Soulwise
How to Create a Conspiracy of Hope, Health and Harmony
by
Dr. Phil Johnson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Nanohouse Press on Smashwords
Soulwise
How to Create a Conspiracy of Hope, Health and Harmony
Copyright © 2010 by Philip Ernest Johnson
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book.
Internet addresses given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.
Author photograph by David DeJonge of DeJonge Studio
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
PRAISE FOR SOULWISE
“I couldn't put Phil Johnson's book down. It is a full education on the problems of the world and the roles that caring people can play to improve the lives of other members of the human family. Phil is passionate and inspiring about helping others and shows you how to do it. As an author of Up and Out of Poverty, I couldn't help but think that Phil Johnson is the Good Samaritan role model for the spirit and passion needed to lift countless millions out of poverty.”
-Philip Kotler, Professor of International Marketing, Northwestern University
“Soulwise is a rich compendium of actions needed to alleviate the world's woes, written by a wise and loving man whose life has been devoted to helping others. This book will awaken you to the possibilities of human potential.”
-William E. Halal, Professor of Management, George Washington University.
“Dr. Phil Johnson's tested seven-step guide to becoming a Soulwise Conspirator enables readers to transform the human family by the power of compassion.”
-Bob Danzig, former President, Hearst Newspapers
“That our world is seriously sick is a foregone conclusion. With timely insight, modeling, reflection and direction, Dr. Johnson points us to three things on the pathway toward healing-hope, health and harmony. Soulwise is a masterpiece-a must read for all who seek to make our world a better place.”
-Dr. Peter Okaalet, Africa Director, Medical Assistance Programs International
“Soulwise is packed with hope and possibilities for those who desire to make a difference. It offers leaders around the world a road map to significance and life-changing results.”
-Ron Tschetter, former Director, United States Peace Corps
“Dr. Phil Johnson is an intellectual who truly speaks from the heart. If you want to change the world and don't know where to start, this book will show you how.”
-Barbara Pietrangelo, Executive Board Member, Million Dollar Round Table
“Phil Johnson wants to change the world, promoting hope to counteract the cynicism of our time. He believes spiritual renewal is essential for a harmonious world.”
-Tony Campolo, Professor of Sociology, Eastern University
“This warm, compassionate, compelling book is a paean to hope - to its power to both inspire and save. Phil Johnson shows by his own extraordinary life what people, individually and collectively, can do to make a better world.”
-Arnold Brown, Futurist, coauthor of FutureThink
“Phil Johnson writes for the sake of action and change. Readers cannot just read, but must face up to doing, living and growing. Phil forces this confrontation: the world is not getting on so well, and you and I can do something about that.”
-Mark Fackler, Professor of Communication, Calvin College
* * * * *
to
My Granddaughters
Elsa Melody Balsitis
and
Rebekah Grace Hurley
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My experiences at home and around the world forged this book and I am deeply grateful to my family, friends, colleagues, parishioners and students who have enriched my life.
I especially want to express my appreciation to my wife, Melody, who inspires me to dream and do the impossible.
I also want to thank the following for their support: The saints at New Day Church-On-The-Hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the members of Exodus Church in Kibera slum who faithfully coordinate Kibera Kids Kitchen, and the Rev. Professor Godfrey Nguru, Vice-Chancellor of Daystar University.
For their individual and collective contribution to my book's success, I offer my thanks to the following: Lee Dean for his conceptual assistance, Barbara McNichol for her superb editing, Amy Cole for her creative book design and production assistance, Nido Qubein for writing the Foreword, Sandy Gould and the printing team at Color House Graphics for their excellence, literary agent Michael Larsen for his encouragement, and Rotarians around the world who put service above self.
* * * * *
Part I: The Soulwise Conspiracy
Chapter 1: The Dream: One World One Family
Chapter 2: The Primary Principle: Interdependence
Part II: Our World Is In Critical Condition
Chapter 3: Seven Inconvenient Truths
Chapter 4: Seven Deadly Attitudes
Part III: The Soulwise Conspirators
Chapter 5: The Conspirators’ Core
Chapter 6: Radical Global Servant Leaders
Part IV: A Guide to Becoming a Soulwise Conspirator
Chapter 7: Discover Your Passion
Experience the World in Motion
Ask Really Good Dumb Questions
Chapter 9: Dream the Need Fulfilled
Chapter 10: Draft Your Dream Team
Chapter 11: Develop Your Strategy
Chapter 12: Declare Your Dream
Chapter 13: Deliver Your Dream
* * * * *
Achieving a life of success and significance, in both business and in life, does not happen without a well-thought plan. Life is all about choices. We choose to expand our horizons by learning to stretch our wings and attempt new adventures. We choose to invest our time with heroes, models, and mentors who teach us through example. We choose to become better tomorrow than we are today. These are all components of a plan to develop a path for achieving our life goals.
If any of these concepts or ideas catch your interest, you’re in the right place. The book that you hold in your hands will inspire you with an energetic perspective on what it takes to build a positive and nurturing life plan that positions you for a life of hope, health and harmony.
For the timid change is frightening and for the comfortable change is threatening. But, for the confident, change is opportunity.
This book may spark in you the need to change certain aspects in your life, the need to redirect your ambitions, or the need to seek out new mentors or like-minded individuals.
By following Dr. Phil Johnson’s sound advice, you will soon develop a personal power that arms you with the tools necessary to compete and cooperate in our changing world. Every improvement you experience is the result of change. And every change can lead to new and better things as long as you are focused on achieving a life of significance.
