Spirit in Action
A Peace of My Mind - Fostering a Larger Public Conversation
John Noltner is photographer and author of a new book, A Peace of my Mind: Exploring the meaning of peace, one story at a time, a captivating inquiry into how common folks - and some not-so-common folks - think about peace. It attempts to bring diverse, sincere, voices into a big tent, to do the work of listening for possibilities.
- Broadcast on:
- 19 Feb 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives Of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, Creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them In their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you To sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. [music] Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone John Noltner is a photographer and author of a new book, A Piece of My Mind, exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time. It's a captivating inquiry into how common folks and some not so common folks Think about peace. It attempts to bring diverse, sincere voices into a big tent To do the work of listening for possibilities. You'll hear from folks active in the peace movement And you'll also hear from business and military folks Politicians and homeless, religious, and non-religious All over the map sharing their take on peace If John Noltner has his way, the book and the associated podcasts and display Will help us move a bit closer to finding a way for our society to unite in the work of peace John Noltner will join us by phone from the Twin Cities of Minnesota in a moment But first, let's get in the mood for a quest for peace By listening to Peter Mayer's song "Looking for the Dove" So in a few minutes, John Noltner But first, Peter Mayer "Looking for the Dove" I remember she was here It seemed to be a place to rest Until a flood of blood and tears Washed away her nest Was it when we felt afraid Or when we became us and them When the plans of war were laid Can you tell me wasn't them Now the birth of peace escaped our hands To find an all it ran Kindness and love The way leaving us to stand Scanning the horizon The dreary skies above Looking for the Dove I've seen hawks and I've seen crows And I've heard the angry cries I've seen buzzards flying low But heaven heard her lullaby We were foolish to believe She'd be an easy bird to keep Gave her a nest a bed to rest But didn't know Not even know she dreamed Dove of peace kind of our sleep So the bird Peace escaped our hands To find an all it ran Kindness and love The way leaving us to stand Scanning the horizon The dreary skies above Looking for the Dove Looking for the Dove Looking for the Dove Come back to us Come back to us Scanning the horizon John it's wonderful to have you here today For spirit in action It's great to be here thanks for having me Mark I imagine that even though your book came out last year That you're very much in the midst of the release It's a pretty enormous project isn't it? It's more enormous than I imagined it would be when I began But I'm excited to say that the book has been well received In these first two and a half months that it's been out We sold out of the first press run and we are in fact just today Reprinting a second batch of books And you're doing it on multiple levels You already in the book have included the photographs with the stories So you've already got two forms of media You've got podcasts on your website that people can go and listen to And again the website is a piece of my mind.net And that's a piece spelled P-E-A-C-E Of course you can always follow the links from my northern spirit radio.org site On the website people can hear the person speaking Did you envision when you started creating this book doing it as full multimedia? Well when I started doing this I honestly had no sense of how large this project would become How consuming this project would become to be honest I started out doing it as a personal project It was a question that I was interested in exploring That question simply being what does piece mean to you? You know piece is a notion that we hear a lot about And we find it in common culture You'll find it on T-shirts and earrings and we say the word piece a lot But I'm not sure that we always think about what piece means How we actually incorporate those thoughts into our daily life So really when I began this It was just a question I was interested in hearing people's response to Out of practicality The first way I recorded this was this podcast And I uploaded them onto a website It was the most cost effective way of sharing the ideas When I got to a certain body of work And sort of realized that this was some compelling stuff These were some interesting thoughts that people were sharing I wanted a more public venue than that And so the second thing we did was to create a traveling exhibit I was able to get funding through the Minnesota State Arts Board Through their arts tour Minnesota program Which was funded by the Legacy Amendment in Minnesota And we produced this traveling exhibit That shares the photographs and some of the people's stories And then it was after the traveling exhibit Had been out in the public for a number of months When people started saying to me You know this would be a great book This would be something I would want to bring home with me And spend a little bit more time with And so the book is the latest innovation With the subject matter It's something that I guess I had in the back of my mind Even from the earliest days But it was something that took some time to evolve and mature You know John, in the artist statement that you give At the beginning of the book You allude to two of the primary forces That led to this book being able to be developed And one of them you mentioned is the downturn in the economy Does that mean that what enabled it