Winter 2006 Volume 103 Issue 1 : letters
Re: "A Future with Forgiveness"
I was so pleased to read Carly Ritter’s ’05 Last Page contribution to the Fall 2006 VQ. Her declaration that “it is clear that humanity has not been effective in its attempts to establish peace through forceful means” is one that I hope will be echoed and amplified in the coming years. Fortuitously (or intentionally?), Robert K. Brigham’s article in the same VQ (“Iraq vs. Vietnam”) resoundingly illustrates Ms. Ritter’s point. That armed conflict and violence do not bring peace and stability to human communities is painfully obvious today. A slogan that I saw at one stop-the-war rally sums it up: “War is so 20th century.”
War is an outmoded means of solving conflict. I would direct Ritter and other Vassar alumnae/i to the work of Thich Nhat Hanh (www.iamhome.org/thay.htm) and Marshall Rosenberg (www.cnvc.org), individuals who have been laboring, in love, to establish a new paradigm for conflict transformation—one that involves deep listening and compassion. I am glad to know that the Gardens of Forgiveness Initiative has blossomed in the human garden.
Laura Mansberg Cotterman ’76
Hillsborough, North Carolina