The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

had lured him onto the plane with Carol and Cory. Certainly he had every reason not to come. Five executives had recently left his company, putting the organization in peril. If he had to spend two days away, which al-Falah and Rozen were requiring, he needed to unwind on a golf course or near a pool, not com-miserate with a group of despairing parents.
"Thank you for helping us," he said to al-Falah, feigning gratitude. He continued watching the girl out of the corner of his eye. She was still shrieking between sobs and both clinging to and clawing at her father. "Looks like you have your hands full here."
Al-Falah's eyes creased in a smile. "I suppose we do. Parents can become a bit hysterical on occasions like this."
Parents? Lou thought. The girl is the one in hysterics. But al- Falah had struck up a conversation with Cory before Lou could point this out to him.
"You must be Cory."
"That would be me," Cory said flippantly. Lou registered his disapproval by digging his fingers into Cory's bicep. Cory flexed in response.
"I'm glad to meet you, Son," al-Falah said, taking no notice of Cory's tone. "I've been looking forward to it." Leaning in, he added, "No doubt more than you have. I can't imagine you're very excited to be here."
Cory didn't respond immediately. "Not really. No," he fi¬nally said, pulling his arm out of his father's grasp. He reflexively
6
• THE HEART OF PEACE
brushed his arm, as if to dust off any molecular fibers that might have remained from his father's grip.
"Don't blame you," al-Falah said as he looked at Lou and then back at Cory. "Don't blame you a bit. But you know some¬thing?" Cory looked at him warily. "I'd be surprised if you feel that way for long. You might. But I'd be surprised." He patted Cory on the back. "I'm just glad you're here, Cory."
"Yeah, okay," Cory said less briskly than before. Then, back to form, he chirped, "Whatever you say."
Lou shot Cory an angry look.
"So, Lou," al-Falah said, "you're probably not too excited about being here either, are you?"
"On the contrary," Lou said, forcing a smile. "We're quite happy to be here."
Carol, standing beside him, knew that wasn't at all true. But he had come. She had to give him that. He often complained about inconveniences, but in the end he most often made the inconvenient choice. She reminded herself to stay focused on this positive fact—on the good that lay not too far beneath the surface.
"We're glad you're here, Lou," al-Falah answered. Turning to Carol, he added, "We know what it means for a mother to leave her child in the hands of another. It is an honor that you would give us the privilege."
"Thank you, Mr. al-Falah," Carol said. "It means a lot to hear you say that."
"Well, it's how we feel," he responded. "And please, call me Yusuf. You too Cory," he said, turning in Cory's direction. "In fact, especially you. Please call me Yusuf. Or 'Yusi,' if you want. That's what most of the youngsters call me."
In place of the cocksure sarcasm he had exhibited so far, Cory simply nodded.
ENEMIES IN THE DESERT • 7
A few minutes later, Carol and Lou watched as Cory loaded into a van with the others who would be spending the next sixty days in the wilderness. All, that is, except for the girl Jenny, who, when she realized her father wouldn't be rescuing her, ran across the street and sat belligerently on a concrete wall. Lou noticed she wasn't wearing anything on her feet. He looked sky¬ward at the morning Arizona sun. She'll have some sense burned into her before long, he thought.
Jenny's parents seemed lost as to what to do. Lou saw Yusuf go over to them, and a couple of minutes later the parents went into the building, glancing back one last time at their daughter. Jenny howled as they stepped through the doors and out of her sight.
Lou and Carol milled about the parking lot with a few of the other parents, engaging in small talk. They visited with a man named Pettis Murray from Dallas, Texas, a couple named Lopez from Corvallis, Oregon, and a woman named Elizabeth Wing- field from London, England. Mrs. Wingfield was currently liv¬ing in Berkeley, California, where her husband was a visiting professor in Middle Eastern studies. Like Lou, her attraction to Camp Moriah was mostly due to her curiosity about the founders and their history. She was only reluctantly accompanying her nephew, whose parents couldn't afford the trip from England.