Lest you think this book is simply a spiritual, feel-good book, take note in the urgency and power behind every word. Dr. Johnson outlines how our world is quickly changing, and how the need for soulful, purpose-driven leaders has never been greater. Today’s successful leaders require professional drive, passionate persistence, and positive dedication to compete in a global and technology-based marketplace. I truly believe in my heart that success does not come to you, you must go to it. The path is well-traveled, but we must take the appropriate steps that will take us where we need—and want—to be.
This spiritual journey will transform your definition of living a life of significance. Study the ideas and tenets laid out before you and apply them to your personal and professional life.
Remember, life is about choices. Decide here and now that you want to make the world a better place, and build a plan that will take you there!
Dr. Nido Qubein
President, High Point University
Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Co.
* * * * *
One sweltering afternoon in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, a distraught young woman ran up to me and screamed, “Help! Help my baby! He choked and stopped breathing!” Then she thrust her infant into my arms.
I put my cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training to work as I called for medical help. I laid the six month old on the ground and confirmed that he wasn’t breathing. I opened his mouth to see if I could locate any obstruction and discovered a small bone lodged in his throat. With my little finger, I gently removed the bone and gave him two quick rescue breaths. He began to breathe. I sighed and gave the little boy back to his grateful mother.
In fewer than 30 seconds, I saved a child’s life, thanks to my CPR course. This experience triggered a question: how many children and adults in our global family are choking—in more profound ways than this—and needing urgent care?
William Garvelink, United States ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, answered this question when he said, “On any given day in the world, there are 40 million people displaced from their homes due to civil conflict and natural disasters, another 820 million who need food aid, and another 37 million who are living in their homes but have no access to food, health care, or potable water because of conflict going on around them.”
Garvelink’s statement haunts me. Almost a billion members of our global family are in critical condition and at risk of “choking” to death. This state of emergency compelled me to write Soulwise: How to Create a Conspiracy of Hope, Health and Harmony and initiate a movement also called The Soulwise Conspiracy. I must reach out with compassion and breathe life and hope into my brothers and sisters.
There isn’t a second to spare. Gradual action will not help, as we know from the famous frog experiment. When boiling water was poured on a frog in a beaker, it jumped out instantly. However, when the water in the beaker was gradually heated to a boil, the frog boiled to death. That’s exactly how we’ve been adjusting to turmoil on our planet.
In contrast to my sense of urgency, American singer John Mayer insists in one of his songs that he is “Waiting for the World to Change.” Here’s the letter I wrote challenging John to have compassion in what he describes in another song as the “Real World.”
Dear John:
Thanks for your music. You’re a gifted musician and singer, and have achieved tremendous popularity and success. Congratulations.
The lyrics of your hit song, “Waiting for the World to Change,” intrigue me and are burned into my internal hard drive. That’s what troubles me. The message of the song as I hear it is to lull listeners into complacency. “So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change.” You repeat the word “waiting” 16 times.
What astounds me is that you encourage a “generation” that you describe as “aware and caring” to wait for some magical moment in the future to change the world. You sing with certainty, “One day our generation is gonna rule the population.”
The stark reality is that your “generation” may never have the chance to “rule the population” because there may not be a civilization. We can’t wait, John. Millions in our global family need people of every generation to step up to the plate. We need you to use your influence now in order to fulfill our responsibility as global citizens.
If you really do “see everything that’s going wrong with the world and those who lead it,” then how could you just sit back and not “rise above and beat it.” How could you possibly wait until you have “the means” in a world where often the “fight ain’t fair”?
John, there’s no time to wait. We must act now! Through your music, you can inspire your generation to breathe hope into our global family. Instead of “waiting on the world to change,” become a Soulwise Conspirator and shape the future of humankind.
Stop waiting, John. Get your rear in gear and save the world.
Cheers!
Phil
Soulwise: How to Create a Conspiracy of Hope, Health and Harmony confronts this choking crisis head on and recommends a strategy that will give hope for humanity. It’s divided into the following four parts:
Part I, The Soulwise Conspiracy—offers the promise for humanity to survive and thrive.
• The Dream: One World One Family
• The Primary Principle: Interdependence
Part II, Our World Is In Critical Condition—diagnoses the health of the global family.
• Seven Inconvenient Truths
• Seven Deadly Attitudes
Part III, The Soulwise Conspirators—describes the radical nature of people who dare to confront inconvenient truths and implore others to join them in breathing life into our global family.
• The Conspirators’ Core
• Radical Global Servant Leaders
Part IV, A Guide to Becoming a Soulwise Conspirator—introduces readers to the basic theory and practical skills needed to breathe hope into humanity. Each of the seven chapters in this part focuses on one of these essential steps:
• Discover Your Passion
• Define the Need
• Dream the Need Fulfilled
• Draft Your Dream Team
• Develop Your Strategy
• Declare Your Dream
• Deliver Your Dream
Journalist Norman Cousins observed, “History is a vast early warning system.” And the warning signs of our global predicament are there for all to see. As another warning system, The Soulwise Conspiracy is a movement that challenges and inspires you to unleash your collective capacity to care for our human family. As a citizen of vision and courage, it calls on you to help breathe life into our suffocating world and satisfy humanity’s hunger for hope.
Thank you for joining me in an urgent dialogue to shape the future of our global family. Read on to appreciate The Soulwise Conspirator’s:
• Dream of One World One Family,
• Core conviction and values, and
• Role as a radical global servant leader.
