A Peace of My Mind

Leroy Sullivan

June 20, 2017 by johnnoltner

Leroy Sullivan has been the mayor of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, since March 2004. Prior to serving as mayor, Leroy worked at a local chemical plant and was burned over 50 percent of his body in an explosion at the plant. He spent 37 days in a burn unit. Donaldsonville has a population of 7,436, but he says its residents experience the same struggles as larger cities: poverty, drug abuse, violence, and murder. “If we just dare to help one another, to love one another, to treat […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: community, crime, donaldsonville, elders, louisiana, poverty, respect

Father’s Day

June 18, 2017 by johnnoltner

I got up for a long walk along the shore of Lake Erie this morning. I walked past an outdoor chapel service (I know…but I’m going to a later service) and I heard exactly one phrase as I was passing… “When you are a teenager, you laugh because you think your parents are never going to understand…and when you are a parent, you laugh because you think your teenagers are never going to understand…” You could replace the word “laugh” […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: Father's Day, Lake Erie, Lakeside Chautauqua, misunderstanding, peace

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Kathy Webb

June 13, 2017 by johnnoltner

Kathy Webb served six years as a state representative in the Arkansas legislature and now is executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. An activist all her life, Kathy noticed a shift from working with like-minded activists to the process of compromise she encountered as a legislator. “We are all a whole package, with the pluses and the minuses.” I have always believed that you can make a difference. My mom had this little plaque on her bathroom wall and it […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: activism, arkansas, compromise, diversity, faith, gender, identity, legislator, little rock, politics

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A Guided Tour

June 8, 2017 by johnnoltner

We continue to add new stories to our website, and new resources to help foster meaningful discussion and dialogue. In case you are new to our website, or haven’t visited in a while, I want to walk you through some of what you’ll find. When you go to our home page, you’ll find the latest additions of stories and blog postings, and it will look like the image above. The navigation tools will remain the same (at the top of […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: American Stories, Blog, dialogue, discussion, peace, resources, tour, website

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Brandon Sheehan

June 6, 2017 by johnnoltner

Brandon Sheehan was born near Venice Beach, California. He says he grew up with sandy toes and salty lips. He studied fire ecology in college and worked for the forest service fighting wildfires. Brandon grew up Jewish, but eventually studied Tibetan Buddhism and was a resident at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in Arlee, Montana where he cast statues of the Buddha and helped create a shrine at the base of the Mission Mountains that is visited by people of many […]

Categories: Podcast • Tags: arlee, compassion, grace, happiness, kindness, love, meditation, montana, nature

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I was a Marine

May 11, 2017 by johnnoltner

I was a Marine. For six weeks. As a journalism student, I believed I should try to understand as many different perspectives as possible and I knew nothing about the military. So when I returned to my dorm room one afternoon and found a flier in my mailbox that said, “You could be a Marine,” I called the recruiter. At the time, their officer candidate program allowed you to dis-enroll at any time without a commitment. I read that fine […]

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Build on it

April 29, 2017 by johnnoltner

“I took away their erasers,” she said. They were fixated on perfection and they never made any progress. The high school art teacher was sharing how her drawing students were afraid of making mistakes. If they made a bad mark on the paper, they would erase it and start again. Another mistake, and more erasing. The thing is, if you erase too many times, you actually damage the paper. You destroy the surface and it no longer takes a mark in […]

Categories: Blog • Tags: art, beauty, build, mistakes

The rhetoric of war

April 8, 2017 by johnnoltner

I’m not a pacifist. I believe it’s vital to resist evil in the world, and sometimes force is required. But I also believe we use it poorly. Syria’s Assad has little legitimacy as a leader and the alleged use of chemical weapons in his country is indefensible. I would have preferred Obama to have acted early in the conflict to find a resolution before so much human suffering occurred. But I don’t believe our country’s missile strike early Friday will […]

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Hartford, CT

March 31, 2017 by johnnoltner

At the School Redesign in Action conference for the New England Secondary School Consortium, we asked participants, “How do you ensure equity and excellence for all learners?” Some of the responses can be found below…a full collection can be found in our Facebook gallery.

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