As part of the Law of Love webinar series, last Sunday, we hosted a conversation with inner and outer activist Jerry White, who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for the historic international treaty to ban landmines.

The conversation started with the prayer Make me a Channel of Your Peace rendered by Bhumika. In conversation with Jerry were Birju Pandya and Sheetal Vaidya.

Here are some highlights from the call.

Seeking Diversity: I was raised an Irish catholic boy in a beautiful town of 6000 people, mostly white, outside Boston. When I went to Brown University, I experienced diversity and I was very thirsty and ready to learn from this diversity and was humbled by it. I followed some Jewish students to Judaism classes. My advisor at Brown who has published 1000 books asked me to learn Hebrew and Aramic if I was serious about pursuing roots of Christianity. In junior year, I switched to Jerusalem university and traveled to Lebanon and Egypt and walked in all these places where Jesus walked.
The Turning Point: In 1984, I was camping with 2 of my best buddies and there was an explosion. And I lost my right leg. The landmine was a residue from a 1967 war between Israel and Arab states. The land mines are meant to maim you, not kill you. I kept asking “where is my foot? Where is my foot?” The second leg was injured.
In such situations, I guess you have an intuition whether you’re gonna die or not die. The voice in my head said -- “You are not dying this way.” I felt there was a purpose for this. My only prayer was, let me not become bitter because of this - Lord please show me your grace. And I became focused on going back to school and getting on with my life.
Seeds of Radical Inclusion in Recovery: Israel has some of the best trauma care in the world and I spent 6 months in a hospital there. I was a mainstream guy who suddenly found himself sharing room with people who have lost eyes or skin. I was sick to my stomach with seeing those injuries. My father was the president of a hospital in Boston and they all wanted me to come back for treatment and rehabilitation but I chose to stay in Israel, in the scene of the discomfort. A Christian American boy in fellowship of suffering with people in another land.
Work and Inner Calling: For 10 years I worked in the field of nuclear non-proliferation. In 1995 Ken Rutherford, who had lost both legs in Somalia, came to start his PhD in Georgetown. He didn’t know I was a land mine survivor. He told me that I was tracking the wrong weapons of mass destruction.There were 80 million landmines buried in over in 80 countries and 80-90 percent of victims were civilians. He was starting a campaign and the first meeting was in Vienna.
We noticed that the campaigns till then portrayed these people as victims. It had shock value, but it didn’t have dignity. So we started to change the inner mindset and external story -- from being a victim to being a survivor.
Also, I noticed that such conferences till then were mostly run by elites with the typical mindset ”we speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” and I was like why don’t we pass the mic to the person who feels the pain. For me radical inclusion was to be part of Landmine Survivor’s Network. All the ordinary people -- the survivors who came became my teachers along the way.
When I was flying back from Vienna, I started to cry. “Am I to quit my jobs and do this? God, anyone, answer me!”
There was silence and no answer came. However, after that moment, I knew my answer. I thought “What would I say to my son who was 8 at that time about not responding to this call?” One can inquire: “Dear pain, what are you asking of me?” I quit when my youngest son was still being breastfed and cashed out my retirement savings. And started work in the basement. A leap of faith became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Putting victims at the center: In the jungles of Angola or a mud hut of Mozambique and more I met people with eye loss or limb loss. These are real people living with real loss and no jobs. One guy then told me “Losing the limb wasn’t the biggest problem, losing my place in my family in my society in my job is the problem. What do you find meaning in, as a landmine victim?”
A landmine victim in El Salvador was suicidal and outside a hospital window, he hears laughter and sees that there are 3 guys in a wheelchair playing wheelchair basketball. Sometimes, it takes only a moment to realize that I can live with joy even despite whatever has happened.
When you can hear yourself laugh after trauma, in that moment, you know you can live.
With these experiences, putting heartbeat of scarred lands and the people who are marred at the center became my work on the course of working towards banning landmines and stockpiles.
Being Held by Family: My partnership is familial and spiritual. My wife just said - “Be who you are and do what you must. We will be fine.” It sometimes took a toll on the family. It was hard for my kids to criticize their Dad who was doing good work.
How can you be present with your family when you are half way around the world? I would close my eyes and put myself in my children’s class rooms and home and in my heart, be with them in an instant.
I wasn’t able to spend much time with them physically, but I would feel them in my heart all the time. It may be a cop out, but I would ask them to “Can you name one moment you didn’t feel my presence and feel unconditional love?” I missed out on the quantity of love but qualitatively, I did fine.
Fire and Water: Now I am doing my inner work to catch up with my outer work so as not to burn-out and to do no harm. If I am working out of anger, then people cannot handle anger. No one can sit near a hot spring but by modulating it, it can be a spa which is healing. And I learnt to channel that heat.