Discover how you, as a Soulwise Conspirator, can:
Serve others in the world,
• Impact the future significantly, and
• Leave a lasting legacy.
I encourage you to join The Soulwise Conspiracy. Don’t delay. Read this book, which is the clarion call for The Soulwise Conspiracy movement. Then go to the website (www.livesoulwisenow.com) and join. Become an integral part of a global life-saving enterprise so that our global family—including all nations—will survive and thrive.
The mission of The Soulwise Conspiracy can be summarized in this inspiring Franciscan benediction.
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen.
* * * * *
* * * * *
THE DREAM: ONE WORLD ONE FAMILY
* * * * *
My dream of realizing the concept I call The Soulwise Conspiracy began while snuggling on my mother’s lap when she’d spin a globe and ask, “Philip, where shall we go today?” Ah, my first taste of a lasting passion for international relations and travel. We felt free to go anywhere in the world. And we did. One day, we’d travel to Brazil, another day Greenland, and another Bolivia. But my favorite place in the whole world? The continent of Africa.
My mother, a realist, didn’t spare me stories about the inequities of our human family. She explained that millions of people in the world didn’t have enough food to eat, that it’s the responsibility of those with plenty of food to share it. And she walked her talk by coordinating a food pantry that served 125 families every week.
My mother had planted revolutionary seeds of her world view in the fertile soil of my soul. I have both intentionally and unintentionally cultivated these seeds throughout my life, traveling to various parts of the world and meeting the people I’d only imagined as a child.
Fast forward to July 3, 2004. My wife, Melody, and I were returning to Nairobi, Kenya, after three wonderful days at the Masai Mara Game Reserve. I didn’t feel well as we were leaving the hotel, but I assumed I’d feel better once we were on our way to Nairobi. As we arrived there, though, I thought I would die. And I was dying. I had contracted malaria and typhoid fever.
But I was lucky. I got medical treatment right away. Little Joe, a six-year-old Kenyan boy I knew, wasn’t so lucky. He died of malaria in early 2005. Sadly, Little Joe was one of 3,000 children in Africa who die every day from malaria.
This life-changing experience spurred me on to create The Soulwise Conspiracy movement and write a book—the one you’re holding—to help fund the prevention of malaria in children in Africa.
Why do I use the term “conspiracy” in The Soulwise Conspiracy? After all, conspiracy refers to overthrowing a government or other authority, which is usually viewed negatively. Yet, on close examination, “conspiracy” derives from the Latin conspirare, to breathe together—the very action I envision humanity taking to save our choking global family. Thus, my dream became this: learning to breathe together for the common good, to breathe life into a suffocating world—One World One Family.
Chapter 1 presents the three integrated dimensions of my dream and The Soulwise Conspiracy movement: hope, health and harmony.
Arouses Hope
“Hope,” said Aristotle, “is the dream of the waking man.” I believe it’s the earnest desire of every human being, the capacity to believe that no matter what happens, the future will be worth living. Life without hope is death; life with hope energizes the human spirit.
Hope arouses a passion for the possible. It has, as Barack Obama maintained in his 2008 U.S. election campaign, an audacious quality. Hope may not logically persuade us that better days will come, but it can uplift our feelings so we can endure and strive for tomorrow.
Here’s an example of the audacious quality of hope from my own experience. One of my parishioners in his late 70s was convinced he’d have no tomorrows due to his deteriorating physical condition. As he shared his concern, he told me he’d be seeing his doctor the following day. I asked him to call me after the appointment. At four o’clock that day, he told me his doctor gave him two options: he could confine himself to a wheelchair for the rest of his life or he could do whatever he wanted and take his chances. “Which option did you choose?” I asked. He replied, “Right now, I’m on the roof cleaning out the gutters.”
The Soulwise Conspiracy represents the idea of hope declared boldly—hope that refuses to let fear immobilize anyone, anytime, anywhere. The Conspiracy frames the future as a time for seizing the day, for looking up and seeing a beautiful panorama on the horizon. It’s a time for fresh beginnings, a blank page, or what the Romans called tabula rasa, a clean slate.
Hope throws rays of light on the darkness of our lives, living and breathing powerfully between the memory of the past and the mystery of the future. It appreciates the temporal tension that permeates our lives and enables humankind to learn from the past, live in the present, and anticipate the future.
In September, 2000, the United Nations aroused hope for our human family by setting The Millennium Goals—eight specific, quantifiable, and time-bound goals for social and economic development to be achieved by 2015. These goals are:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Together, these eight Millennium Goals convey that, as a global family, we’re committed to creating a future of hope. (For a detailed description of the Millennium Goals, go to www.un.org/millenniumgoals.)
Consider The Soulwise Conspiracy an agent of hope.
Embraces Hope
How do you embrace hope? You decide to have it.
It’s a conscious choice, an inside job. Some people hide under the dark covers of hopelessness for their entire lives. Persuaded that living in the light is not “in the cards” or that their present conditions will never change, they choose to remain in the dark. Some become addicted to the dark or its opposite, the light. Ironically, some prominent public figures—athletes, actors, executives, politicians, media personalities—hide in the light of their fame, yet still feel hopeless.
Others, however, choose to embrace hope and savor its light. As conduits for the light, they not only improve their own lives but, like a prism, radiate rays of hope to others. They accept responsibility for their futures and embrace what lies ahead with their eyes wide open. Although they recognize no guarantees in life, they take responsibility for the theater they play in as scriptwriters, directors, and producers of their own stories.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale often told a story about a professional baseball team in San Diego. Apparently, the team secured a number of fabulous hitters who, in the early games of the season, couldn’t connect with the ball. The manager decided the team needed a new beginning and a hopeful new attitude. So he threw all the bats in a wheelbarrow and took them to a self-proclaimed faith healer located a few blocks from the stadium. The manager returned with the “healed bats” and declared that a new season was about to begin. The next day, the team took to the field and hit up a storm. They won that game and went on to win the title that year.
