Compassionate Civilization Collaborative (C3) Report on January 2025 Activities
Working together locally and globally in our time of chaos and opportunity.
Compassionate Civilization Collaborative (C3) was launched in 2017, with the publication of A Compassionate Civilization, and is part of the movement of movements (MoM) catalyzing a compassionate community and world. The objectives of C3 have been to strengthen the MoM; offer training, study groups, speaking engagements, and retreats; provide innovative leadership consulting, training and facilitation; strengthen global-local citizenship; offer practices of care for self and others; publish blogs, social media, Op Eds, videos, podcasts, and books; hold mindful activism retreats; conduct projects and initiatives; and engage in political, social, and ecological activism.
C3 reports are usually made annually, but because the month of January has been so challenging, a short encouraging report is offered below. It is being published before the end of the month because I am nursing a cold and have decided that the month is complete.
Global and Local Collaborations and Requests:
Dr. Ameena Zia, now a professor at Bernard College (NC) and director of Blue Ridge Impact Foundation and Consulting, invited me to be on her new Advisory Board, and to give a talk by Zoom this spring on the role of civil society in governance for the UN Experiential Fellows in Pakistan. We have previously made a few videos related to our work and thoughts. Above is a photo of an earlier collaboration with Ameena.
The Global Sustainable Development Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, asked me to speak this June; I offered to do so by Zoom.
The organizers of the Compassion Summit being held in Amman, Jordan, this January, reviewed my book A Compassionate Civilization (ACC) before the summit. Students participated from the Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools.
Dr. Keith McDade, professor and Director of the MS in Applied Climate Studies at Warren Wilson College, in Swannanoa, NC, will meet with me soon to discuss climate disaster recovery and rebuilding. He has also started a new speaker series on Zoom related to climate disaster recovery.
Warren Wilson College shared information about ACC and "Compassionate Conversations (CC)" with relevant faculty members.
Diana McCall, a local group facilitator, shared her proposal for long term disaster recovery planning and facilitation training in the twenty-seven counties devastated by Hurricane Helene. Diana has also facilitated for the Swannanoa Grassroots Alliance and Buncombe County, among others. I am honored to be one of her mentors.
Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act, for activists over sixty, and 350.org, wrote in his Substack “The Crucial Years”: “Meanwhile, also in North Carolina, a good example of a genre I think we’re going to see a lot of. Robertson Work, chased from his home by Helene, writes about the experience of becoming a climate refugee late in life.” He then quoted from my CC essay, and I mentioned him and Third Act in my Substack.
Karen Snyder, coordinator of the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Archives in Chicago, wrote concerning America250, the 250th anniversary celebration of the USA next year, and shared an ICA USA proposal to conduct a Town Meeting in every county during 2026, as we did in 1976. She also wrote: “Today reading your CCs, I so identified with your life story of working on the arc towards justice that I decided to send you my gratitude for your life, your writings, your inspiration. Deep in my heart I do believe that we (and many) have made a difference.”
Dr. Joyce Bonafield, an ICA colleague, and Board Member of World Citizen Peace, wrote “I love your books, and want to get a copy of your newest one. And talk with you sometime via phone (FaceTime?) . . . Thanks for sending your peace message today! I'm sharing it with my Contemporary Theology group at my UCC church in Minneapolis.” Joyce wrote her dissertation on eight schools in Finland, the world’s happiest country for the last seven years according to the World Happiness Report.
Publications and Media:
Dr. Cosmas Gitta, former UNDP colleague, is reviewing the manuscript of my upcoming book, currently titled Mindfulness, Democracy, and Climate: Compassionate Conversations and Actions, and offering helpful suggestions of organization, editing, marketing, and uses for readers. I asked him to write the Foreword.
The Association of Former International Civil Servants (AFICS) requested an article of personal and professional stories for the June bulletin marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations.
Twelve CCs were written and published on Substack this month. Insightful comments were written in January after the essays by Ayata Aeala, Nancy Trask, Fayyaz Baqir, George Brandt, Paul Grayhurst, Ameena Zia, Karen Snyder, Marianne Mathews, Joyce Bonafield, Margaret Wheatley, Barbara Rogers, Agack Nyapuodi, Carlos Espinosa, Sam Antaramian, Lauren Steiner, Ellie Stock, and Third Act. Subscriptions to CCs on Substack now total 275, including 22 paid. Many additional readers of CC come from Facebook, LinkedIn, BlueSky, and email list serves.
