When Blood and Bones Cry Out, by John Paul Lederach and Angela Jill Lederach

John Paul Lederach, practitioner and theorist of peace building, has grounded his work in stories and metaphor. Like a poet, he makes connections with fields and disciplines that are not normally connected in the literature of peace building, and he does so with the realism of a practitioner. In this book, he and his daughter, Angela Jill Lederach, have created an effective partnership. Together they explore social healing, primarily through the metaphor of sound.

"How do people express and then heal from violations that so destroy the essence of innocence, decency and life itself that the very experience penetrates beyond comprehension and words?" That is the question the book addresses. The authors challenge the dominant, linear metaphor of change, which suggests that healing occurs in stages—that it is experienced linearly and sequentially. For them, although there are patterns that seem to indicate phases and linear progression, the linear metaphor does not recognize that "change is a continuous flow of simultaneous, multilayered experience, not a sequential movement." The linear metaphor creates problems when it is imposed on a nonlinear reality, and there is no such thing as postviolence for many in the aftermath of war, especially women. "For women, violence does not end, nor does it decrease, after the signing of a peace accord. In the most disturbing of realities, peace keeping operations have actually resulted in an increase in sexual exploitation and prostitution, as well as HIV/AIDS."

Metaphors matter! Metaphors are "deeply related to our ways of perceiving, understanding and interpreting the world." The Lederachs believe that a sonic metaphor, rather than a linear one, better describes the reality of social healing. The way to social healing is mixing voices where they can be heard and can thus develop vibration, resonance and social echo. These are qualities of sound. Sound evokes and "puts us in touch with aspects of our lives not easily expressed in words." Sound locates us and holds us as it surrounds us. Moreover, sound and music transport us to the "eternal now," where past, present and future come together—in both memory and hope.