The Moral Imagination

The Art and Soul of Building Peace

"For the field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding, the challenge is not defined by the magnitude of the violence we may face, but by the capacity we have to mobilize the creativity necessary to engage the deeper patterns and transcend the legacy that pulls us toward repetition of the very thing we wish to supersede."

I’d like to start by telling three stories. It’s that time of evening, you know, it’s story time. I don’t know how many of you were put to bed with stories or put your children to bed with stories, but some years back, when I was required in one of my iterations to provide the morning sermon, which didn’t happen very often. My father was a pastor, but I only on rare occasion rise to a pulpit. My daughter asked me – she was probably 6 or 7 – “What are you going to talk about?” So I gave her a few ideas and I said I was planning to tell a few stories and she said, “Dad, just tell the stories and forget the rest.” So it was good advice and I’ve stuck with it. So it’s story time.

The first one is titled, “How a Few Women Stop a War.”

Well, they didn’t set out to stop a war, they just wanted to make sure they could get food for their families. Their initial idea was simple enough: Go to the market and make sure the market was safe for anyone to buy and sell…

Lederach, John Paul. “The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace.” Lecture presented at the W. David Baird Distinguished Lecture Series, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, February 11, 2010.

Recorded at and shared with the permission of Pepperdine University.