was the fact that you were less employed Than you had intended before? That's a gentle way of stating it Yes in fact that is what that refers to I work as a freelance photographer And you know back before our economic downturn What was that 2008-ish? You know things were going 100 miles an hour And I was busy with commercial work And shooting for national magazines And it was all quite good But I had a restlessness in the work that I was doing There was something that wasn't quite satisfying enough And I always have a personal project going on at any given time Usually those last for a couple of months, a few weeks at a time Something like that I had a hankering for a new personal project But I didn't exactly know what that was going to be Part of the reason I didn't know is because I was moving a little too quickly You know I was so busy with my assignment work And the commissioned work I didn't have the space in my life to think about what it was I wanted to explore a little more deeply Then the silver lining came along with the economic downturn I found myself with a little more free time on my hands than I expected And after that settled in a little bit After I sort of became comfortable with that new pace I found that I had this time to explore an in-depth personal project So you know this one now has been going for about three years And I fully expect that it's going to go for a lot longer It's a wonderful project The book and again the name is a piece of my mind Exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time It's compelling, it's got such personal texture to it One of the things that I really enjoy about the book is You don't present the answer, you don't present a narrative There's not a political program, let's go do this You're giving facets of a diamond of our culture in this book Yeah, that's right, that's by design for a couple of reasons One is because I don't think that I'm an academic I don't have all of the answers And I'm not a theologian and I don't have all of the answers from that side My training is in journalism, I've spent my life telling stories And I feel comfortable gathering stories and sharing those And if you're familiar with a fellow by the name of Studs Turkle Who was a historian, oral historian working out of Chicago I like to think that I model my work after what he did And what that is is I guess a thing called qualitative research Which in my mind is a fancy word for saying nothing more than Gathering people's stories and using people's individual experiences To try to illuminate a larger truth And that's what I've tried to do in this project Is not determine who's right and who's wrong Not determine what the final answers are But really just to create a space to share one another's stories To spend some time to listen intentionally And hope that by the end of that process We have a broader understanding of who we are as a society And that seems a quite noble cause How did you go about collecting the names and people That you include in the book? Did you write up a list of criteria you wanted to include? Did you ask all your friends? How did you approach that? Yeah, I'm afraid I'm not quite organized enough as a person To have written up a list of what I was looking for Maybe that's a good idea But because I started this project With only a vague notion of where it would lead I didn't plan the entire thing out I let it sort of unfold and reveal itself to me I kind of like the symbolism of walking down a foggy path And the notion that I couldn't really see very far down that path But I knew there was a path that I should follow And so every time I would take a couple of steps The fog would lift a little bit and I could see a little further down the path And that's kind of the way that this whole project has unfolded So from a practical standpoint, when I began When I was looking for the very first people to ask these questions of I reached out to some people that I had known Through my work, people I had photographed over the years And that gave me just a few subjects Then I reached out to my friends and I said, "You know, I've started working on this project Who do you know that might be interested in this conversation And might be willing to participate?" So that led me to a few more people Then as I interviewed them, I would ask them if they knew of anyone Who might be interested in sharing their thoughts And so it kind of grew outward from there There was a point, I don't know, maybe halfway through Or a third of the way into it Where it started becoming a body of work And I looked at it as a whole and I said, "You know, there's a little demographic hole here Or there's a perspective there that doesn't seem to be represented What can I do to sort of fill those gaps?" And I reached out to some people specifically To try to include some voices And at the time I started this, I didn't really have a lot of Muslim friends in my circle That I could draw from, but given the politics of the day, I recognized that a Muslim voice would be an important addition to the project So in that case, I reached out to an organization called the Islamic Resource Group And their mission statement is to help educate people about Islam And help them understand Muslim people, they'll speak to schools And places of worship and community groups to just try to help build bridges of understanding So I reached out to them, explained what I was trying to do And asked if they could suggest anybody So that then opened a door to that community And now I've got many Muslim people in my circle And several of whom I consider good friends Well, it is a wonderful assortment of people you've included I was actually delighted to see about the overlap of your book with the interviews I've been doing I note that I've had, as guests, four of the 52 people you featured in the book