If we’re willing to embrace hope, The Soulwise Conspiracy stands ready to provide encouragement and support on the journey. And we’re not alone. Soulwise Conspirators work with us to help us overcome difficulties. Theirs is not a warm, fuzzy approach; akin to tough love, it challenges us to get our rears in gear, to fish or cut bait. It’s based on knowing that a little hope goes a long way to launch us into a promising future.
In 1970, I was senior pastor of a circuit of 11 churches in St. Anthony, Newfoundland. In early September, a man born and raised in Korea (who worked at the Sir Wilfred Grenfell Hospital) came to my door and told me his family had finally arrived from Korea. Could I help his children, who couldn’t attend school because they couldn’t speak English? He’d been told that if the children, aged seven, nine, and eleven, could show the school superintendent their competence in English within one month, they would be accepted into the system and wouldn’t miss a year of school.
What an expression on this proud father’s face when I agreed to teach his three children English! It exploded with hope. We started our sessions the following morning. At first, we could only smile a lot at each other, but that became the foundation of our relationship. For four weeks, we met every day, Monday through Friday, for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. The children did another hour of homework each day and also watched Sesame Street, the children’s educational program, to get acquainted with Big Bird and The Count. They quickly learned to count the numbers from one to ten, forward and backward, as well as sing the songs.
In less than one month, we met with the superintendent who, resistant and incredulous at first, agreed to integrate these bright Korean kids into their appropriate classes. Although I’ve lost track of them now, I know all three went on to finish college—all because we embraced hope.
The one who truly lives in hope dances without the music. For hope doesn’t need accompaniment; it just is. Hope fortifies the desire and fosters the confidence to accomplish things that may seem impossible. That’s the strategic value of hope.
Hope is not wishing upon a star and waiting for success to magically appear, nor is it blind optimism that sees the world through rose-colored glasses. Rather, hope enables us to move forward with determination. Like the story of “The Little Engine that Could,” hope turns the mantra of “I think I can, I think I can” into “I thought I could, I thought I could” because hope enables our success.
We live between memory and mystery—the mystery that inspires us to go boldly where angels fear to tread, the same mystery that compels us to breathe life into a hurting world.
Shares Hope
The movement we call The Soulwise Conspiracy affirms that we are all trustees of hope with a responsibility to share it with members of our global family.
In One World One Family, we share our lives as brothers and sisters with hope. As the French novelist Victor Hugo wrote, we believe that “hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.” Every man, woman, and child deserves to be prominently and permanently tattooed with hope, for hope is the language of grace that’s universally understood.
Not reserved for an arbitrarily chosen few, hope is recognized as a gift for all members of the human family. It supports every effort to close the gap between the haves and have-nots because, in theory and in practice, there’s enough for everyone. No one has to live with scarcity. Is this a pipe dream? Never. Not when we view our abundance as a collective blessing. That’s when our hearts openly share with others as a privilege of membership in our global family.
We can’t hoard hope. If we protect it as a personal privilege, then even the hope we have will disappear and die. Hope lives and breathes and grows because it is shared. The “Hopesters,” as I call them, know this principle intuitively. They appreciate the vastness of the universe and accept their relative place in it. They accept what they have and don’t complain about what they don’t have.
Eric Weiner, a National Public Radio foreign correspondent, has often reported from the most desperate and war-torn places on the planet. Because of this—and the fact that he doesn’t consider himself to be a happy guy—he was determined to find a contrast. So he set out to find the world’s happiest places for his book The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World.
The book traces Eric’s travels to nine countries including Great Britain, Qatar, India, Thailand, and the Netherlands, the home of the World Database of Happiness. What did Eric discover? He found that money can buy happiness to a certain point, but beyond it, money isn’t the key factor in feeling happy. He also learned that Bhutan, with its millions of poor people, has what he calls “a tremendous sense of community.” The government has even instituted a Gross National Happiness index.
Clearly, the Bhutanese enjoy the communal gift of hope.
The “Hopesters” appreciate abundance and seek opportunities to share it with other members of our global family. Their satisfaction comes in sharing with no thought of a favor returned. People vibrant with hope live with their arms wide open, eager to share their blessings for the good of all. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation exemplifies this attitude of generous sharing. The Foundation’s website confirms the belief that every person in our global family deserves to have hope. (See details at www.gatesfoundation.org)
Similarly, the Foundation for International Community Assistance was founded on the premise that credit, not charity, provides the surest way out of poverty for poor women and their families. As the organization’s brochure proclaims, “This woman doesn’t need your charity…. All she needs is a chance.” (Details at www.villagebanking.org)
Its promise of “Small Loans—Big Changes” is borne out in the results of its benefactors. For example, Nigerian entrepreneur Patience Okpuigie in Benin City received a $400 loan through the online micro-finance organization Kiva for her tailoring business. Since receiving the loan, her business has been booming. She repaid the loan quickly and today makes a profit of about $90 a month.
When we all share, we all win.