Carol made a remark about it being a geographically di¬verse group, and though everyone nodded and smiled, it was obvious that these conversations were barely registering. Most of the parents were preoccupied with their kids in the van and cast furtive glances in their direction every minute or so. For Lou's part, he was most interested in why nobody seemed to be doing anything about Jenny.
Lou was about to ask Yusuf what he was going to do so that the vehicle could set out to take their children to the trail. Just
8
• THE HEART OF PEACE
then, however, Yusuf patted the man he was talking to on the back and began to walk toward the street. Jenny didn't acknowl¬edge him.
"Jenny," he called out to her. "Are you alright?"
"What do you think?" she shrieked back. "You can't make me go, you can't!"
"You're right, Jenny, we can't. And we wouldn't. Whether you go will be up to you."
Lou turned to the van hoping Cory hadn't heard this. Maybe you can't make him go, Yusi, he thought, but I can. And so can the court.
Yusuf didn't say anything for a minute. He just stood there, looking across the street at the girl while cars occasionally passed between them. "Would you mind if I came over, Jenny?" he finally called.
She didn't say anything.
"I'll just come over and we can talk."
Yusuf crossed the street and sat down on the sidewalk. Lou strained to hear what they were saying but couldn't for the dis¬tance and traffic.
"Okay, it's about time to get started everyone."
Lou turned toward the voice. A short youngish-looking man with a bit of a paunch stood at the doorway to the building, beaming what Lou thought was an overdone smile. He had a thick head of hair that made him look younger than he was. "Come on in, if you would," he said. "We should probably be getting started."
"What about our kids?" Lou protested, pointing at the idling vehicle.
"They'll be leaving shortly, I'm sure," the man responded. "You've had a chance to say good-bye, haven't you?"
ENEMIES IN THE DESERT • 9
They all nodded.
"Good. Then this way, if you please."
Lou took a last look at the vehicle. Cory was staring straight ahead, apparently paying no attention to them. Carol was cry¬ing and waving at him anyway as the parents shuffled through the door.
"Avi Rozen," said the bushy-haired man as he extended his hand to Lou.
"Lou and Carol Herbert," Lou replied in the perfunctory tone he used with those who worked for him.
"Pleasure to meet you, Lou. Welcome, Carol," Avi said with an encouraging nod.
They filed through the door with the others and went up the stairs. This was to be their home for the next two days. Two days during which we better learn what they're going to do to fix our son, Lou thought.
2 • Deeper Matters
Lou looked around the room. Ten or so chairs were ar¬ranged in a U shape. Lou sat in the first of these. Jenny's father and mother were sitting across from him. The mother's face was drawn tight with worry. Blotchy red patches covered the skin on her neck and stretched across her face. The father was staring vacantly at the ground.
Behind them, Elizabeth Wingfield (a bit overdressed, Lou thought, in a chic business suit) was helping herself to a cup of tea at the bar against the far wall of the room.
Meanwhile, Pettis Murray, the fellow from Dallas, was tak¬ing his seat about halfway around the semicircle to Lou's right. He seemed pretty sharp to Lou, with the air of an executive — head high, jaw set, guarded.
The couple just to the other side of Pettis couldn't have been more in contrast. Miguel Lopez was an enormous man, with tattoos covering almost every square inch of his bare arms. He wore a beard and mustache so full that a black bandana tied tightly around his head was the only thing that kept his face from being completely obscured by hair. By contrast, his wife, Ria, was barely over five feet tall with a slender build. In the parking lot, she had been the most talkative of the group, while Miguel had mostly stood by in silence. Ria now nodded at Lou, the corners of her mouth hinting at a smile. He tipped his head toward her in acknowledgment and then continued scanning the room.