Oh, who were they? Mel Duncan of Nonviolent Peace Force, I've interviewed Sammy Rasouli He's with Muslim peacemaker teams, I've talked to him three times Jack Nelson Palmeyer, who teaches Justice and Peace Studies at University of St. Thomas He's one of the people I've captured And Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence Sure, all great people Yeah, and so I was really excited about that overlap of your research, your questing, I think But then you've also, I think, really wisely included a number of voices that I've missed I note that the first face that we encounter as we come into your book Is that of David A. Delampert, Jr. Could you talk about David and how you ended up including him in this collage? Sure, sure, David is a wonderful man, he happens to be homeless He's lived on the streets in Minneapolis for the last 30 years or so, a disabled veteran You know, I had met David out on the street near the University of Minnesota A year before I started this project We happened to be waiting outside of a small restaurant, there was a waiting line And as we were waiting outside, David came up and was engaging the people in the line In conversation, David has a way of asking people to sign his coat He carries a marker with him and he asks people to autograph his coat or his hat Or his cane or whatever he has with him on that day In an exchange is looking for a dollar or two to make it through his day, as he likes to say But I just found him very engaging and warm and personable And a year later, when I started working on this project, I thought, gosh, that would be wonderful To be able to find this man again and include his thoughts But I didn't really know where to find David So I had driven through that neighborhood a couple times looking for him with no success And I happened to be in a place called the Peace House Community Which is a welcoming place for all people, they can come in and spend the day and visit with one another, get a meal And while I was interviewing one of the volunteers at Peace House Community, David actually walked in the door He was planning on spending his morning and afternoon there So I took that as a sign that I should pursue the interview and I talked with him And I'm grateful that he was willing to take the time to share his thoughts So this is the way that the project has unfolded And I made a conscious effort early on not to include only people who would have name recognition Because I think there's this interesting game that happens When we talk about peace and justice, we automatically think of some of the rock stars We think about Mahatma Gandhi, we think about Martin Luther King Jr We think about Desmond Tutu, those sorts of people Which is great because those are inspiring people who have done wonderful things And they're good role models for us I think there's always the danger that we would sort of relinquish our voice to who you might call the experts in the field You know, wait and see what they have to say about an issue Wait for their leadership for us to follow I think it's really important that we recognize that we all have this kind of potential within us That we all have an enormous amount of power to affect change within our own small part of the world And so in doing this project, I wanted to include voices that did not have name recognition People that you and I might consider just, you know, everyday people To find that everybody has that story Everybody has the ability to make a difference and compelling things that we can learn from And as I said, John, I think that was wise of you to include This wider slice of humanity in what you're doing And I really value that about your book Again, the book is a piece of my mind exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time Another area that I've perhaps done too little exploration But that you feature a couple stories of related to it Is those working in business I think there's a tendency, particularly on the left or on the liberal end, to dismiss such voices As maybe cogs in a destructive machine Why did you want or maybe even need to include them in this book? In particular, I was thinking of Mark Williams of Royal Dutch Shell We all have a habit of categorizing people in our lives I think on the left, we like to think that the right side does it On the right, I suppose they like to think that the left side does it But we all are guilty of categorizing people Of making quick assessments of who they are And where their values lie And really quickly coming to a conclusion about, you know, to borrow a phrase Either those people are with us or they're against us And I think when we create that kind of duality When we create that sort of black and white scenario in our lives I think we miss out on a lot of the subtle nuance We miss out on a lot of the rich ground for understanding And we miss out on the opportunity to sort of build bridges between In fact, we become a part of the process that polarizes our society even further I think you'd have to be living in a hole in the ground Not to recognize the polarized nature of the debate That our civil discourse has wound up in, especially over these last few years And like you say, with a project like this that talks about peace There's an immediate understanding or assumption that this comes from the political left That this is a peacenick or a hippie type of movement When you view the notion of peace in that lens You do a disservice to the notion of peace And you limit your possible exploration And so by picking someone like Rick Ripmaster Who had just returned from serving as a chaplain in the army in Iraq Or Mark Williams who works for Shell Or Gopal Khanna who served with George W. Bush As the CFO of the Peace Corps When you include those voices Who in some circles would be viewed as the right in the opposition And not a