Transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobilize, and build the moral imagination. The kind of imagination to which I refer is mobilized when four disciplines and capacities are held together and practiced by those who find their way to rise above violence. Stated simply, the moral imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.

Addressing the deep patterns of dehumanization that emerge from and drive cycles of violence requires the bold embrace of the less visible inner world of leaders where the wells of these qualities of imagination reside. To lead into rehumanization while living in the midst of fragmentation we must envision the life school of wholeness that centers the qualities of compassion, curiosity, humility, resilience, and courage, which permit us to be fully human with each other, even with those we fear, while we seek the creative strategies that transcend division and violence found in our shared journey and future.