This project was developed after working with conversations in the Not My Cup of Tea Project. The following questions were developed by meeting 6 people I disagreed with the views of. Each dialog taught me something about how to encounter. After each meeting I digested my emotions and clarified the thoughts into the following questions. Creating these questions is not supposed to be a rhetorical act nor are they it supposed to be instantly answerable. Just like a prayer showing them to the world in its self helps me to start answering them.
Metanoia is a greek word meaning change of heart. I feel that these 6 dialogs have given me that as I know see those people separate from their views. This word also has routes in our word repentance and this is also key to meeting and forgiveness.
The final 4 questions were developed in conversation with the original dialog partners and by sharing these questions in public.
Who do I other ?
Who’s views cause me pain?
What emotions do I go through when I meet the other?
Why do I put up barriers?
What language do I use about people when I think another’s view is unacceptable?
How do I stop my self becoming angry with people who have different views to me?
Who’s responsibility is it to start a dialog with people who are different to them?
How do we develop the capacity/strength to go out and dialog with difference?
Is it the encounter or the dialog that helps me understand the other?
Why do I misrepresent others and take offence?
How can we change our views if they are based on deep fears?
Why if I understand your context do I often empathies with you?
Do I view my self as emotional or rational decision maker?
Is it wedging facts into cracks that changes opinions?
What lenses and views do I inherit and that I assume are my own?
How do we overcome the human desire to concentrate on our differences rather than commonalities?
Do our stereotypes exist in the exact form that we imagine them?
How do we catch our selves reinforcing our beliefs rater than challenging them?
When is it not a good idea to start a dialog?
Do I find it too easy to uncritically absorb the others view?
What contradictory views do I hold?
How does our use of language effect our world view?
Does moral, or internal transformation lead to outward change on its own?
If we cannot change anything till we change everything how do we change at all?
Is moral ambiguity part of effecting any change?
How can I be sure of the facts that I accept on trust?
How do we justify holding opinions when when we cannot hold all supporting facts?
What is an Encounter?
What is a Dialog?
How am I fixed in my view point?
How do I relate to change and to threat?
What experiences have changed my mind?
How do we meet each other without expecting the conversion?
How do we really meet an other?
Surely if I do this, no one will not be met?
Can I change my relationship with everything? All at once? Is this possible?
Who is the “we” in we must go out and dialog to produce change?
How we protect the most vulnerable people from being hurt in dialogs?
Alice floyd 