part of this conversation about peace You begin to view them as more human You begin to understand the nuance in their position You begin to find some common ground in the values that we all share And I think that improves our odds of moving towards a more peaceful world And that was absolutely beautifully said I couldn't have said it better and you've almost spoken An essential part of what I'm trying to do is my Northern Spirit radio programs Well I'll have to listen to that recording and see exactly what I did say Make sure I agree with it, but I think it came out right It did, it did, it was great I'm pretty sure that you had to deal with limitations in terms of who you could fit in this book But I imagine that there are folks whose stories you decided you just didn't need to include Who didn't you include for any of the various reasons? Good question Well first I should tell you that everybody that I interviewed up to the point of producing the book Everyone I interviewed was actually included in the book I never interviewed somebody and said "Oh that's not very interesting, that's not worth sharing" What I found is that everybody had a compelling story to share in one way or another I think for me it's very interesting that all of the people that I interviewed were actually included in the book Now there are a few people, I should clarify that in one small way There was one woman that I interviewed who was actually a friend of mine And because I'm not always the most technically savvy person I blew the interview, I got back and something had happened and the file was not saved properly And so it simply was unavailable to be used And we never found a chance to redo the interview And I've been there and I've done that by the way It haunts me ever since and I live in constant fear of digital demons that are going to do that to me again There were a couple of people that I asked to be a part of the project who declined And I think some of them for valid reasons Some of them for traditional humble Minnesotan reasons But with only two or three exceptions Everyone who I invited to be a part of this project was excited about the notion I think that people are hungry for this kind of conversation I think in our polarized debate We want to reach out and have this conversation about how we get to a more civil place About how we make our world not perfect, but how we make our world better And so I see a real hunger for this conversation and that was reflected in people's willingness to participate You've also been going around with an exhibit related to the book And I was wondering, John, which places have been fertile to share it? Which places have been very accepting? They're like, yes, we do want to have the exhibit here Which places haven't proved fertile or maybe when you've gone there You've got a lot more static or negative reaction than you thought Or maybe it's just all been positive Yeah, I have not really found negative reaction to the project A couple of comments that I get from time to time Do refer to demographics saying, oh, you know, I wish I would see more of fill in the blank You know, young people, rural people, you know, this kind of woman, that kind of man I do get that kind of feedback from time to time And I'll be the first to admit that this is not a perfect demographic representation of our community And I don't think you can ever get to the perfect demographic I think it's a pretty broad and pretty representative view of different people's ideas So some people will talk about political peace, some people will talk about spiritual peace, some about inner peace That sort of diversity, also gender, race, ethnicity, religious, economic background, that kind of diversity As far as places that have been fertile ground for bringing the exhibit We've had really good luck in faith communities, have had really good luck in educational institutions And community groups, library, civic centers, that kind of thing For engaging the public in these kinds of conversations Again, the goal of this project is not to give people the answers But the goal is to encourage people to participate in the conversation themselves So the places where we can connect with the community, connect with an organization in the community Where they're plugged in and they're able to help facilitate some programming To draw in the public in their circles, to participate in some of this dialogue Is really where I think the exhibit has been the most successful You know, there's one demographic or maybe perspective that isn't included in the book That I think in a broad sweep of our culture would probably end up there And I don't intend this, by the way, as a criticism at all But I imagine that there's a number of people, like one of my brothers Who is a fundamentalist of Bernie and Christian Who would say, "Peace, peace is being with Jesus Christ or knowing that He's my Lord and Savior" And that's one perspective, I think, I don't know Maybe one out of twenty people at least might respond that way, or maybe one out of five Did you knowingly avoid that, or maybe they avoided you? No, no, I think, you know, in fact, I think if you take the time and listen to what the Reverend Harry went Says, he leads an organization called Crossways International, which develops Christian educational materials for a global audience So he tells the story of the Bible really through graphics, through picture stories And he has a very strong Christian background and speaks of it very much in his interview If you listen to his podcast, in the interview, in the words that make it into the book, he speaks I think, see if I can remember the quote, right, the gist of it is What would this world be like if we all use Jesus' example of service toward one another Instead of paying attention to borders, flags, and skin color, we live in a