Muhammad Yunus, 2006 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote in his book Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty that all human beings have an innate survival skill. The fact that poor people are alive is proof of that! Giving the poor access to credit allows them to use the skills they already have, produce a profit, and retain capital to rise out of poverty. I have seen this theory at work with incredible results. (Information at www.grameen-info.org)
Here’s another example. In 2007, Ann Fackler from Grand Rapids, Michigan, trained 23 Maasai women at Kilgoris in rural Kenya how to make, package, market, and sell palm/coconut soap. The women named their product Osiligi, which means “hope” in the Kimaasai language. They market it as Osiligi: Hope Soap and package it in small bags made from brightly colored shukas, which are blankets worn traditionally by Maasai men. A bar of soap costs 24 cents to produce and sells to tourists for the equivalent of two dollars at three Nairobi guesthouses. The women are “cleaning up” with their sustainable business enterprise.
Soulwise Conspirators dream of One World One Family in a way that arouses, embraces, and shares hope. The Soulwise Conspiracy inspires the deep conviction that, together, there’s nothing our global family can’t do!
The first dimension of the dream of One World One Family is hope. The second is health, an essential partner with hope at every age and stage of life.
In the 21st century, global health is a shared responsibility, involving both an equitable access to essential care and a collective defense against threats. The leading organization in this effort is the World Health Organization (WHO), which directs and coordinates authority for health within the United Nations system. It’s responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries, and monitoring and assessing health trends.
To achieve its dream of health for every member of our human family, The Soulwise Conspiracy movement aims to treat, cure, and prevent disease.
Treats Disease
“First, do no harm.” This saying is part of an oath that physicians take when they enter medical practice. The original Hippocratic Oath doesn’t include this exact phrase, but it does contain a similar idea and holds credibility for contemporary caregivers. One translation reads, “Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things, to help, or at least to do no harm.”
The Soulwise Conspiracy upholds the high ideal of doing no harm and supports the principle of helping people live and die well—a principle embodied in this World Health Organization definition of health: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Genuine health honors the body, mind, and soul. Together, they contribute to our individual and collective well-being.
Doctors Without Borders exemplifies the spirit of the dream of health. It’s an international medical humanitarian organization present in more than 60 countries. Its highly skilled volunteers assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe. Doctors and nurses provide urgent medical care regardless of race, religion, or politics.
We know that a person’s attitude toward life influences his or her perspective on health and disease. A 1993 study by A. H. Eagly and S. Chaiken provided a comprehensive view of how people’s behavior influenced and determined their attitudes. The study defined attitudes as evaluations of entities, including behavior, that result in perceptions of favor or disfavor. Consequently, attitudes may predispose individuals to adopt or reject specific health-related behaviors.
Treating or preventing disease, however, involves more than simply changing one’s attitude or having a positive attitude to begin with. Diseases will still occur. Those who actively adopt The Soulwise Conspiracy believe in treating people who are ill without harming them as they help minimize their pain and distress. They believe that every member of the global family should have access to health care.
Technological advances have enabled medicine to dramatically improve diagnosis. Already, clinics and hospitals are beginning to store medical histories in far different forms than piles of paper. Many physicians can now access electronic medical records on a computer screen, and soon they will be able to view an onscreen avatar that’s a walking, talking, three-dimensional representation of a patient’s body.
By a single click on a body part or organ, a doctor and patient will be able to see an MRI or other image, laboratory results, and all your physician’s text entries. Then the computer will automatically compare test results to millions of similar patient records, enabling the doctor to precisely diagnose and treat the patient. Although advanced technology like this is gradually becoming available to the developing world, its widespread use will require major investments of money and education. The dream of The Soulwise Conspiracy is that these technologies will be available in Kenya and Kabul as well as Kentucky.
Coupled with the technological advances are the discoveries of drugs that can treat diseases more effectively. For example, substantial breakthroughs have been achieved in drugs to treat persons afflicted with one of the big three diseases in the world: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Other drugs have contributed to treating diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and arthritis. Intensive research continues to drive the development of drugs that will alleviate pain and extend life.
Cures Disease
As The Soulwise Conspiracy addresses disease, its proponents actively seek to discover cures for diseases.
Polio is one example. Although efforts to eradicate polio began in the 1960s, an intensive campaign started in 1988 and continues today with amazing results. Before this campaign began, this debilitating disease paralyzed about 1,000 children a day or 350,000 a year. Today, polio is still endemic to only four countries and cases of polio paralysis are about 1,000 a year. This dramatic decrease in the number of polio cases marks the most critical period of potential eradication and requires dedication and considerable resources to achieve the ultimate goal.
Some have called stem cells “biological blank checks” because they can be converted into any kind of cells in the body. Scientists believe that stem cells could produce cures or powerful new treatments for a wide range of dread diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s as well as spinal chord injuries. This technique is especially promising because stem cells obtained from a patient’s own tissues wouldn’t be rejected by the person’s immune system.
The effort to cure the “big three” is intensifying. In June 2007, the Group of 8—representatives from industrialized nations—pledged to commit $60 billion to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. That’s a considerable sum, but hardly enough to meet the need to provide treatment, care, and preventive services for even one of these diseases over the next few years.
Progress is being made. Also in June 2007, Dr. Pedro Alonso, the University of Barcelona professor who leads clinical trials for GlaxoSmithKline, indicated that a new malaria vaccine worked in infants under one year old. The vaccine is made by fusing a bit of outer protein of the deadly falciparum strain of the malaria parasite with a bit of hepatitis B virus and a chemical booster. The latter two are added to provoke a stronger immune reaction. At least nine other malaria vaccines are in development.
