Responding Together - May 2026
Our Board Member David Robinson and staff member, Kyle Gookins, each answered a question from the our Listening Cards.
David Robinson, Board Member
What do you think most contributes to the many kinds of violence in our country? What might our community do about it?
Our Society Category
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the "everydayness" of violence. In the local news or your digital feed, it’s right there—daily reports of shootings and stabbings in cities like ours. We nearly take it for granted, which is a profoundly disturbing place to be.
The paths that lead there are everywhere. It’s in our family conflicts, and in our personal temperaments. It’s fueled by fear, anger, vengeance, and jealousy. The proliferation of guns is a complicating condition, but not the source of this problem. Whether it happens in a sudden flash of reaction or through long-term premeditation, it destroys far more people than just those immediately involved.
We often think of violence as a physical act, but it can be something else:
The ways we hurt one another with hands, words, or silence.
The violence in withholding love and caregiving when it is needed.
We see it in the destruction of property and the way we treat our natural resources.
I’ve noticed how often our leaders and "opinionators" use prejudice and anger to describe other groups – it narrows the space for thinking and reason, making it easy for anyone to be provoked.
I wasn’t always a person who looked for the peaceful route. Looking back, I see a version of myself as a youth who was angry and prone to violence. My transformation into a "non-violent pacifist and activist" during the Vietnam War era wasn’t just a phase—it changed the entire trajectory of my life.
It led me into a professional career studying the most heartbreaking forms of violence—against children and sexual abuse—and advocating for government policies and programs designed to protect our youth. What did I learn in the period from 1968 - 1970 that transformed me, sitting in circles with my college professors and fellow students, the Catholics, Quakers, or student advocacy groups?
I found some answers in the words of others—Thoreau’s reflections at Walden, and the non-violent resistance of Gandhi and Dr. King.
From a scientific and evolutionary perspective, I believe we are always evolving. We create institutions, community rules, and shared practices specifically to reduce the dangers we pose to one another.
I think we mistakenly perceive threats in our engagement within society, too. We see conspiracies in social media posts or threats in the "ambiguity" of our neighbors' lives. When we imagine a pattern of "us versus them" where none exists, we move one step closer to that path of violence.
I don't have all the answers, but I do know that creating a "space for empathic listening and thinking" is the only way we keep from being provoked. I’d love to hear how you all find that space in your own lives.
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Kyle Gookins, Staff Member
Do you know of a time when music or another form of art intensified or eased a joy, heartbreak, celebration, or a sadness? Share your thoughts.
Artful Expressions Category
II was fortunate to grow up during the time of mixtapes, both the cassette and CD versions. In
high school we would carefully curate mixtapes to give our friends or those we wanted to
impress. The themes would vary and would usually be around road trips, new relationships, and
heartbreak. In order to curate the songs and artists you had to talk to people about artists you
didn’t know (or didn't own the album) and you carefully selected these songs in a certain order
for the special guest(s).
Right after college, my best friend’s mom tragically died. He was my best friend from first grade
and we were even college room mates and I knew his mom like a second mom. What stuck with
me from the year and a half after her death were the CDs that my friend would make about his
emotional state. He even labeled them, “Greg’s Emotional State vol...” The soundtracks he
created are the thing that imprinted on me from that time and anytime I hear an Elliot Smith,
Ryan Adams, or Simon and Garfunkel song, it catapults me directly back to the year of 2006. I
can feel myself sitting in the living room of my apartment in Bakersfield California with my best
friends/room mates and listening to that CD playing for us all, while we wait for our pizza
delivery to arrive.
The feeling I remember from those playlists was not sadness or despair, it was that of
togetherness with my friends. I am sure that my friends had different feelings from that moment
in time as that is the beauty of music. Multiple people can listen to the same song at the same
time and have completely different thoughts and feelings.
On the flip side, my wife hosted a dinner with some of her closest work friends and colleagues
from all different walks of life and gave me the opportunity to create the playlist for the event. I
searched Spotify for the songs that would give the dinner guests the best audio experience
possible. Since that dinner, I have shared that mixtape with a few of the guests and they will text
me when they are listening to it. It is amazing what music will do to our senses.
The key I keep telling myself is that I need to put myself in the position more to listen to new
music and ask people for mixtapes from their “emotional state” more.
Thank you for listening.
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Thank you for joining us for this special opportunity to hear the voices of the women who started it all, Mary Anne and Victoria.
Want to share YOUR voice? Join us for an upcoming event!