10
DEEPER MATTERS •
11
In the back, keeping to herself, was a person Lou hadn't yet met—an African American woman he guessed to be some¬where in her midforties. Unlike the others with children in the program, she had not been outside to see them off. Lou won¬dered whether she had brought a child, worked for Camp Moriah, or had some other reason for being there.
Lou turned to the front of the room, arms folded loosely across his chest. One thing he hated was wasting time, and it seemed they had been doing nothing but that since they'd arrived.
"Thank you all for coming," Avi said as he walked to the front. "I've been looking forward to meeting you in person and to getting to know your children. First of all, I know you're concerned about them —Teri and Carl, you espe¬cially," he said, glancing for a moment over at Jenny's parents. "Your presence here is a testament to your love for your chil¬dren. You needn't trouble yourself about them. They will be well taken care of.
"In fact," he said after a brief pause, "they are not my pri¬mary concern."
"Who is, then?" Ria asked.
"You are, Ria. All of you."
"We are?" Lou repeated in surprise.
"Yes," Avi smiled.
Lou was never one to back down from a perceived chal¬lenge. In Vietnam he had served as a sergeant in the Marine Corps, and the gruesome experience had both hardened and sharpened him. His men referred to him as Hell-fire Herbert, a name that reflected both his loud, brash nature and his conse- quences-be-damned devotion to his unit. His men both feared and revered him: for most of them, he was the last person on
12
• THE HEART OF PEACE
earth they would want to spend a holiday with, but no other leader in the Marines brought more men back alive.
"And why are we your primary concern?" Lou asked pointedly.
"Because you don't think you should be," Avi answered.
Lou laughed politely. "That's a bit circular, isn't it?"
The others in the group, like spectators at a tennis match, looked back at Avi, anticipating his reply.
Avi smiled and looked down at the ground for a moment, thinking. "Tell us about Cory, Lou," he said finally. "What's he like?"
"Cory?"
"Yes."
"He is a boy with great talent who is wasting his life," Lou answered matter-of-factly.
"But he's a wonderful boy," Carol interjected, glancing warily at Lou. "He's made some mistakes, but he's basically a good kid."
"'Good kid'?" Lou scoffed, losing his air of nonchalance. "He's a felon for heaven's sake—twice over! Sure he has the abil¬ity to be good, but mere potential doesn't make him good. We wouldn't be here if he was such a good kid."
Carol bit her lip, and the other parents in the room fidgeted uncomfortably.
Sensing the discomfort around him, Lou leaned forward and added, "Sorry to speak so plainly, but I'm not here to celebrate my child's achievements. Frankly, I'm royally pissed at him."
"Leave the royalty to me, if you don't mind," Mrs. Wing¬field quipped. She was seated two chairs to Lou's right, on the other side of Carol.
"Certainly," he said with a smile. "My apologies to the crown."
She tipped her head at him.
DEEPER MATTERS •
13
It was a light moment that all in the room could throw them¬selves into heavily, as heaviness was what had characterized too much of their recent lives.
"Lou is quite right," Avi said after the moment had passed. "We are here not because our children have been choosing well but because they have been choosing poorly."
"That's what I'm saying," Lou nodded in agreement.
Avi smiled. "So what, then, is the solution? How can the problems you are experiencing in your families be improved?"
"I should think that's obvious," Lou answered directly. "We are here because our children have problems. And Camp Moriah is in the business of helping children overcome their problems. Isn't that right?"
Carol bristled at Lou's tone. He was now speaking in his boardroom voice—direct, challenging, and abrasive. He rarely took this tone with her, but it had become the voice of his inter¬actions with Cory over the last few years. Carol couldn't remem¬ber the last time Lou and Cory had had an actual conversation. When they spoke, it was a kind of verbal wrestling match, each of them trying to anticipate the other's moves, searching for weaknesses they could then exploit to force the other into sub¬mission. With no actual mat into which to press the other's flesh, these verbal matches always ended in a draw: each of them claimed hollow victory while