Innerpreneur: I was burning on both ends and so were my friends. You saw so many leading social entrepreneurs struggling in their personal lives and relationships. I see it as being caught in the outer cycles of Ego, then it forms an Orgo i.e. an NGO, which has a Logo and it’s all so Go Go. So it’s important to take a pause, and work from a positive motivation than out of anger.
Breathing to Be: A fellow worker asked me “So u have a spiritual practice?” And I asked ”What do you mean? Yoga?” She said, “From tomorrow, for a minute, sit, be still and breathe. Do this for a month every day. And the next month, sit still for 2 minutes and third month, 3 minutes and so on. In a year, you would sit still and breathe for 12 minutes and you will have a spiritual practice”. I sat with my timer to sit for 60 seconds – I could not go past at 25 seconds! I was spiritually clogged and could not breathe. Later in the course, Vipassana for me was a bootcamp for breathing. These pausing practices have served me so well.
A Place for Humor: Survivors are dangerous because they know they can survive. In the large gap between the way things are and what they could be, there is a lot of grey area for humor - dark humor. Humor is the sign of resilience and when I interview, I look for people who can use humor when working with darker issues.
Last Shall Be First: Last shall be first said Jesus. In Bosnia, we went to the home of 16 year old landmine victim with Diana. As she was leaving, she hazily noticed something moving in the back room like in a cage or a crib– she went closer and saw that it was another child, a member of the family, who had cerebral palsy. She went over instincty and said “Who cares for this child?” and pulled her up into her arms. And they said that it was the first time the child had smiled in months.
Feeling deserted by faith: The joke is I wrote a book about survivalism called “I shall not be broken” around 2007 and then years later, I felt it’s sequel should be called “I am broken” or “I have been broken”. I can see now that there was lot of arrogance in thinking that I will not be broken, that I am strong and overcoming but I simply needed to be tested more by life.
I can remember some specific moments in the journey when I felt totally deserted by faith and questioning everything in the world, cursing the angels and stars and say look at the mess you have created. I was feeling full of rage and despair.
Regaining Faith: But the light comes back. My daughter says “Read your own books. Don’t be a victim.” The way to regain faith is to reach out, get moving, give back. I think it was my illusions or delusions due to which I had lost lost my connection to the grace. When I wanted to embrace the world again, the Universe was telling me “Don’t you owe me an apology?” for saying all the bad things. I saw that I wasn’t able to meditate properly until I offered an apology from my heart. So I started to write names of angels around me - pages of names of people who has showered love and light in my life whom I have blocked out based on deception, delusion and darkness. I cannot shake my belief that I am soul in this body who is to work in collaboration towards light, liberation and wholeness. And then I can meditate.
Serving a larger purpose: Mirages and images have been sold and society is reinforcing that. I ask my students these questions “Who are you? What are burning for? What is your zip code?”
Anxiety which has been exacerbated by pandemic has created a Zombieland. Collective psychosis seems to have been absorbed by next generation. We need to splash water in the face and ask, solicit and pull out the soul in front of us. When we wake up to our reality and reality of the world, we will find ourselves naturally aligning to service.
Justice or Compassion: When I went around the world and met people with a desire for justice, I felt that justice was going to be a long arc that people may not see in their lifetime. Justice is in finding your balance and pursuing a meaningful life. How do we rebuild lives? Healing is in my hands, not that of my perpetrator. What happens to them is on them. I was asked to sue the Israeli government when I lost the limb but I want to walk out of this hospital and resume my studies and my life. And there is so much negative energy around false pursuit of justice.
What does Soul mean to me: Soul is a mystery. For me it is my energy and essence that pre-dates my body and will post-date my body. I am missing a limb and I have phantom sensations and I feel the foot I don’t have more than the foot I have. I feel my energy shape with my body. Phantom feelings have made me realize I have a physical shape and an energetic shape. I think my soul is the wholest, fullest, lightest part of me. We can have a soul chat, be present to each other and I can listen beyond words and invite your soul out. My mother has Alzheimer’s and she has one foot on earth and one foot in the other world. She has a missing memory or a section of brain but I can have a soul chat with her.
Balcony with a View: When I am not connected and feel separated, I can step over people on the path. Stop, breathe, go inside the balcony of your soul to get a perspective. We pit our head against the heart or soul. The gut says ”Jerry stop it pull back” and heart is place of centering. head triggers the pause which the heart takes on, creates room for more balanced work.
The refreshing pause gives enough to unite head and heart and whole body. I need checks and balances between gut, heart and brain so no one runs off alignment.
Our journey: It is doing the hard work of cleaning ourselves. We need to be as healthy as we can be. The time is coming that it is just not about personal transformation. The collective is communal. We can call on neighbors with conscience about the massive atrocities and disrupt injustice while examining the injustice within us. Inner work and outer work are simultaneous. It’s All, Now.