In January 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “dedicated to the idea that all people deserve to live a healthy and productive life,” generously awarded The Rotary Foundation a challenge grant of $100 million for this global campaign to eradicate polio. The challenge has been accepted enthusiastically. The Rotary Foundation plans to match the grant dollar-for-dollar through fundraising over several years. In 2009, the Gates Foundation contributed an additional $225 million. Truly eradicating this crippling disease would represent a landmark public health achievement.
Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist and author of The End of Poverty, put out a plan for eradicating malaria called the $10 solution. This $10 represents the cost to manufacture, ship, and distribute insecticide-treated bed nets designed to last up to five years. He estimated that spending $2 to $3 billion on malaria might save more than one million lives a year, making it “the best bargain on the planet.” For the billion people living in high-income parts of the world, that amounts to $3 a person or one Starbucks coffee a year.
Sachs also recommended mobilizing Red Cross volunteers to distribute the bed nets and provide training in tens of thousands of villages across Africa. In a pilot project, the Red Cross distributed nets to more than half the residents of Togo in 2004 and Niger in 2005 with encouraging results. Two other organizations doing tremendous work in this area are Malaria No More (www.malarianomore.org) and Nothing But Nets (www.nothingbutnets.net).
Prevents Disease
The Soulwise Conspiracy movement is dedicated to the proverbial wisdom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is particularly true in medicine. Anticipating disease enables us to nip it early so it doesn’t cause injury, suffering, or death. Projecting the probability of epidemics enables us to prepare to reduce, if not eliminate, their devastating effects. The focus is on prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment.
Across the world, access to immunization varies greatly. For example, a child in a developing country is 10 times more likely to die of a vaccine-preventable disease than a child from an industrialized one. Immunization, however, is among the most cost-effective interventions. Since the 1980s, medicine has made considerable progress in immunization against measles, polio, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and tuberculosis.
Granted, preventing disease takes an enormous amount of energy and resources. Warren E. Buffett’s $31 billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help the Foundation pursue its longstanding goal of curing the globe’s most fatal diseases. This enormous gift will do much more, including finding vaccines for AIDS and malaria. Melinda Gates said that her “fondest dream” is an AIDS vaccine, something that scientists have been pursuing for three decades but could take another two decades to realize. Bill Gates stated he wants to use improved global health as a base upon which to build what he called “the virtuous cycle” of longer lifetimes, jobs, markets, infrastructure, tax bases, and all other steps that lift poor countries out of poverty.
The Soulwise Conspiracy movement fosters and sustains a healthy climate and environment, respecting the abundance of all creation and honoring practices of responsible environmental stewardship. It understands the need to be dependable trustees of all the resources of the natural world and recognizes that future generations depend on it. Indeed, they will hold us accountable.
The international communities must work together to protect our planet. Such a commitment was evident at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Conference held in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007. There, 187 countries laid the groundwork for forging an agreement to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases, with the intent to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
The concept of a culture of peace was first elaborated for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the International Congress on Peace held at Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire, in 1989. The Yamoussoukro Declaration called on UNESCO to “construct a new vision of peace by developing a peace culture based on the universal values of respect for life, liberty, justice, solidarity, tolerance, human rights and equality between women and men.”
The United Nations declared the year 2000 the International Year for the Culture of Peace and 2001 to 2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.
The UN’s declaration of an International Year of Peace aligns with its peace role guidelines that bring clarity to the nature of international harmony. These guidelines include four major stages of conflict resolution and support for peace:
1. Conflict prevention—preventing and resolving conflict before it results in violence
2. Peace making—using diplomatic measures to negotiate a cease fire
3. Peace keeping—overseeing the preservation of peace agreements
4. Peace building—establishing a climate of tolerance and respect to rebuild society after conflict.
I have adapted these stages to reflect The Soulwise Conspiracy’s commitment to a human family that seeks peace, makes peace, and keeps peace.
Seeks Peace
Be assured that if you’re alive, you will experience conflict. Guaranteed. Next to death and taxes, you can count on conflict being around. Even in my reasonably well-adjusted family, we have conflict over what items to put on our pizza! “A healthy organization—whether a marriage, a family or a business corporation—is not one with an absence of problems,” advised psychiatrist Dr. M. Scott Peck, “but one that is actively and effectively addressing or healing its problems.”1
The Soulwise Conspiracy’s primary emphasis is on seeking peace, including preventing conflict. It reflects a dream of peaceful coexistence, not just absence of war. Clearly, the only thing humans can control in war is the first shot taken. Conflict that leads to war and destruction wastes valuable time, energy, and human life. As Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives and first female member of Congress in 1916, observed, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
Preventing conflict is complex, which could be why so few serious national and international conflicts get resolved. It may seem easier to duke it out than work things out in a painstaking but non-violent way. Conflict resolution is hard work, yet its payoff outweighs the alternatives by far.
The Soulwise Conspiracy dream focuses heavily on education for peace and conflict resolution. Why? Because educating people is a less expensive and more effective way to attack the root causes of unrest before they explode into violence, and because winning a war is only a precondition to winning the peace.
Education for peace may provide a solid foundation on which to build lasting peace in the world. Part of this education requires learning the language of peace in the tongues of members of the global family. Living in harmony requires an appreciation of the words other members of the human family use to talk about harmony and the meanings those words convey.
Learning the languages of peace enables us to talk to each other and establish bonds of trust—so essential in preventing a conflict that could go out of control. Inevitably, history shows that conflict prevention boils down to trust. Even a quick review of our collective history can instruct and liberate us to work with each other no matter how different we are. Regrettably, people who don’t know their own history (or others’) tend to repeat it. War, as I said, is the antithesis of trust.
