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Introduction: Robert Stains, of the Public Conversations Project, explains the importance of having faith in the people you are working with.


This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

Advice
Robert Stains
Program Director, Public Conversations Project, Watertown, Massachusetts
Interviewed by
Julian Portilla
2003

Q: What advice would you give to someone who is wanting to get into this kind of work?

A: I'd say focus on having the right heart and spirit. Don't be seduced by technique. At the same time, develop your excellence in technique. Don't be ruled by your heart, the two should inform each other. Have faith in the people that you're working with. Approach them as collaborators and co-creators rather than as subjects. The last thing would be to cultivate an openness to other stories in your own personal life. I often use the analogy of the monastery, because my tradition is Christian tradition, where we have to really be able to live as much as we can. We have to be able to live dialogue as well as do it with other people. Cultivating an openness to a wider array of stories of ourselves and others is sort of the pilgrim's task. That's my advice to other people.

 
Mankind will never win lasting peace so long as men use their full resources only in tasks of war. While we are yet at peace, let us mobilize the potentialities, particularly the moral and spiritual potentialities, which we usually reserve for war. -- John Foster Dulles

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