As nonviolent peacebuilders, we often speak of loving our enemies and of doing activism based in love. But so often we struggle to release our anger toward those we believe are causing harm.

Anger has its uses. It is a natural response to witnessing or experiencing harm. Anger and blame can point us to what truly matters to us. How can we tend to our anger, honoring it for its gifts to us and then sinking beneath it to tend compassionately to the grief and vulnerability that it is protecting?

Join Pam Winthrop Lauer as she leads us through the process developed by Sarah Peyton called Transforming Blame into Mourning. Together we will practice moving through our anger and grief and into the soft heart of compassion, from which we can discern effective, love-based action for change.

Pam Winthrop Lauer is a spiritual director and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) trainer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been practicing NVC since 2006 and teaching NVC full-time since 2015. For Pam, NVC is a practical "how-to" practice for living with an open heart. Pam is in the final stages of her journey to become a Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication (cnvc.org) and when it's completed she will be one of just a handful of CNVC Certified Trainers in the Upper Midwest. Her Spiritual Direction certification is from the Lev Shomea Jewish Spiritual Direction Training Program.