Ken Butigan

 
Talk 1:  We All Matter, We’re All Connected, and We’re All in This Together:  Getting Down to the Business of Building a Nonviolent World 
 
Whatever our vocation, each of us is called to be an Agent for Nonviolent Change contributing to the creation of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world.  In this presentation, Ken Butigan will draw on numerous examples of ordinary people who have changed the world to illuminate the path of personal and social transformation – examples that can help inform our own identity as catalysts for transformation in our lives, our communities, and our world.  As part of this exploration, he will explore four key dimensions of the culture of nonviolence and justice we are each called to help fashion: envisioning nonviolent change; learning the tools and methods of nonviolent change; creating communities dedicated to nonviolent change; and taking action for nonviolent change. 
 
Talk 2:  “If Only It Were All So Simple: The Possibility and Power of the Nonviolent Life” 
 
In his book The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitzen wrote, “If only it were so simple: if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  
 
Violence offers a simple solution to conflict.  The problem is, as Solzhenitzen suggests,  that it is never as simple as it seems.  One form of violence often spawns another, and then another.  Nonviolence, on the other hand, seems too simple.  In this presentation, Ken Butiganimage exposes the danger of clinging to the simplistic promises of violence and lifts up active and creative nonviolence as a powerful way of life that takes seriously the complexity of our existence and our world.  Together, we will explore the great job description of the 21st century: to transform the simplicity of Us vs. Them thought and action – and creating a world that unleashes the power of what Gandhi called “difference without division.” 
 
Talk 3: St. Francis of Assisi’s Nonviolent Journey: A Story for Our Time 
 
     Our greatest contemporary spiritual crisis is the temptation to place our faith in the power of violence rather than the force of the good; to surrender to violence forgetting that humanity, while capable of both love and violence, is created in the image, the very likeness of a good God.  Our greatest challenge today is to cultivate a path as individuals and communities throughout the world that actively proclaims this goodness.  In this way we can begin to transform patterns of violence within and without, and open ourselves to the transforming grace of the Nonviolent God.  In this presentation, Ken Butiganimage will reflect on how the story of St. Francis of Assisi illuminates our call to put faithful and creative nonviolence into practice to meet this challenge today.