Love Across Difference

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Love Across Difference: Learning Through Story and Dialogue</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>As humans we love by being loved</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>. Yet we realize that again and again our attention is drawn to the ways in which human individuals and groups fail to love. We perceive the other as profoundly different often seeing them as inferior or inimical to ourselves.</span></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>How do we learn to love across difference?</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Is it possible? Does crossing the boundary of difference dissolve our identity or uniqueness? How do we live in a world where crossing boundaries and encountering difference is a daily practice? Is love across difference a supposition or an imperative? In all its iterations we intend the phrase as an evocative expression and invitation. The title </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>Love Across Difference: Learning Through Story and Dialogue</em> calls us to a place of introspection perhaps reconciliation in a process of discovery ultimately raising more questions than answers.</strong></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Mary Catherine Bateson and Steven Guerriero </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>invite readers to think in new ways about difference fostering greater empathy compassion and cooperation. </strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The authors lead us on an enchanting path of discovery-sharing stories cultivating curiosity and asking provocative questions.  </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Joining the conversation calls for openness and a willingness to take a fresh look at </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>how we come to know learn communicate and make meaning</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>in an increasingly ambiguous and paradoxical world</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>. We trace the unfolding patterns of interdependence that form the fabric of relationships pointing us toward new perspectives beauty and greater understanding. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Coming to know and learn entails change which is sometimes painful.... We need to learn to love and care about the well-being of distant peoples who look and behave differently speaking unfamiliar languages. And we need to care for members of other species the changing oceans and atmosphere wounded and dying forests the many different life forms of our planet. All are kin. All are vulnerable.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In the past mystics of many traditions have sought unity </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>a unity that is not uniformity</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> using different metaphors to describe their profound intuitions of oneness. We are followers of their lead. Such is the subject of this book. </span></p><p></p>