completely different world So he is the first one that comes to mind who talks about his sense of peace being in the love of Jesus Christ So I don't think that it's absent, but it's maybe not as overt as other people might say it Yes, I was aware of his bid in there, I didn't watch the podcast of him, so maybe I didn't hear it in this whole context But that's definitely in the direction I was wondering about Have you received any heated feedback, people taking umbrage at what you've included in peace with my mind? I'm just thinking that there's someone out there who not only had a slight criticism, but said, you know, you're a commysocialist Or maybe that just doesn't happen Boy, nobody who has claimed that quite so clearly to me There certainly have been times where I have talked about the project probably enthusiastically And gotten the feeling that the person I'm talking to internally is rolling their eyes And wondering if I'm thinking about rainbows and unicorns and patches of daisies That really misses the mark of this project This is not a project about being idealistic and unrealistic In my mind, this is a project about being very realistic Recognizing the challenges that we face in our world Recognizing that, yes, there is going to be conflict Throughout history, you know, going backwards and going forwards And sure, there are bad guys in the world, you know, the challenge that I hear more often than not Is, of course, the World War II challenge Well, what about Hitler? There are bad guys in the world or in today's politics What about, you know, radical Muslims and terrorists? Those things, yes, do exist in the world But my position is that the fact that there are challenges and difficulties in the world Does not give us the excuse to stop trying to find a reasonable solution to life's problems If that makes any sense I think, very often, if you want to use the Hitler example If you're talking about nonviolence, if you're talking about peaceful resolution of conflict People would say, oh, but Hitler, he couldn't have been stopped anyway, but with an army We can debate that point, but if we use that as an excuse To stop pursuing peaceful solutions, I think we've really missed the mark I think we've really missed an opportunity Because that is the most extreme example But we can all point to examples in our lives every day Where we have choices that we can make About how we're going to respond to a person, about how we're going to resolve a situation And in those choices, we can either choose to sort of throw fuel on the fire And escalate a tense situation Or we can choose to throw water on that fire and extinguish a tense situation It's one of the most misused adages of our culture I think the fight fire with fire That you fight fire with water Yeah, it's kind of a no-brainer if you think about it One of the interesting people you included in there You included an interview with the 35th governor of Minnesota, Al Puy And it was very interesting to see where that interview went I was struck by the very cautious tone he used I guess really having to deal with all the difficulties Of dealing with these masses of people working together He seemed more cautious than almost anyone else in the book What did you take away from that interview? Good question Now Al will give you a little insight as to how the whole project came together I happened to have access to Al I could reach out to him His son is named Joel Kui and he leads Prairie Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota I knew Joel because I served on the board of directors for Lutheran partners in global ministry And I presented at his church And then it also happened that our young children played in the same basketball league So I would see him at some tournaments So as I started putting together the subjects for this project I thought, well, it would be interesting to have someone who used to be a political leader in the state Who could that be? Realized that Joel Kui was the son of Al Kui who used to be the governor And I said, Joel, do you think your dad would want to talk to me? And he said, yeah, I think so And so he connected us in that way So that's a little insight as to how the subjects came to be, who they were You know, Al was really welcoming and had me in his home to do the interview And was very candid and made it very clear that no questions were out of bounds So I appreciated his willingness to take the time to talk with me I know that there are those who have looked at that particular panel in the exhibit And said, why would you include Al Kui? Because he's been participating in a conversation about gay marriage And gay serving in the Lutheran church and things like that And things that people take umbrage at I tried really hard going into this project Not to make judgments from the start because my goal was not to filter My goal was not to decide what the conversation should be And then find the right people to fit into it But my goal was to sort of cast a broad net and listen to what people had to share And so from that standpoint, I tried to reserve my own judgment And simply make it a place where people could share their thoughts All of that sounds really great But the thing that I noticed in his tone, and maybe this was a result of where he was On a particular day you spoke with him He seemed to say, you know, getting people to work together is really hard work And I think he had sat in a position where he dealt with the realities of that As opposed to those of us who are idealistic, you know, wishing for a better world I just was wondering if you caught that part of what he said Yeah, I did catch it, and in particular he tells a story Again, this probably didn't make it into the edit for the book You know, because we're limited to just a couple of hundred words for each person But this is in the