symbolize that? If you are a place that seeks to be welcoming and inviting people in, what do you put outside? What is the story you tell? How do you utilize social media? How do you invite members of your congregation to speak and to share and to outreach? So once you sort of concretize that vision point is, then you can begin to really identify the process of planting those seeds, right? And, but first you have to have that vision firmly in mind. So, Carrie? So the next question for you and your seatmate is what is your superpower? What is your gift? You know, one thing with peace building and taking action is we do not have to lead from out front. Not everybody feels comfortable leading from out front. People that lead from beside and people that lead from behind are just as critically important for making change happen. And so our question to you is when you think of your harvest, what is your superpower and what is your gift that will help you activate getting to that place of harvest? So if you can talk to your, oh, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to add, like, if you're struggling to think about your superpower because you're very humble, which I know some people are, really superpower is just an amplification of your gift, right? And so you all have gifts, you know? And we don't want you to think of those gifts as being smaller and significant is our point. You know, you think about what is your role in your family or your community or organization, right? And think about, well, how do you amplify that? And literally think of yourself as a superhero. What does that look like? So for me, for instance, my gift is actually, I'm capable of loving a lot of people pretty easily. I find it pretty easy to love and to care for people. So if I were to amplify that into sort of like a superpower, I could imagine like my heart growing bigger and bigger and like encompassing all of you and bringing all of you to me in a big, fat embrace, right? Both willing and unwilling. But... ...Tuesday in it. But yeah, I can love even messy people, you know? Even people who are traumatized. My specialty was always, you know, those kids who were struggling the most, right? And who were fighting that love is my point. So you each have a similar gift. And you know, what does it look like then if you are to turn yourselves into superheroes? And I'll give a concrete example in Hawaii. So we passed a bill, a same-sex marriage bill. And when we were mobilizing for that effort, we needed a lot of different skill sets. We needed people that could write well. We needed people that could interview well, tell stories. We needed legal support and advice. We needed people that had policy background. We needed people that could organize and do the spreadsheets. And so we needed this real, you know, constellation of skills to pass that bill. And so as you're thinking about your harvest, think about what your contributions are and what you can bring to the table. So take three minutes to talk to your seatmates about your gifts that then manifest in the superpowers. One more minute. Okay, so now you have your harvest in your mind and in your heart and you've identified your gift or your superpower. And so the exciting part is now it's time to act on it. So when you leave today and you think about your harvest, we're gonna ask you to put your harvest into some sort of drawing. It could be also a set of words. But somehow document the harvest that you all discussed and then activate that superpower in starting to make those steps towards making that harvest a reality. You may all be asking, so what do the action plans that come out of Seeds of Peace look and feel like? We do that with all of our participants. We make sure that they've envisioned their harvest. They figure out their team. They then figure out the seeds that they're going to plant and then how to nurture and sustain their action plan. We have an extensive toolkit that can be found at seedsofpeace.org. It includes 700 tools organized by seed, also by age. It also includes a lot of examples of the action plans that our peace builders have implemented. And we've had over 8,000 people complete our workshop series. And so if you can imagine the ripple effects, which is our logo, our logo is ripples. The ripple effects of all of our participants' action plans, that's how you create peace. You know, oftentimes it feels very overwhelming when we're not in a high level decision making position and it can feel paralyzing. But if we think about ourselves as part of that ripple, you know, then we understand that that's really what it takes. You know, it takes a whole community committing to this type of work. So we wanted to just share some examples. So our youth, we have a youth talk-back program as well as a girls talk-back program. And they have created a local Hawaii March for Our Lives effort to support gun control. They've created woke student councils that are more inclusive, authentic and address the deeper issues that our students are facing. They have created family reset protocols for their families so that when things get heated, they know how to work through the problems peacefully. And they have also introduced legislation, vote 16 legislation to change the voting age to 16 in Hawaii. Our teachers, our counselors and coaches have created formal restorative practices, processes to replace suspensions and expulsions. Maya and I are never a fan of suspensions and expulsions and so we're always working with our school communities to look at alternatives. How do you build those restorative practices that keep the students that are struggling in place in their school community wrapped around by their peers and their teachers and their counselors in a really restorative way? It's not helping them to kick them out of the school. Right, and so restorative practices. They all integrate peace building activities and curricula in every single subject, including math. So imagine peace building in a math class. What does that look and feel like? Right, and it's looking at, look at our systems, our economic systems that we've built and we dive deep into the systemic injustices and our economic systems and capitalism that keep those that are struggling struggling. And so what do we as math, we do all the math around that so they can see how much harder it is for some people in our community to get to a place of self-sufficiency. Right, we've built systems that keep them, you know, from getting there. We've had them implement, I wish my teacher knew or I wish my coach knew. Practices that strengthen safe connections between teacher and coach and student and player. And so having the students and the players be able to write even just anonymously in a post-sit note. I wish my teacher knew. And the things that you discover from your students or even from your own kids as a parent by just giving them that opportunity to say, I wish my teacher knew my parents were divorcing. Right, I wish my teacher knew that my family is struggling with homelessness, that we go couch to couch. Right, it starts to strengthen that connection which is imperative for learning. Our communities have created servant leader mentorship