mesoamerica

Starting in the 1980s, John Paul participated through the outreach program of Semilla (whose headquarters were based in Guatemala City), a popular education and extension program that worked primarily with grassroots and church-related leadership. This program was offered to all of the countries of Central America from Panama to Mexico. Semilla also developed a publishing arm that produced a number of his books and essays from this time period. Wendy and John Paul lived in Costa Rica during a significant portion of this period. The primary fieldwork for his dissertation emerged from his experience with local community understandings of conflict and its transformation, particularly in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. His most extensive direct work became the support for the conciliation and peace process in Nicaragua that led up and through the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence

A collection of stories, reflections, and wisdom offering insight into the challenge of facing down toxic polarization layered with violence and the surprising ways everyday people found to shift harmful patterns of violence that had lasted decades. 

Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians

A book containing practical ideas for transforming conflict in everyday life with a challenge to Christians to renew their commitment to reconciliation as the heart of the gospel message.

Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures

An exploration of prescriptive and elicitive methods of training and conflict work across cultures that places emphasis on the resources emergent from the context and setting of a given conflict. 

The Journey Toward Reconciliation

An exploration into the spiritual foundations that undergird John Paul's work as a practitioner and scholar of peacebuilding.

Beyond Prescription: Perspectives on Conflict, Culture, and Training

A manuscript written for the Inter-racial and Cross-cultural Conflict Resolution Project at Conrad Grebel College's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Practicing Peace: Psychological Roots of Transforming Conflicts

An article that links psychosocial theories with the social energies of reconciliation, then applies this framework to the case of Guatemala, emphasizing the value of linking the literatures of peace psychology and conflict transformation.

Spirituality and Religious Peacebuilding

A chapter exploring the meaning of quality of presence rising from spiritual resources that facilitate the practice of religious peacebuilding in protracted conflict.

From The Journey Toward Reconciliation

An excerpt from the book The Journey Toward Reconciliation that explores the construction of the image of an enemy through personal experience and reflection.