extended version as the podcast He tells a story about working with legislators And trying to establish what shape table they should all be sitting at So that everybody felt like they were on, you know, a level playing field And so they weren't sitting at a rectangular table, but they were sitting at a round table So that nobody was viewed as the dominant position And on the one hand, I think that that's silly Because aren't we all grown up enough to get past that and deal with that? But on the other hand, I think, you know, it's great to live up in this esoteric part of the stratosphere Where we say, oh, well, things should be better and things should go like this But it's really when you get down I mean, where the rubber meets the road kind of a thing When you're dealing with those day-to-day, very real situations You know, if sitting at a round table can accommodate a conversation better than sitting at a rectangle table Well, then fine, let's do that And I think when he was talking from a political perspective I think that there were lots of chasms and gaps that need to be bridged Before you can even get to the table to have the conversation And I think that his reality dealt with those sorts of things You know, last night I was at a meeting for the League of Women Voters here in Bloomington where I live And just the day before there was some contentious stuff going on at the Minnesota legislature With confirmation hearings and things like that And some of those members of the legislature were there in the panel discussion that was going on Ironically enough about simple discourse And listening to them sort of navigate the terrain And try to justify their position was very cautious And I think sometimes not completely forthright method And I think, you know, that sort of caution when people are parsing and examining your every word Is probably part of the political landscape that we don't find ourselves having to navigate on a daily basis And it's such a relief that we don't But thank goodness for that, right? But more power to the people who, you know, do that really hard work I really appreciate, I imagine when you bring a group of Palestinians and Israelis together If you're not careful about the shape of the table, et cetera You end up making zero progress Yeah, and in fact possibly going backwards You know, there are, again, I'm not an academic I'm not an expert in many things So sometimes I myself can feel a little intimidated with approaching some of these very difficult, very political conversations And again, I don't have the answer to them What I would hope is that we can create a public space where it's okay to have those conversations You know, so often we each come to a conversation with our own baggage And as soon as we hear those buzzwords, as soon as we hear the code of language Our red flag goes up and we instantly become defensive We garnish all of our righteous indignation and we're ready to do battle Well, when you come to a conversation that way, there's little or no hope for progress And what I hope to do with this project is create a space that can maybe let people just take that step back And to take a couple of breaths and say, well, let's at least hear what the other side has to say Because in our political conversation these days, everybody has their talking points And there's seemingly no effort made at trying to listen to the other side Absolutely right. If you just tuned in, you're listening to Spirit in Action And this is a Northern Spirit radio production. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet Our website is northernspiritradio.org On the site, you can find over six years of programs. You can listen to any of them. The past six and a half years You can find links to our guests, like to John Noltner, who's with us today He's produced a book called A Piece of My Mind Exploring the Meaning of Peace One Story at a Time And you can find a link to his website, a piece ofmymind.net And that's P-E-A-C-E You can find that link on northernspiritradio.org, which maybe is easier to spell correctly, I don't know But it's so delightful talking with you, John. Your insights are so important to our world And they really fit very much with where I want to be at and where I think I'm at It would be helpful to have a little bit of more idea of your background. You've spoken about how you encountered Al Quis So I think that I know maybe a little bit about your background. Could you talk about religiously, spiritually The place you've come from and maybe where you are now? Sure, I'd be happy to. I was born and raised in the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran tradition Somewhere around college, I shifted that into, I guess, what would be considered a more liberal brand of Lutheranism The E-L-C-A, that's the tradition that I've been in since That being the case, I'm not particularly denomination-driven The Lutheran church is where I go I happen to recognize value in a lot of different faith traditions And so I'm open to learning more about that I really believe that interfaith dialogue is an important part of what we need to do in the world I think there's this sense that if we talk to someone else who doesn't come from our own tradition That maybe we don't need to change them, but at least we need to convince them that we're right and they're not And that's a perspective that I've never fully understood I don't feel like my faith is threatened by talking with someone else In fact, I feel like it's strengthened when I'm able to be in an open dialogue with someone from a different tradition And when I'm able to sort of explain and clarify my own positions, it really helps me understand my own theology better And when somebody else is able to share their faith tradition and their background with me It's interesting to me to find where there's