The dark around us, come,

Let us meet here together,

Members one of another,

Here in our holy room,

Here on our little floor,

Here in the daylit sky,

Rejoicing mind and eye,

Rejoining known and knower,

Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,

Such order as we know,

One household, high and low,

And all the earth shall sing.

- Wendell Berry

// Photograph taken on the North shore of Nias, Indonesia.

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

- Margaret Atwood

// Photograph taken above Aceh, Indonesia

In the art of building peace, there comes a tension. John Lederach’s beautiful book, “The Moral Imagination,” captures this tension perfectly. He talks about the messiness of innovation which is peacemaking. He writes about the “wellspring,” – the source that gives way to peacemaking, which is not found in either rigorous academic theory nor advanced technique, but rather:

“The wellspring lies in our moral imagination, which I will define as the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist.”

These words move me in their beauty. I place one foot in the harsh, violent realities of this world, and one in the possibility, in what could be, in what must be. Perhaps building peace is just as much about learning to cultivate this moral imagination as it is about the actual specifics of the work ahead. I am challenged as I attempt to imagine new realities in places I have been, and yet I see that no real lasting change has ever come without imagining an alternative. It is in this imagining that there is strength to continue. It is in this imagining that there is hope.

Studying examples like the end of the war in Tajikistan, which came through the friendship between a philosopher and a warlord, the ATCC in Columbia which proved non-violent resistance was possible, and the peace efforts in Northern Kenya led by women, I am convinced that this imagining is not just imagining, it is the catalyst. And change most surely follows.

I want to imagine.

// Photograph taken near Calang, Aceh Province, Indonesia.

I walked onto Lot 46, an area of land on the corners of Rhode Island and 7th Ave NW and saw my community’s pain, met my community’s strength. Lot 46 was dedicated to low income housing several years ago but Mayor Fenty has not fulfilled his promise to turn this land into housing affordable for the residents of Shaw/Howard. And so for two weeks people have been peacefully protesting at Lot 46 to get the Mayor’s attention, to advocate for the community.

“This land has been liberated.” Has it?

// Photographs taken at Lot 46 in Washington, D.C.

Today is my birthday. I reflect. I recommit to the creating of, the laboring towards, peace. This moment was from my birthday last year, July 19, 2009, in Kiwanja, DR Congo. A small community ravaged by violence and massacre in the previous months. This group of children are child soldiers. Some have not yet chosen peace. We spent the day with them and Francois explained the myths that flourish, the lie that violence could lead to peace. He asked the children to imagine another way to be, a new way to live. “Qui veux la mort prepare la guerre, mais qui veux la paix offre le pardom.” (Who wants death prepares for war, but who wants peace offers forgiveness.”

Ndyio.

Ninataka amani (I want peace).

I commit this year to wanting becoming realized.

// Photograph taken in Kiwanja, DR Congo, during the filming of DTJ’s upcoming documentary about Heritier and Mwisha, two child soldiers and their journeys towards peace. Release date: Fall, 2010.

Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence including war. These women gather rare clean water.

// Photograph taken outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

// Photograph taken in North Horr, Kenya.

// Photograph taken in Marsabit, Northern Kenya

The children played, despite their pain. These children were newly arrived refugees, fleeing the war in eastern Congo, safe within the shelter of Uganda’s peaceful borders. Some had lost parents, some had lost each other. But as the sun set, they decided to play. This choice is hope.

// Photograph taken in Nyakabande Refugee Camp, near Kisoro, Uganda.

Nyiragongo rises up from the earth and into the clouds.

// Photograph taken on the road out of Goma towards Rutshuru, eastern DRC.