Seeking peace requires the three interrelated dimensions of:
• knowledge (self-awareness, recognition of prejudice, theories of conflict analysis, prevention, and resolution),
• skills (communication, active listening, patience, and self-control), and
• attitudes (tolerance, self-respect, and social responsibility).
Reviewing history informs and empowers people to intentionally create a culture of peace locally and internationally.
As a peace-seeking influence, sport provides a universal avenue for promoting education, health, development, and peace. As the Olympic Creed states, “The most important thing at the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” The second sentence of the creed reflects the irony of the tradition of the Olympic Truce where warring factions would suspend fighting during the Games.
In July 2000, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched the International Olympic Truce Foundation and the International Olympic Truce Center (IOTC) as instruments to create a culture of peace in our times. The Olympic Truce Center (www.olympictruce.org) once again calls on humanity to lay down its weapons and work toward building the foundations of mutual respect, understanding, and reconciliation. An International Forum on Sport for Peace and the Olympic Truce (www.olympicspirit.org/press_070521_peaceforum.php) took place May 19-21, 2009, in Olympia, Greece, the cradle of the Olympic movement. This Forum was organized by the Greek government, IOTC, International Olympic Academy, and Greek National Olympic Committee.
IOC president, Jacques Rogge, who welcomed the participants as the president of the International Olympic Truce Foundation (IOTF), said at the opening of the International Forum, “The IOC was founded on the belief that sport, especially in an Olympic context, can bring benefits beyond those simply related to physical activity. Sport is a global language. It does not matter where you come from—everyone, given the chance, can speak ‘Sport’! Sport fosters understanding between individuals, facilitates dialogue between divergent communities and breeds tolerance between nations.”
When the IOC revived the ancient concept of the Olympic Truce in 1992, the committee relayed it to the United Nations to garner a higher impact. Since 1993, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly expressed its support for the IOC by unanimously adopting, one year before each edition of the Olympic Games, a Resolution titled “Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal.” Through this symbolic Resolution, the UN invites its member countries to observe the Olympic Truce individually and collectively and, conforming with the goals and principles of the UN Charter, seek to settle all international conflicts through peaceful and diplomatic means.
Peace-seeking skills such as listening and compromise, coupled with attitudes of tolerance and respect, combine to keep disputing parties connected so they can resolve their differences amenably. In my experience as a mediator and arbitrator, negotiations break down when individuals lack these fundamental skills and attitudes.
Here’s an example. A few years ago, I mediated a divorce in which the only contentious issue between the couple was custody of their eight-year-old boy. Naturally both parties wanted the best for their son. Because they lived on opposite coasts, they believed that sole custody would be the most beneficial solution for their child. After discussing the issues reasonably, they reached a compromise that everyone could live with.
To seek peace is to live peace day in and day out. It demands a commitment to start in the hearts and minds of individuals and then spread to our collective spirit and will.
Makes Peace
Supporters of The Soulwise Conspiracy dream of a world that makes peace. They accept the reality that conflicts can and will arise, yet they have a responsibility to foster open dialogue that enables conflict resolution. They actively encourage diplomatic measures to negotiate ceasefires and establish terms of peace agreements that include the reconstruction of society. They echo this challenge from ordained priest and novelist James Carroll: “We must reclaim peace as possible.” Carroll truly speaks in character; the word for “priest” originally meant “bridge-builder.”
Diana Butler Bass, a scholar and author, posed this interesting question on October 11, 2006, after the Amish school shooting: “What if the Amish were in charge of the war on terror?” (www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2006) The Amish have an incredibly powerful practice of forgiveness demonstrated so poignantly after the tragic school shooting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. More than 30 members of the Amish community attended the funeral of the man who killed five of their beloved children. We can learn a lot from their peacemaking attitude and actions.
Why not put the Amish in charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security? What would they have fashioned out of the 24 tons of molten scrap steel from the World Trade Center? I have a hunch it wouldn’t have been the USS New York, a new class of warship designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. The USS New York will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. Ironically, the ship’s motto is “Never Forget.”
The distinctions between war, civil unrest, terrorism, and crime have become increasingly blurred and conventional industrial-age force less effective. According to the 2006 State of the Future report, at least 75% of those killed or wounded in armed conflicts are noncombatants. The Conspiracy’s desire to shift from cross fire to cease-fire protects combatants and innocent bystanders as well.
Building the peace is a twofold process that requires clearing away the structures of violence and creating the structures of peace. The failure to build new structures often sabotages peacekeeping efforts. According to the 2006 State of the Future report, one study found that 44% of countries affected by conflict return to war within five years of a cease-fire. Thus, peace, development, and democracy form an interactive, mutually reinforcing triangle.
Courageous examples of peace building abound. The 2007 book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and journalist David Oliver Relin described how Mortensen, an American mountaineer, began building schools for peace. After a failed attempt to climb the K2 peak on Pakistan’s border, the former U.S. Army medic met village children who didn’t have paper or pencils. He promised to build them a school. He did build that school, then founded a nonprofit foundation called Central Asia Institute (www.ikat.org) and built more. By May 2009, he and his team had constructed 78 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mortensen operates from the belief that “education can overcome the despot leaders, dictators, and clergy who use illiteracy to control an impoverished society.”
