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March 2019 Rediscover what connects us.
Be There April 9
A Peace of My Mind turns 10 this spring! Please join us April 9 at Squirrel Haus Arts in Minneapolis to celebrate!

Doors open at 6. View the American Stories exhibit, socialize, and enjoy snacks (BYOB) before the program starts at 7. Barbara Nordstrom-Loeb, the very first person I interviewed, will join me on stage for Peace Interview 2.0!
Share the Conversation
Wherever I bring A Peace of My Mind, people reach across differences and have conversations that really matter. Our 20-minute training video and 30-page leader's guide are designed to bring those conversations everywhere: churches, schools, neighborhoods, businesses. The video makes it engaging, and the guide makes it easy. I invite and challenge you to lead a conversation!

Friends pay only $100 for USB or DVD! Use code "Leaders" at checkout.
From the Archives
Kathy Webb was the first openly gay person in elected office in Arkansas. She served in the state House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013. When I interviewed her in 2017, she talked about working with other legislators across fierce disagreements:

One of the issues that had been most important to me in my late 20s and early 30s was the Equal Rights Amendment. I'm very passionate about equal rights for women. In 1982 a friend and I organized the last rally for the ERA in Arkansas on the steps of the capitol.

So here fast forward all these years later, I'm a sitting legislator. My first term, the ERA is brought up. And the internal emotion is very strong, to think that after all the years that I worked on the ERA I might have a chance to vote on it as a legislator.

Well, it was sent to a particular committee, and it failed to get out of the committee by one vote . And the one vote that it needed was cast against it by a woman who was a Democrat. I felt all sorts of emotion anger, disappointment, all of that.

The woman and I were working together on another project. And I needed her support, and she needed my support. I took a walk around the capitol, and I thought about it. And I thought, I don't want to say something that's driven by my emotion right now , rather than reason. And, of course, a lot of politics is driven by emotion.

But I just made a point to avoid being around her for about 24 hours until I really thought it through. And I said, ok, this was one vote. It didn't happen. You're not going to get to vote on it. There are a lot of other issues that you care about, and you're going to just move forward. And that's what I tried to do.
Our Friends Are Saying...
"John was a big hit with our staff and he inspired us in our own daily work with children. His work revealed the power of person-to-person communication and modeled peace through practice. In addition to the beauty of his photography, John’s authenticity shows in his delivery, which makes his message that much more powerful.”
~ Dr. Frank Alfaro Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services
at Alamo Heights Independent School District
If you're in Green Bay, New Brunswick, Ithaca, or Topeka, we might see you in March .
Are we near you?
Also This Month
March is Women's History Month. This year's theme (set by the National Women's History Alliance) is Visionary Women: Champions of Peace & Nonviolence . The Alliance is honoring eleven great women, past and present , whose work fits this theme including Zainab Salbi and Dr. E. Faye Williams.

Mid-March, I'll be at Cornell University's Alice Cook House (named for a Cornell professor whose life story you might want to add to your Women's History Month reading list). As the Irik Sevin Fellow in Residence at Cook House, I'll share ideas with students, give a public lecture, and convene some smaller conversations with House residents.