Talking Circle [Re: President Clinton Demo]

[Bill Nickless]

At 09:09 PM 4/11/2000 -0500, Robert Olson wrote:
>There is a plan in the works to use the AG in a Digital Talking Circle 
>with President Clinton, president of Dine' college, Frank G, Rick, Larry, 
>Dan Reed, folks at ACCESS-DC.

Excerpted from http://www.uccan.org/global/interfaith01.htm#5 we read:

>5. Talking Circles
>The initial challenge in interfaith work is how to establish trust. 
>Without trust, conversation soon grinds to a halt. How the conversation is 
>conducted reflects power structures. A guest speaker is still a guest, one 
>voice among many. How do we break out of the Western Christian model of 
>conversation? Asked another way, the question becomes "How should we meet 
>each other?" When this question was posed to Aboriginal communities, the 
>response was the talking circle. In the talking circle, a sacred emblem is 
>passed from person to person, and the holder bears the right to speak 
>without interruption. In such a way, the voices of all those present are 
>honoured.
>·       The talking circle takes time, which may at first be perceived as 
>a limitation but is actually a strength. It is a model based on completion 
>and respect, rather than reliance on "authoritative" perspectives.

For context, the source of the quotation is the United Church of Canada.

I don't know how a Digital Talking Circle would operate on Monday.
===
Bill Nickless    http://www.mcs.anl.gov/people/nickless      +1 630 252 7390
PGP:0E 0F 16 80 C5 B1 69 52 E1 44 1A A5 0E 1B 74 F7     nickless at mcs.anl.gov