In another example of making peace, I think of Amani ya Juu. Whenever I go to Nairobi, Kenya, I visit Amani ya Juu, a sewing and reconciliation project for marginalized women in Africa. Amani ya Juu means “higher peace” in Swahili. The women involved in the project are learning to work together through a faith in God who provides a higher peace that transcends ethnic differences. The group itself displays a unique picture of diversity, with its members from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia as well as other African countries.
I met these remarkable survivors of atrocities; I listened to their personal testimonies and songs of reconciliation that inspired me to the depths of my soul. Instead of seeking revenge, they are dedicated to the practice of peace. The 500+ products they make range from colorful women’s bags to soft toys to tie-dyed or wax-print placemats and tablecloths. The intriguing piece that caught my eye was a beautifully crafted “Unity Quilt” that consists of 12 panels depicting how conflicts are resolved in 11 African countries. (You can view this “Unity Quilt” at www.amaniafrica.org/quilt.php)
One of the women, Veronica Godlaya, described to me how conflict is typically resolved in Sudan. After it’s been decided that a dispute between two families needs to be settled, family members sit together with the elders and talk about the problem. Once the problem has been sorted out, each member involved spits into a pot, beginning from the youngest to the oldest. To spit into the same pot signifies nothing comes between them any longer. Then some of this spit is poured on the doors of conflicting parties’ houses. The remaining spit is thrown in the direction of the setting sun to represent that the problem is disappearing. The light blue panel features three Sudanese dressed in bright colors seated on small stools around a large decorated pot. Each of the persons is spitting into the pot.
Keeps Peace
Soulwise Conspirators dream of a world of harmony that also seeks to keep peace.
Keeping the peace helps parties resolve a dispute and live by the terms of their peace agreement in a state of shared freedom. They’re urged to be open to altering the terms of their agreements as needs change.
As Albert Einstein once observed, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” That’s why compromise may be the best medicine for keeping the peace. This point is reflected in my favorite line from the 1984 movie Rhinestone Cowboy: “There’ll be a lot of compromisin’ on the way to my horizon.”
The 2006 State of the Future report noted that peacekeeping is the second largest deployed military presence in the world, directly affecting the lives of 200 million people. In 2008, according to United Nations reports, 88,000 uniformed personnel and 17,000 civilians from 107 countries were serving in 20 UN peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping professionals engage in dangerous work; the estimated number of United Nations staff members including peacekeepers who paid the ultimate price with their lives was 22 in 2006 and 42 in 2007.
Most often, people view conflict as a negative. However, conflict can be a positive influence in keeping the spirit of an agreement. John Dewey, an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic, and political activist, described the benefits of conflict this way: “Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates us to invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.”2
For example, the bloody aftermath of the December 2007 presidential elections in Kenya revealed underlying conflicts that needed to be addressed. After 40 years of relative stability, Kenyans must now deal openly and creatively with their systemic difficulties to lead their country into a more positive future.
One of the best resources on peacekeeping is the Stanley Foundation, founded by Max Stanley, a wealthy businessman from Muscatine, Iowa. This Foundation brings fresh voices and original ideas to debates on global and regional problems. Its mandate seeks a secure peace based on world citizenship and effective global governance with freedom and justice built in. Its initiatives include actively supporting proposals for UN renewal put forward by the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. The Foundation explores in depth the global security role that the United States could and should play in the 21st century. It also promotes avenues toward national and global security in light of continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons and increasing demand for energy alternatives.
Another major peacekeeping resource is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a private nonprofit organization that advances cooperation among nations and promotes international engagement by the United States. Founded in 1910, its nonpartisan work seeks to achieve practical results. For example, in 2007, Carnegie Endowment launched its new vision, transforming itself from a private think tank on international issues to the first multinational global think tank addressing globalization, nonproliferation, and security affairs. The Endowment offers programs with leading experts on international affairs, particularly in Russia and Eurasia, China, the Indian subcontinent, and South Asia.
In his book, Crucial Questions About the Future, futurist Allen Tough offered an insightful summary of our predicament as a civilization. He wrote, “Human civilization today is vibrant, powerful, flourishing, rapidly changing, deeply concerned. Developed over thousands of years, it has now spread to every region of our planet, and occasionally to other bodies in our solar system. Human civilization includes a remarkable diversity of cultures, organizations, beliefs, worldviews, values, music, architecture, environments, capacities, and life-styles. It simultaneously encompasses altruism and selfishness, joy and misery, wealth and hunger, love and revenge, compassion and terrorism, peace and war, highly positive potentials and extraordinary dangers, penetrating insight and foolish shortsightedness.
“If we look ahead a few decades, we note that our civilization has enormous potential not only to flourish happily, but also to deteriorate appallingly. In fact, humanity literally has the capacity to exterminate itself, thus joining the many other species that have become extinct. However, our civilization also has the capacity to avoid the worst dangers and to flourish peacefully for thousands of years. At this peculiar moment in human history, our extreme potentials (for destroying everything and for achieving a highly positive future) may both be vaster than at any time during the past 10,000 years.”3
What an exciting time to be alive! We stand at a crossroads for our civilization. One road leads to life in all its fullness, the other to extinction. Which path will we take?
Supporters of The Soulwise Conspiracy dream of One World One Family—an integrated dream of hope, health, and harmony. This dream can powerfully compel us to work tirelessly for a future of promise. I invite you to join Soulwise Conspirators around the globe in making this dream come true.
Soulwise Conspirators honor peace, negotiate and build peace, and maintain peace. They feel inspired by the meaning of this Chinese proverb that beautifully describes how peace moves from the individual soul to being embraced by the collective soul:
If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.