overlaps, where there's parallels And certainly where there's differences, because there are differences When it comes to matters of heaven and hell I don't feel like I need to worry myself too much about where other people land on that I think that God's big enough to make those decisions I'm just interested in exploring my own spirituality and in sharing that conversation with others Well, with that in mind, I think that some of the choices you made to include in the book, a piece of my mind were kind of interesting One of the little vignettes in there is with four sisters who are also Catholic nuns or Catholic sisters, if you will I thought that was kind of a sweet little picture And then there's Jews, and there's Buddhists, and Muslims, and then there's folks of no particular faith community at all Did it seem really important to you to include these kind of flavors of connection in your book? Well, it did, and specifically for this reason, that my understanding of peace, my notion of peace and my need to work toward peace in the world and in my own personal spirituality is strongly informed by my faith tradition So it seemed only logical to me that that would be the case for other people too And so I didn't want to limit it to a faith conversation Because I wanted to include people who were also atheist or agnostic So that we could sort of see some parallels between different faith communities and people without theistic tradition behind them Well, again, I think that's another one of the wise decisions you made in selecting the subjects of this book I mean, I guess the subject is peace in this very broad sense Do you want to say any more about your particular view? Because you've asked a lot of other people about this You went out there and you said, "So what's your idea of peace? What does peace mean to you?" It's about time I turned that around on you So John Nolper, it's your turn to be recorded What does peace mean to you? Well, you know, there's a very good reason why I didn't include a podcast of myself I much prefer to listen to other people talk about that But I'll do my best to answer that question You know, my notion of peace evolves and changes And I guess as I look at my life, I hope that would be true for a number of things You know, we don't want to get to a point and be stagnant I think that my notion of peace has evolved throughout this project And I guess if I had to articulate it, I would say that my notion of peace Means that we find a way to live well with one another To live better with one another It's not a sense that we'll never have conflict in the world Because I think that we will But as we bump up against one another, can we make the effort to find a better way to resolve our conflicts? And so, in that process, that has everything to do with being aware of myself as a person Being very honest with myself about my values And what's important to me, in engaging with my society And trying to drive the debate and trying to drive the policy Towards being equitable and just towards as many people as we possibly can It revolves around recognizing the humanity in other people In not listening to the dogma and the stereotypes and the rhetoric that's out there But informing clear and fair assessments of other people through our own experience Does that make sense? It makes 100% sense Again, I have to say that I feel like we're very much on this same page And I'm just so heartened by your work in this respect Thanks Mark, I should point out clearly that I don't do well at this myself all the time You can ask my family members, you can ask my close friends When we fall down and when we stumble, that's not a reason to give up That's a reason to try harder And I find myself in a situation of having to try harder very often This is hard work, even if you talk about the simple things that someone cutting you off on the freeway Or being behind the slow person in the checkout lane These are things that we have to practice over and over again And we're not going to get it right 100% of the time But that's not the excuse to give up You know John, one of my favorite theologians, if you will The comedian, Lenny Bruce, one of his phrases was We're all the same schmuck I like that and it's true, I think we all struggle with the same things And if we pretend we don't, then we need probably a little more honest with ourselves There's one more piece about how this project came together that I wanted to find out from you You mentioned that one of the things that made it possible was that The downturn in the economy meant you had perhaps more free time and maybe less income And otherwise you might have had So because of that, I didn't assume you had a lot of money to fund a kickoff of a new book So you had your Kickstarter campaign and you got 92 backers for it, according to what I saw in the book How did you bring them together? What was driving them? I mean, I'm so glad that they existed as a support for you How did you bring them together? Sure, well let me back up a little bit and talk about that downturn in the economy And what makes more sense when your business is slowed down Than to focus an increasing amount of time on something that brings in absolutely zero revenue It's a little counterintuitive, but I'm grateful for a supportive family And a supportive wife who encouraged me to go down this path Working on this project really the best way to describe it in my mind is as a calling I felt called to explore this conversation And I'm grateful that I had the support in my own world to take the time to do it When it came time to produce the book, you know, I spent about a year looking for a traditional publisher Going the normal route with an agent and a publishing company and that sort of thing And without exception, they responded to me by saying, well, this is a great concept