programs, local community and military partnerships to restore healthy waterways throughout our islands. And then our girls talk back programs have elevated female voices and change makers throughout our communities. So you are an agent of positive change every single one of you. You are the navigational leader. What will you do to lead from the back, from the side and out front to create peaceful, just and equitable communities? You are all again, all on the precipice of making the grand transition into meaningful work and designing systems that work for everyone. That focus on the quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit and peace. I love good alliteration. People, planet, profit, peace. Do you love it? And then of course all the seeds. Did you folks hear what Carrie was saying though? Like, do you know how powerful you are? Just remember that the action plans that she just shared with you that those really have led to those ripple effects. We really have seen a teacher who just started with a very simple act of like, okay, asking her kids what peace building means to them and drawing it and writing about it and their kindergartners and then suddenly they're self publishing and there's a book and then there's a peace garden that's created and then a peace mural and then they're putting on a play and it's a musical and because she's a dance teacher there's of course dance and bringing together threads from all over the world and suddenly she is inspiring other teachers in the district, in the area, in the community. You know, really that does happen. You know, you just start with one little step forward. You just take it and then believe in your own capacity. So we just want you to make sure that you're really absorbing, you're really absorbing that faith in yourself and a knowledge of your own strength. You are making an impact. Why didn't you just make an impact for the good? You know, be those peace builders, claim that identity, you know, have the courage to move forward. I used to define courage as like making a grand leap, a big gesture, leaping out of a plane, right? Now I see that courage is actually about walking down a long dusty road. You don't know where you're gonna get your next drink or meal. You don't know exactly who's beside you. You don't know exactly where this road is leading, right? But you're navigating down that road and you're taking one step after another. And that's true courage. Recognizing the small wins of, you know, getting to this tree, you know, getting through this forest, arriving at that clearing and maintaining resilience and conviction in the midst of disappointment and frustration and fear, right? So leverage your navigational leadership. Keep the goals and north stars. You're motivating why before you. I hope that you join us for this afternoon's workshops on peace building and education, on peace and climate. And we have an evening session on staying the course courageously. So Mahalo Nui Loa for sharing your morning with us and for opening up and sharing this journey with us in general. And I think we have a few minutes for questions if you have any for us. Thank you. Thank you. And Barb has a handy Danny microphone for anybody that would like to ask a question. In your alliteration of peace, one of them was profit. And we were, maybe we are seeing profit in a different way. So we're wondering how you define profit and how it fits into those other ones that were surrounding it. Well, I'm sort of, I'm a minimalist. I've been practicing for a long time. So I don't see profit in terms of material goods, really. I'm pretty dematerialized. I'm not speaking for Kerry here, I don't know. But I do really see profit for me as enriching our capacities, looking at human resources. I look at circular economies and shared economies and how we can all profit from what is shared. I really see profit as expanding freedom and choice and feeling a sense of abundance, rather than working from a sense of lack. Abundance is not excess. It's just abundance where everyone has what they need. And we are operating from a state of possibility that involves a lot of freedom and choice. But how do you see profit? Yeah, and I'll just share more of the technical, probably what you're familiar with when we talk about profit. It's what businesses make, whether you're a for-profit business and the profit goes to shareholders or you're a non-profit business and the profit goes back to the organization. And so if we think about equitable profit, that is making sure everyone's getting paid a living wage. It's making sure that the income that is generated from a company is shared with the workers, which we, having Elon Musk just purchase Twitter, we know what that looks like when profit is leveraged in all the wrong ways. Right by the most powerful. And so for me, profit is part of, it's how we live. It's how we pay our bills. It's how people do maintain a self-sufficient wage. But how do we make sure that we're not just looking at profit at the expense of people, planet and peace? And I think what I've been so excited about is watching our Fortune 500 companies and the leadership stand up right now for Ukraine, pull their business out, stand up and engage with the racial divisions that are happening throughout our country to stand up, to look at their ways of doing things differently and making sure that the materials that they're making are more sustainable and not harmful to our planet. So that's how I think of profit in the more traditional sense. And it's important to think about pragmatic things too, right? Peace has to be pragmatic, otherwise it's not sustainable, right? So those pragmatic considerations are vital. And I think that there's also this notion that we, when we think about profit, that there are, for instance, in the environmental justice world, how can we be elevating sort of green jobs and technologies and people can feel a sense of social entrepreneurship that is revitalized by the opportunities that are inherent in the changes that need to come for our planet, that sort of thing is important to consider too, yeah. Good question. Thank you very much for your words, your passion and your actions. Hopefully we have been inspired to become peace builders and to continue to grow. Just a couple announcements. This morning session was live streamed and will be archived on the Mayday Conference website. I'd encourage you to look at the schedule for the day in your program. There are some wonderful workshops that we have later today. 230, we have the Peace Building and Education Workshop, which will be led by Kerry in the Edwards HM and Anderson Hall. At 330, Maya will lead the Workshop Climate Justice and Peace Building, which will be in the Center for Inclusive Excellence. And then this evening at seven, there will be a workshop that they both are leading on the activist staying steady in the storm. And I also just wanted to point out in the back of the chapel here, there is a floral arrangement that is inspired by Maya's children's book, Ladder to the Moon, which was designed by Cheryl Johnson. And that is a preview of the upcoming library exhibit, Books in Bloom. Thank you very much for being here.