Engaging Restorative Justice in Reclamation of Community
Doug Hamilton
Engaging Restorative Justice in Reclamation of Community
Credit for composing an original abstract of this process, illustrated to spiritual community, should go to Jaya Priya Reinhalter, MA in Geography with focus on international communities. Jaya delivered a scholarly paper, “Restorative Change in Intentional Communities..” delivered at annual conference of The Communal Studies Association, 2016.
Jaya Priya Reinhalter, researching “..employed approaches designed as the first step towards shifting decades of ingrained culture, modes of communication, leadership models, and practices that no longer serve the community.” -Jaya Reinhalter
Jaya illustrated the paper using the case of Kashi, a spiritual ashram community located in Florida.
From notes, below is a paraphrasing of Jaya Reinhalter’s paper with projections on to TM (Transcendental Meditation) communities.
..towards a Post-Founder Reconciliation..
In the case of TM..
A Post Founder Era Begins: Feb 5, 2008 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Passes Away.
Discovery
Power vacuums
Re-focus on communal culture and values
Mistrust of Leadership
Membership feeling silenced
Old wounds arising
An elder Founding Generation and Younger Generations:
Gen-X:
Some apostate Gen-X and millennial generation meditators who grew up in TM.
Some returnings to Fairfield, Iowa of Gen-X who grew up in TM.
New David Lynch Gen-X meditators since 2006.
Newly-minted Gen-X TM Teachers since 2006.
New TM.org Millennial-Gen-X meditators, since 2006.
A Preservation vs. Evolution Conflict
Belief-based Ashram-like group vs. A Facilitating Organization for meditation practitioners?
Conservation vs. Progressing
Conservative vs. Progressive members.
Unaffiliated meditators.
Dispossessed meditators.
Towards Finding a Community healing in restorative justice..
“Traditionally, restorative justice is a framework for responding to wrongdoing and conflict through healing and value-based dialogue, as well as a way to shift a correctional process from one of punitive to that of restorative.” (Reference pioneer work of Dr. Mara Schiff)
[ ie., processes of patient active listening, like were engaged in a months long strategic processing of the Dialogue for Progress committee work that facilitated the recent leadership change in the Fairfield meditating community and its University. ]
Goals of a restorative process:
Shifting decades of ingrained culture that no longer serve.
Redesign and reinvigorate community culture. Values-base.
Solutions arise from within community.
Encourage open transparent democratic processes
Encourage healthier modes of communication
Convergence vs. divergence
Collaboration
Shared power and decision making
Incorporating Constitutional Processes
Healing old wounds.
Building Buy-in:
-Actively Using Listening Circles (Google the term)
Round # 1: Intro to process, getting familiar, opening up.
Round #2: Building relationships
Round #3: Who we are? What do we want this transition to look like and to feel like?
Discovery, Themes from listening:
Sense of isolation or separateness despite the communal movement environment.
Feeling disconnected and not really knowing one another.
Grieving M’s death.
A desire to be closer to the members of the community.
The fear of aging and not being supported through old age and death.
Tension between the elder generation and the younger generation.
Desire for stronger voice in community decision making and vision.
Building a Restorative System
Philosophy
[Google terms]:
Restorative Justice
Nonviolent Communication
Restorative Circles
Engaging Processes:
Listening Circles
Collaborative Workshops
Facilitated dialogue- “Satsang Dialog”
Trainings and Retreats
Intergenerational dialogue and oral histories.
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[Epilogue.. Where attrition had already set in can an actively withered old community gain new skill sets for restoration fast enough to survive and even thrive again? People look at these new ideas of process and maybe they like the ideas but these take an acquiesce in engaging new ways of acting and being. Teaching old dogs new tricks? Skill sets in process and communication? The work in progress may take new generations to come along and actively gather it. In colonial TM there are fears yet (2018) to letting this happen too fast.]