Pace e Bene

During the first half of our three-day program I sat there angry and stony-faced and saw everything through the eyes of the cynic. Yet, somewhere in the middle of the second day things began to change. The anger began to leave my heart; and I began to see the issues of violence in our world with new eyes. And it was not just the obvious issues of war and physical violence that caused this change. The broad impact of physical, emotional, verbal, institutional, structural and spiritual violence on our communities and on our nation became overwhelmingly apparent; and I decided that I just had to join the fight for a nonviolent future.
— John Warner

Prior to From Violence to Wholeness, the mere notion of nonviolence was nonexistent in my life. To me nonviolence meant simply to avoid violence…at all costs. I gave up on a marriage to a man I truly loved and still do because of the violence his son perpetrated on me. You see I was still the victim of violence and it lurked around every corner I approached. I stopped watching the news, violent programs, and reading newspapers. I even avoided people that looked like they could be violent, yet is still haunted my every move. The workshop and the way in which you presented the materials helped me understand that ’nonviolence’ in itself is a viable alternative to avoidance which we all know is nearly impossible as violence surrounds our every day whether we like it or not. Nonviolence is something to be desired and can become a spiritual path and in my case an answer to a call.
— Madeleine Dionne

I lead groups of high school students and teachers to the impoverished and violent reality of the people of Tijuana, Mexico at the international border with United States. Although a well rounded program of social analysis, prayer, community outreach work, and community developing, I found it was missing an important piece. I discovered the missing component for my immersion program in Pace e Bene’s From Violence to Wholeness program. Preparation for the Tijuana experience is now taking a whole set of exercises from the From Violence to Wholeness program that lead towards the awareness of violence within our human condition.
— Ernesto Zamora Gallardo

In my years of trying to do this work of nonviolent change as a local church pastor, the materials I have found to understand and address these challenges most effectively come from Pace e Bene.
— Rev. John Auer

When I first saw the book From Violence to Wholeness, I was convinced that this was the material I was praying for. I began a study group of 25-30 people. The group consisted of Spanish-speaking as well as English-speaking people. The group included members of the church as well as other members from the larger community. Pace e Bene supplied From Violence to Wholeness workbooks in Spanish. We had lively discussions. The exercises brought out some moving personal testimonies about how lives were changing. The last two chapters were especially helpful. These chapters helped us to evolve from a study group to an action group. We have formed a peace center, Hogar de paz y esperanza, Home of Peace and Hope. Our group is involved in family counseling to prevent domestic abuse, training junior high school pupils to be peer helpers in conflict resolution, write letters to Congress people to control violence, especially among the youth. But the most amazing thing is, my life has changed.
— Dr. William H. Ruth

From Violence To Wholeness is more than a text book of good ideas … it has become a practicable way of life for me.
— Toni Flynn

Thank you for the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the “From Violence To Wholeness” program. I intend to take this experience back to my Quaker meeting. We are in the process of developing a ‘Peace Center’ to support faith-based peace and social justice work in San Francisco. I plan to train a core group of facilitators at my meeting. This group will then be available to do nonviolence training workshops for the broader San Francisco community. The FVTW model offers the opportunity to make students into teachers who then make their students into teachers, and so on, like ripples in the ocean.
— Blake Arnall

This training helped me see and recognize the piece of truth that we all possess.
— Joi Morton-Wiley

The reason the FVTW process works is threefold. First, it is inclusive. Because it is multi-disciplined, it recognizes that people learn in different ways. In this way, the curriculum has a way to reach everyone. Second, it provides a safe environment where relationships can be discovered. In safety, people are accepted and therefore are more willing to accept the differences between themselves and others. Third, FVTW asks that participants move from the philosophical to the practical, providing both tools and experiences that participants can use outside of the classroom environment. This means that participants leave the learning environment with something to think about and something to practice.
— Denise Torres

The weekend retreat meant a lot to me because it allowed me to examine parts of my life which have been holding me back and creating a blockage of creativity and ability to deal with the disconnectedness in my own life. From Violence To Wholeness…created a safe space for me to explore within while not being sappy or hokey. There was a wonderful balance of external learning and modalities for all learning types, and a wonderful balance of group time as well as “I”-time. I never felt rushed nor pressured. I learned more about being a facilitator here than I thought I would. I gained so much from the constructive criticism the larger group provided for my smaller group. We thought we’d done an airtight job which would meet the needs of the group as well as be creative and informative. The feedback was done in such a positive and nonviolent manner and I know that I will carry back the wisdom from the various members of the larger group into my daily life, in teaching, and in relationships.
— Leah Wells

[Pace e Bene facilitator] Leonardo’s story (about women organizing to build community with gang members in East Los Angeles) was very powerful. It left a deep impression on my intellectual or strategic perspective of nonviolence. It also let shine the emotion and experience of nonviolence at the personal levels. It was also powerful because: Leonardo was part of it; it was recent; it urged a reconsideration of who the “bad guys” are; it showed how when “relationships come first,” trust is reestablished and trust leads to constructive action; it showed the centrality of fear in the reproduction of violence; and it linked the power of tradition and myth to real-world transformation.
— Omar Sison

It has been a month since we had our retreat/workshop on “peace.” Sue and I gleaned so much material and left full of energy and enthusiasm. Words can not adequately express the feeling of satisfaction of time well spent with you, your team and the other retreatants who I now feel are like my brothers and sisters who I had not met before the weekend together.

Since the weekend, we went back to our Social Justice Committee in our parish and spent over an hour reporting to them about our weekend. They wanted us to keep talking and want to experience the weekend for themselves. We are looking forward to getting more from our parish to experience the weekend with your team so we can open it up to the rest of the community with the expertise gained from your program.

Just prior to seeing you at the execution vigil at the gates of San Quentin two weeks ago, I had lead a vigil service at our church. I used most of my material directly from the book we used on the weekend. The reading material is a great resource to have.
— Ernie Lopez

My weekend at the Pace e Bene retreat was rich and intimate. In a short period of time, I got to know a diverse group of people committed to healing themselves, their communities, and the world. Analytically, I knew I left the weekend with new tools and skills. When I co-facilitated a workshop one week later, however, I was struck by how much the training had helped me mature my perspectives about facilitation and deepened my confidence.

In my opinion, there were three components of the training that I most drew from: sharing, diversity, and teamwork. The facilitators helped create a safe space with the appropriate permissions for a new group for us to share feelings and past experiences. Ken Butigan’s ability to become vulnerable helped lead the group into richer interactions. The facilitators weren’t held hostage by agendas. So they were very present and sensitive to the group’s needs and levels of comfort. This created an environment where we all became teachers. And since the room was filled with people with such diversity, we got a rare opportunity to exchange skills, tools, and philosophies with each other.

A few words about the group’s diversity. I was in the company of ministers, nuns, and preachers; Jews, Catholics, and Protestants; African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans; activists, community developers, and social workers; grandmothers, brothers, and friends. If we had no dialogue, no exercises together, just being in the presence of such diversity was healing for me. Of course, we dove into a weekend of teamwork together. The group divided into four teams with the explicit purpose of each one leading the group through one workshop. The process of crafting a one-and-a-half hour workshop was exciting. We had to struggle with each other until a program emerged from our team that nicely blended our different contributions. The retreat was only a few days. And I know I will draw from it for years to come.
— Bryan Neuberg

The From Violence To Wholeness process has had a great influence on me. I use what I learned on the weekend everyday, at work, in my family, with myself.
— Herb Norman

From Violence to Wholeness has become integrated into my life and has helped me deepen my practice and being of who I am.
— Emily Lin