Sabine's Background
Sabine Lichtenfels is a freelance theologian and an author gifted with medium skills, a peace pilgrim and and a mother of two daughters.
She was born in 1954 to a middle class family in Germany. "I was always intimately connected with the issue of the existence of God. I discussed my hopes, my questions about my purpose in life, about the future, friendship and love quietly with God. When doing this, the Bible was not important to me, only life itself."
At the age of 16, together with her friends, she dreamt of establishing a village where all her loved ones could live together. "I was practically always in love, as far back as I can remember. And my love situation always strongly colored all my other decisions."
A young Sabine experienced the happiness of great love, motherhood, marriage, only to be followed by the experience of a marriage turned sour and ending in divorce.
And In her profession as a theologian, she was repeatedly confronted with the prejudices of society towards a divorced woman, "What is a single woman with a child doing in the pulpit?" some people would say. She finally decided to leave the theology profession in order to dedicate her life to a future without war.
"Already early on I was confronted with the feeling that everything that I do is a drop in the bucket. While you are helping out at one place, someone is being tortured and killed some where else. Early on, I had the thought that we must develop a new system of living together, where one can learn to live in peace in an elementary way. My longing was great and it would not let me adapt to the usual system of normality."
Meeting Her Partner, Dieter Duhm
In 1978 Sabine met the sociologist Dieter Duhm. Here were two strong people inspired by the same goal: a future without war and a culture of peace based on love and reconciliation between the genders.
Their many years of cooperation resulted in the "Plan of the Healing Biotopes," which makes the following statement: If, at a few locations on earth, the ecological, technological and social prerequisites for peace are researched, realized and tested in a decentralized way, then a pool of knowledge and experience is produced, which makes the global paradigm shift toward peace more probable.
They soon realized that their plan could only succeed on the basis of a functioning human community. No matter how good were their intentions, they knew peace projects fail due to conflicts and competition that remain hidden under the surface.
Getting To The Root Of Solutions
And so they spent three years in a social experiment with 40 women and men dealing with human core issues like: competition, jealousy, authority, power and especially love. In their life together they studied the historic and cultural background of war with the help of art and theater and sought a way of living together where "the loving attention of one person to another does not elicit fear and hatred in a third person."
Sabine Lichtenfels also developed ideas for a deepened emancipation of women: "In order to achieve planetary peace, we need a new relationship between the genders. There can be no peace on earth as long as there is war in love."
Tamera
In 1995, together with Dieter Duhm and with the support of a large circle of friends, Sabine bought a suitable property in southern Portugal. Here, the results of her social, ecological, spiritual and technical research are to be integrated.
The place is called Tamera and is located in the southern Portuguese province of Alentejo. Today, about 200 people live in Tamera, among them students of the Peace Education Monte Cerro. There are research and educational tasks within networking, ecology, love and living together, art, healing and spirituality.
After establishing the first Healing Biotope or Grace Village, the creation of further model villages are being planned in Colombia and the Middle East.
Grace Pilgrimages
In 2005 she led the first GRACE pilgrimage - for weeks by foot through Israel and the Westbank, from the Golan heights, to Jerusalem. 50 people from many countries including Israelis and Palestines accompagnied her. It was an extreme and deep experience where people from all sides could perceive and overcome their fear and their anger. The pilgrims walk in the name of GRACE, which means: solidarity with all life, not judging, but looking for the healing perspective in every situation.
From the event came the movie We Refuse To Be Enemies and Sabine's book Grace - pilgrimage for a future without war.
During her 30 years of community research, Sabine had learnt to create a community space of deepening understanding, and this has proved to be invaluable in painful situations and conflicts. She leads peace camps - mainly in Colombia, Israel, Palestine and at Tamera. The community of Tamera provides a framework that illustrates that trust and truth among human beings is truly possible.
Sabine Lichtenfels says: "Conflicts between peoples can only be reconciled by looking to the future, by taking on a joint task, by together caring for the common land, its ecology, its water, its future. The establishment of Grace Villages can become such a task for many people."
Future Plans
Sabine's next adventure is leading a seminar and a pilgrimage in San José de Apartadó with 400-500 participants. San José is a peace village which is heavily threatened by the parties of the civil war in Colombia.
"The inhabitants of San Josecito stayed faithful to their decision to remain a Peace Community despite the unbearable pain. It is what gives them the power and the courage to live. This community has become a carrier of hope for all the suppressed ones in the country. The power of San Josecito is to encourage other displaced people to raise their voices."
Sabine Lichtenfels has created a very personal exchange with people who have remained faithful to their vision of peace even when they have lost their relatives in war or have had their lives threatened, and with artists, ecologists and specialists who work in the service of peace.
This has given rise to a growing network, which she calls the "Ring of Power." For these peace workers she has created an international meditation circle, and every Monday she sends them a power text via e-mail.
But Sabine is modest about her achievements, indeed she exhibits the grace that she is working so hard to establish. When a participant of a pilgrimage told her that she is the most courageous woman that he had ever met, she thought for a while and then answered: "I know what you mean, but it does not feel like courage. It feels like the power of trust."
You can take part in the Ring of Power. Send an E-Mail to: ring-of-power@sabine-lichtenfels.de
More information:
http://www.the-grace-foundation.org/
http://www.sabine-lichtenfels.com/
http://www.tamera.org/