My five nonfiction books - Earthling Love, Society, Spirit, Self, The Critical Decade, Serving People and Planet, and A Compassionate Civilization - were offered online and in local bookshops in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.
A news article on the CC was sent to the Black Mountain News (NC)
Expressions of Wisdom and Solidarity:
In this painful time of grieving our broken democracy and climate disasters, a number of other people have also cared for my heart-mind through their wise and encouraging words including my wife Bonnie Myotai Treace, Peggy Rowe and Larry Ward of The Lotus Institute, Robert Reich, Heather Cox Richardson, Rosemary Cairns, and Dan Rather on Substack, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Mark Davies, and Mark Cuban on BlueSky, and Barbara Rogers on her blogs, and many more.
Dr. Margaret Wheatley, well known author and teacher, and originator of the concept of “islands of sanity”, sent her congratulations on ACC and CCs, writing: “Thank you and may your wise and good efforts grow strong, not only for your community, but for those who look to you for examples of what’s possible. You have positioned yourself well with self, family, community and knowing—so good to behold one such as you.”
The Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation sent “many warm congratulations on your book (ACC)”.
Healing Spring Monastery in France, of the Plum Village tradition, wrote concerning ACC: “We believe it will bring light in spiritual direction and engagement in society. . . may this book reach many people.”
Gus Speth, former UNDP Administrator, founder of the World Resources Institute, former dean at Yale University, and currently writing “Essays from the Edge”, wrote thanking me for my “insightful work” with the CCs.
Amy Cantrell, Co-director of BeLoved Asheville, a wonderful nonprofit providing housing for the homeless, wrote expressing her gratitude for my “powerful words” in the CC on loving your neighbor as yourself.
Contacted sixty potential partner organizations.
Closing and a Possibility for You:
May all C3 actions serve people and planet!
What can you or your organization propose to do as an activity of C3 this year? What are your questions or suggestions on the above? Please share in the comment section below or in a direct message. Please share this article.
The C3 model can, of course, be used by anyone who wants to promote collaboration in planning, training, action, communication, and selfcare to catalyze and embody a mindful, compassionate, ecologically sound community, country, and world.
Onward!
From Peggy Rowe: "very cool rob!"
Good stuff, Robertson. Thank you very much for your good works, my friend
Some thoughts...
As I have seen the firestorm envelope Bishop Budde for this past week, a firestorm unleashed by
45Retread and his syncophants, simply because she pleaded with him him to be merciful...I ponder. Before we conform to what the state demands we do, we must reflect. "Is this what I am? Is this how I wish to be remembered?"
There is a cost to non-conformity. Are we willing to shoulder that cost? This cost is one that we see Bishop Budde having to shoulder, a cost that far outweighs a simple call for mercy and empathy. Instead of standing up and procaliming 45ReTread as saviour, "God is going to bless America because of trump," like many syncophant pastors have done, she simply asked him to be empathetic and merciful. She did not call him out. She did not criticize. She asked., "Please, there are people who are afraid, be merciful" For this, she is excoriated by MAGAts. Immediately, the storm came upon her and yet she has not apologized or conformed.
We have seen in the 20th century the results of those not willing to pay that cost. The most egregious examples are the eras of Hitler and Stalin. There are others, McCarthyism being one on our shared continent.
Most good things, most progress in human history, has been built on the back of those who refused to toe the line of dictatorial power, regardless of the cost. We must be prepared to not conform to a state that chooses to strip the Human Rights of those they do not agree with. We should be prepared to pay whatever the cost is.
We will not give up the tenents of love, mercy, compassion, empathy and charity to avoid the cost.
We will hold out as long as we can.
Robertson, this has been brewing in my head all day. Commenting on your post just happened to be the first time I sat in front of a keyboard. Thanks for letting me work it out and bring it to fruition as I typed. Thanks for humouring me and reading.
Cheers....Paul
This week has gone much worse than I expected. I figured this might just blow over.
...Thank you to Rev. Ed Trevors for the inspiration...