World At Conflict: Hanging Out In The Resolution Room

Who says the "Resolution Room" can't have a beautiful view?

There are so many experts, and I am not one, that can tell us in great detail the origin of these violent conflicts. They can describe the contours and tell us about the inter-group relations that help us make sense of this violence.

My studies at the "School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution" emphasizes the analysis. We need analysis. We need help making sense of this world. Yet each day, after a few articles and videos, I surrender. I feel I can never know enough about each conflict to unravel it. I end up appreciating more about my own life, realizing how precious my freedom is and how grateful I am to have my loved ones around me and well

I count these blessings and I make phone calls. After a couple hours of this, I want to go to the "Resolution Room." I'm not sure where it is, but that's the room I'd like to enter. Solutions.

Not fix its...not band-aids...a space that stimulates thousands of ideas. I don't know how to get to the 200,000 people in Gaza or help Jews around the world feel safe. But I'm eager to discuss with others how to do this.

We survived two world wars, the plague and 80s fashion. Surely there must be an answer to this too. I mean if we can make a bodysuit for paraplegics...

Seinfeld has this funny routine about this. He says "You know, we never should have gone to the moon because now people say...'If we can go to the moon we can solve this.' "

He's right. All the solutions we have found kind of kills our excuses for giving up on solving anything before us now. I believe that every problem has a solution. I believe that is a universal law of some sort.

We think "who am I to have a solution to this? who would listen to me anyway? what if I am wrong? what if I get shot in the process?"

I suppose all that is possible. Maybe you don't have the answer, no one will listen, you are wrong and you will get shot. But, what if just one of those is untrue? Then would it be worth a try?

I wonder why the crisis room in the White House is called "The Situation Room" rather than the "Resolution Room." The name kind of lets folks off the hook.

(Incidentally, I lost a ring in that room or just outside the door and they wouldn't let me go back and get it. Small sore spot..)

Anyway, off to Paris about to interview Holocaust survivors to talk about making peace with the past...but I think the conversation will turn to the recent attacks on Synagogues. In the words of French historian Henri Rousso, this is indeed a past that cannot find its place. I wanted to place more of my dissertation squarely in the past, but I cannot. It's in the present. Rather than just bemoaning..I want to invite everyone to the resolution room.

Not yet...I need to spend the next three weeks listening...then we'll see.

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