Learning about forgiveness has helped Town of Poughkeepsie Judge Paul Banner in both his personal and professional lives.
Banner realized that unresolved conflicts in his life were holding him back.
“I realized that there were people that I had pushed aside,” he said.
After doing some research on the Internet, Banner and his wife, Toni, attended a workshop last fall by Dr. Frederic Luskin, director of Stanford University’s Stanford Forgiveness Project. Luskin has authored books on the subject and is a senior fellow at the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation.
Luskin conducted research into the physical and psychological benefits of forgiveness with a number of groups, including victims of violence in Northern Ireland, mothers of those who perished in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and financial professionals whose clients had lost large amounts of money in the stock market downturn of 2000.
The workshop had a tremendous impact on Banner in his roles as judge and attorney.
“It is imperative that when someone is speaking I give them 100 percent of my attention. It is difficult to pay attention without superimposing my own thoughts and judgments. Learning forgiveness clears the chatter out of my head,” said Banner.
Banner was looking for a way to share with others the techniques he had learned and Luskin informed him of a project he was working on with the Rev. Lyndon Harris, who headed relief ministries at Ground Zero, working out of St. Paul’s Chapel.
The pair formed the Sacred City organization, which is working to build gardens of forgiveness in every community in the country.
The idea is modeled on a garden in Beirut, Lebanon, where a bloody civil war raged for 15 years. Luskin and Harris’ vision is for the gardens to be places of reflection, contemplation and education.
Luskin put Banner in touch with Hopewell Junction resident Lila Meade, a member of Sacred City’s board of directors. Meade, along with a group of fellow parishioners from Fishkill’s Trinity Episcopal Church, traveled regularly to St. Paul’s to offer assistance in the wake of the terrorist attacks, where she met Harris.
Meade and the Banners decided that Poughkeepsie would be an ideal place for one of the project’s initial gardens. In the next year, Sacred City is planning to build four founding forgiveness gardens in New York (at Ground Zero), Los Angeles, Chicago and Poughkeepsie.
On June 22, the Banners hosted an informational luncheon at the Vassar College Alumnae House. More than 60 people, including a diverse group of community leaders – City of Poughkeepsie Mayor Nancy Cozean, Poughkeepsie Area Chamber of Commerce President Charlie North, Dutchess County Historian Stanley Mersand and Marist College Chief Public Affairs Officer Tim Massie, as well as landscape professionals, grief therapists and others – attended the event.
Luskin and Harris spoke at the event and said getting the concept of forgiveness into the public consciousness can have a positive impact at the personal, local, national and international levels.
“The question is, ‘How in God’s name can we stop the cycle of revenge, violence and retribution?’” said Luskin.
Harris said working at Ground Zero for nine months, tending to rescue workers and family members of victims, was a revelatory experience.
“It changed my life. I saw in a season of love, a vision of what we can be as a community,” he said.
The men said a garden would be the centerpiece for a host of educational activities to raise awareness about the healing powers of forgiveness. This would involve developing a curriculum for local high schools, building partnerships with colleges and hosting special events.
Luskin and Harris are planning to hold a forgiveness symposium at Vassar College in October.
Banner said the cost of the garden is undetermined. He said an ideal situation would be for a college or municipality to donate land for the project. The organizers are looking to volunteers to participate in numerous ways, from financial contributions to serving as educators or volunteer gardeners.
Mersand lent some historical and personal perspective to the project.
“A lot of people lose sight of the fact that we have a enormous history of forgiveness in this county. The Oblong Quaker Meeting House in Pawling were the first group of people to call for the abolition of slavery,” he said.
On a personal level, Mersand said practicing forgiveness helped his recovery from a serious illness.
“My healing process started when I was able to deal with stress by accepting forgiveness,” he said.
Banner said the project would host another event later in the summer with the goal of identifying a location for the garden.
For more information on Sacred City, go to www.gardenofforgivenessatgz.org. To find out more about the Garden of Forgiveness in Poughkeepsie, call the Banners at 849-1494.