What happens when a former political journalist, operative, and consultant in her forties loses faith in her country, moves to a foreign land to seek solace, but still can’t quite give up on the promise of America? And what if—right at that moment—a former schoolteacher and serial entrepreneur is seeking an authentic voice with a healthy amount of skepticism to help him develop a new movement he’s been building up to his entire career?
Welcome to my life for the next four years.
In 2016, I left the United States because I was exhausted from racial and political division. I fled to the peaceful beaches of the Mexican Caribbean to soothe my wounded spirit. Little did I suspect that the seeds of my spiritual and emotional healing would come in the form of a phone call from a Pennsylvania-based educator and innovator, who had one more trick up his sleeve and believed she could help with his vision.
Restorative Communities: From Conflict to Conversation is the culmination of four years of research, interviews, writing and outreach in Detroit, MI and Kortrijk, Belgium. It tells, in the context of my personal and professional struggles, the story of an unlikely collaboration that has launched a quiet revolution by conversation.
Covering the Six Facets of today’s society and how they are successfully addressed by Restorative Practices, I examine new ways of approaching the world’s political upheaval, civil strife, spiritual malaise and how it’s all playing out in a “post-pandemic” world. Best of all, I provide case studies of how restorative communities large and small are taking back our society in a positive, productive and hopeful movement toward a more just and equitable life. It’s a much-needed, non-partisan message backed by empirical data and government-sanctioned experiments in direct democracy for every facet of modern life.