‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Peace House Community: Wisdom in Unexpected Places
By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Occasionally, you come across wisdom in such an unexpected place that you don’t notice it until later. It’s like driving past something quickly and then thinking “Did I just see …?” I had this experience recently when I ran across one of the best commentaries I’ve ever heard about what matters in a relationship.Some of you will remember the television series MythBusters, where Adam Savage and his colleagues would test famous but questionable stories to see if they were scientifically possible. Since MythBusters went off the air, Adam has started a live podcast (complete with video feed) where he answers fans’ questions, many of which involve his time on MythBusters. The setup is pretty simple: Adam sits at a workbench and reads questions on his computer monitor as they come in, looks directly into the camera, and speaks to whoever asked the question. In one podcast, someone asked him if he imagines an actual person behind the camera [...]
PHC: The Simple Life
By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby During a recent discussion at Peace House Community regarding our favorite childhood board games, one of our volunteers brought up some experiments that showed that people who felt they were richer than those around them became less compassionate and less willing to help others. If you’re wondering about the connection between the two, one of the experiments involved a game of Monopoly where one player was given twice as much money as the other player, was allowed to roll two dice where the other could only roll one, and was generally given every advantage imaginable. Almost universally, the winners (those with all the advantages) claimed they won because of their superior strategy, and said almost nothing about the way the game was rigged in their favor. (If you want a summary of the experiments, which has some really funny moments, check out Paul Piff’s TED Talk “Does Money Make You Mean?” at [...]
PCH: The Simple Life
Rose Tillemans and the Peace House Community in an undated photo found in the Peace House Community photo albums. By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Rose Tillemans, the founder of Peace House Community, would have celebrated her 100th birthday on February 11. In honor of the event, I went through some of PHC’s old photo albums to put together a small memorial for our website.Although the photos were taken before I joined PHC and showed many people I never met, I felt a connection to the faces in the photos. That connection was not just based on having PHC in common. The photos showed simple, everyday activities that we all participate in, like sharing a cup of coffee, or singing together, or playing a board game. I’m not sure how to explain the connection I felt, but I think it could be best summed up with the phrase, “That looks like fun. I wish I could do that.”Of course, I can do that. It doesn’t take much to call a friend, go for a walk, chat with a neighbor, or say [...]