We love the photos, they're beautiful, the text is compelling But we don't think we'll make enough money off of it, so good luck to you And I found that a little discouraging, but there are some real economics behind it You know, the publishing industry is changing as things go to e-books And with the downturn in the economy publishers were a little skittish about taking on something new And really it can cost a lot of money to produce a photo book A book with images as opposed to just a book of text, like a novel So for all of those reasons, I had trouble finding going the traditional publishing route And then I thought to myself with some encouragement from friends, I thought, you know, this is the year 2011 At the time, we have options available to us So I decided to use Kickstarter as a platform to fundraise for this project And if people aren't familiar with Kickstarter, it's an online tool that lets people build a fundraising campaign And you set a financial goal, and you set a timeline for it, a specific number of days And then you use social media, and you use all the traditional networking ways Essentially to bother all of your friends and say, "Hey, would you give me money for this cool thing I want to do?" And we were lucky enough to have success So reached out, gathered pledges from 92 different people that basically said Yeah, this is a great idea, we'd like to help make it happen And like if you're listening to public radio or public television There are rewards that you can set up for certain pledging levels So you give X amount, and you get a signed copy of the book You give more, you get your name in the book, that kind of thing There were some rewards and some incentives, but in my mind, the bottom line is those 92 people said "You know what? I think we can do this." Lo and behold, we did And thank God that you did Well, you know, and what I really like about it, Mark, is that I guess, in a way, it would have been a kind of nice recognition to have a publisher say, "Yeah, let's do that." But in another way, it's pretty awesome to have built this community of 92 people Who together said, "You know what? We don't have to wait for affirmation from someone else. We can just do this." And that kind of community, I think, is really cool And it is totally cool Where's the project going from here? I have a sense that this is not the final step In Quaker Speak, we talk about way opening in front of us I have a sense that that's been happening to you, that way has been opening as you've gone down this path Where do you see it opening to? Well, there are some big things that are about to happen One of them is with the book, the whole project has become more tangible and more easy to grasp for people So this exhibit continues to book at colleges and universities across the country Talking to some larger museums who are interested in the exhibit for an extended period of time But the next phase is going to be to take this conversation global So essentially, we'll start working on book number two Which will ask the same set of questions What does peace mean to you? How do you work towards it in your life? What are some of the obstacles you encounter along the way? But where this book was almost entirely produced in Minnesota With a larger view, a larger perspective than just Minnesota But was produced primarily right here in the state This next one is going to be a global conversation And so I'll be traveling this summer We'll take the first sort of exploratory trip to make sure I understand The logistics of how this is going to work We'll be going to Europe and conducting a number of interviews there Then by fall, I hope to be planning a trip to South and Central America To collect interviews and then throughout 2013 I'm hoping to do about six other trips that will have as a goal to develop the content for book number two Wow, what a project that is birthed out of a downturn in the economy It's a bit of a silver lining and to be honest at times I feel like I'm in a little bit over my head But as long as that path is still in front of me As long as I can see these next couple of steps that I need to take I'll take those steps with the understanding that the rest of the path will be revealed as I go down it It's a wonderful journey that you're going through, John Again, author of "A Peace of My Mind" Exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time John Noltner is the person you're looking for You can find a link to "A Peace of My Mind" that's "Peace P-E-A-C-E" "A Peace of My Mind" by a NorthernSpiritRadio.org John has just been so fulfilling for me to hear your story and journey I wish you absolutely the best as you move forward Thanks for joining me for "Spirit in Action" Yeah, thanks Mark, I appreciate the conversation I'll take you out for today's "Spirit in Action" with a time proven gem of a song by Tom Paxton "Peace will come" See you next week for "Spirit in Action" Peace Peace will Peace will come Let it begin with me We need We need peace Now let it begin with me Oh, my life Is all I can hope to control Oh, let my life Belive for the good, good of my soul Let it bring peace Sweet peace Peace will come Let it begin with me Peace Peace will Peace will come Let it begin with me We need We need peace Now let it begin with me Oh, my life Is all I can hope to control Oh, let my life Belive for the good, good of my soul Let it bring peace Sweet peace Peace will come Let it begin with me With me With me The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World" performed by Sarah Thompson This "Spirit in Action" program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org Thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is "Spirit in Action" With every voice, with every song We will move this world along With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing