Lani Lanchester: [00:00:00] Well, I started this podcast
because I’ve written a book called
Learning to Listen to Palestine
and I actually have that right here
so this is brand new
it’s just released this week
and and it is really about me
and the changes
that have happened in my life
because Palestine
is a group of people
that I really didn’t know existed
I thought I knew everything
about Israel and Palestine
but I knew nothing
and once I started listening
to the stories I realized that
the hope and the problems of
of the conflicts
that are going on
in the Middle East are largely
due to only one side being heard
and so it’s really important
Lani Lanchester: for us to start hearing
their stories and for us to
be able to learn to love these people
and loving
listening is the first step in loving
and you have to have love
in order to have peace
Narrator: Welcome to Learning to Listen to Palestine, where stories [00:01:00] come alive and hearts connect. Each week, your host, Lani Lanchester, will dive into the untold histories, powerful narratives, and insightful interviews that bring us closer to understanding Palestine. Ready to be educated, empowered, and motivated?
Let’s get started.
Richard Matthews: Hello and welcome to the very first episode here, the intro episode to learning to listen to Palestine. And I am doing a special co host with Lani Lanchester. Lani, are you there?
Lani Lanchester: I’m here. Thank you.
Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thanks for having me on today to do this introduction for your show. I’m really excited about this podcast and what you’re going to be doing with it.
But before we get into all of that and what the podcast is going to be about, I want to take a couple of seconds. And as the host of this show, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your, essentially, what is the problem that you’re working on helping solve? [00:02:00] the world solve for the world here with this podcast.
Lani Lanchester: Yes, my name is Lani Lanchester and I am so happy to be here. I am really interested in helping people to learn to listen because I’m a high school teacher. I teach high school science and what I’ve learned is that listening is essential for relationships and for learning and for building trust.
And as a high school teacher, I know that you cannot. Learn from somebody that you don’t trust. So I’ve always been working on listening skills. Now, as I’ve started becoming interested in Palestine and learning about Palestine, I’ve been realizing that we don’t have the listening skills to hear the stories of Palestine.
So this is what I want to work on. I want to help people learn to hear these important stories. About Palestine. And I believe that this is essential for us to reach peace to have hope in the world.
Richard Matthews: And I [00:03:00] know like I’m one of my really core and central beliefs is that storytelling is really what makes the world move forward. And so being able to get in and actually tell the stories of this people, these people is going to be a tremendous benefit, I think. But before we get too much into what the podcast is about, I want to dive just a little bit more into you because you said high school teacher, but I know just from our own conversations that you’re not just a high school teacher.
Like your curriculum is being used at a really high level here in America. Is that correct?
Lani Lanchester: Well, I teach high school science. And I just teach biology, chemistry, physics, engineering health. And I do help develop curriculum, but I develop it just for my district.
Richard Matthews: Yeah. So you’re a You help develop curriculum for high school students, which I think is just like another level above just being a high school teacher, but which is really cool and really fascinating. So you’re taking sort of that skill of being able someone who knows how to teach in a way that.
Helps other teachers teach and [00:04:00] bring that same sort of ability to your storytelling here with learning to listen to Palestine which I think helps bring us to what this podcast is about and the benefits that you’re seeing that you’re hoping you can see. So like, I want to, if you can share your vision a little bit for this podcast, like, what do you, what are you hoping that you can do by sharing these stories?
Lani Lanchester: Well, I started this podcast because I’ve written a book called Learning to Listen to Palestine, and I actually have that right here. So this is brand new. It’s just released this week. And and it is really about me and the changes that have happened in my life. Because Palestine were, is a group of people that I really didn’t know existed.
I thought I knew everything about Israel and Palestine. But I knew nothing. And once I started listening to the stories, I realized that the hope and the problems of of the conflicts that are going on in the Middle East are largely due to only [00:05:00] one side being heard. And so it’s really important for us to start hearing their stories and and for us to be able to learn to love these people and loving listening is the first step in loving and you have to have love in order to have peace.
Richard Matthews: Absolutely. And I know again, because of our conversations before that your hope is that by telling these stories and by sharing the successes in other areas that have had conflicts like this in the past, that there is a model that we can move forward and actually help create peace over in that region.
Lani Lanchester: Exactly. And that is another book. So this book here is what inspired me to write it. This is called the book of forgiving by Desmond Tutu. And I had started learning about all of these horrible conflicts that are going on in Israel and Palestine. And it wasn’t until after my dad died, my sister handed me this book the book of forgiving by Desmond Tutu, because I was going through a [00:06:00] lot of pain.
And as I read, I started seeing this model of listening to people’s stories and telling your story and then naming the hurt. Forgiveness. And then releasing or renewing the relationship. And this is the model that was developed by Desmond Tutu in order to bring peace to South Africa. Can you imagine, do you remember the 1980s when in the 1980s it was, the conflict was it was terrible.
It was like the worst things I’d ever heard. What was going on with the apartheid system there. And there were so many factions and everybody hated everybody. And I just couldn’t imagine. And I just saw South Africa is like the worst place in the world when I was a teenager. It wasn’t until I read this book that I realized that there was healing after apartheid fell.
And it was systematic and at the systematic process of [00:07:00] listening to stories, letting people tell their stories, naming their hurts, guiding people to forgiveness, and then guiding people into either being able to read, release a relationship. Of pain or to renew a relationship to something better.
And this is how South Africa healed. And it wasn’t natural. It was very systematic. It was a process. It was a lot of work. And I find that. Everybody should read this book because everybody has these things in their lives that you can process through. And I think it’s just remarkable.
Narrator: Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss an episode show by clicking the subscribe button now. Don’t forget to check out Lani’s book, Learning to Listen to Palestine. Now back to the show.
Richard Matthews: absolutely. And so. In your view, [00:08:00] this podcast and your book are hopefully first steps towards creating that same kind of healing in the Middle East.
Lani Lanchester: Yes, I really want to start a peace movement here. And the peace movement has to start with listening. But we don’t know how to listen, and we definitely don’t know how to listen to Palestinians. This is an area where we have been misinformed so many times. There’s so much propaganda out there that it’s hard to know the truth.
And what I found for me, overcoming this. This block, it helps for me to talk to real people. What I did and how I wrote this book originally is I went to Israel and I drove around Israel in Palestine and then later Jordan, and I spoke to real people and they would tell me their stories. They’d ask you why are you here traveling all by yourself?
And I said, I’m here to listen. And they said, Oh, and they would pull up a chair for me and they sit me down and serve me tea [00:09:00] or coffee. And then they would start telling me their stories because they were really, they had all these stories built up in them and they wanted to tell. And so this is the first step in healing.
And we kind of know this inside ourselves that we have to tell somebody. What has happened, but they need somebody to listen.
Richard Matthews: Which I think is a great name for the podcast too, Learning to Listen to Palestine. And I want to touch real quickly for the audience you’re going to be releasing a podcast every single week. Right. And you’re going to be, I know you’ve got a couple of segments that you’re going to be talking about.
You’ve got some some guests that you’re already excited about having on. Do you want to give someone you know, people who might be listening to this little intro episode, give them a teaser of like what’s coming in the first couple of episodes here? And also, if you’re
Lani Lanchester: Well, it’s very exciting because as I finished my book and I put my book out there and I really have been praying and hoping to be able to speak to some Palestinians and help
my guests or my listeners to [00:10:00] have opportunities to hear stories right from real people, you know, make, help you guys make that connection.
And right as soon as my book was published, somebody called me and says, I don’t understand. Can you explain your book in your position? And so I did. I explained that, yes, I she said, how come you’re willing to listen when most Americans are not? And I said, well, I think it’s because my heart broke. I lost I my, my. Daughters had not been talking to me and then my dad died and my boss died and just my heart was broken and when this happened, I just was, I knew I could feel people’s pain more, I guess, because I had so much that I was carrying myself. And so I, as I explained this to her, she goes, okay.
And then she told me I’m Palestinian. And [00:11:00] I said, really, I said where are you from? She says, I’m from Gaza.
So, and she told me that she had moved from Gaza when she was young.
Richard Matthews: host
Lani Lanchester: spread out. They used to all be together in Gaza, but they’re spread out in Texas, California, Egypt, and the family.
that did not leave Gaza. They’re all dead. They’ve all been killed over time, and it all happened before October 7th.
Richard Matthews: to be one of your first guests on your podcast.
Lani Lanchester: Yes. Yeah.
Richard Matthews: So,
Lani Lanchester: Yes.
Richard Matthews: tuning in and listening, you’re going to get the chance to hear some real stories from real people. And like I said, it’s one of the things that
I believe storytelling is the path to all growth and healing and forgiveness and movement in our world.
It’s one of the things that separates humanity from the animals is our ability to tell stories. And so I’m really looking forward to seeing [00:12:00] what you put together with this podcast. I think it has an incredible potential to be a world changing. Bit of media. And so I’m excited for what you’re doing here.
I want to talk a little bit about where people can find your episodes. And I know we just got your domain figured out for the podcast. So listen to Palestine. com is where you’ll be able to find the episodes. And I know we’re going to have this once it’s up and launched, you’ll have your episodes up on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Apple podcasts. So anywhere that you are wanting to listen to this, you’ll be able to find it on all those platforms. And we’ll make sure that there’s links to it again. It’s listen to palestine. com. There’ll probably be a podcast button up there. Cause I know your book is going to be there as well. Anything else that you create, we’ll all be on that page, but the podcast button will be up there. And if you’re listening to this now, probably one of the big, biggest things you could do to help Lonnie push this message forward and promote a message of peace is subscribe to her show. Right. Subscribe to the show on YouTube, subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts [00:13:00] and help to push this message forward.
And then if you know someone who has a story to tell, make sure you reach out to Lonnie. There’ll be contact information on the website that you can get ahold of her and help get more stories in front of the audience that you’re building here. Lonnie, I just wanted to, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for doing this work.
And putting this together do you have any sort of final thoughts before we tell people to, Hey, go up and check out episode number one. We’ll be the next episode here. Before we before you hop off this intro episode,
Lani Lanchester: Yes, I would love to encourage people to buy the book Learning to Listen to Palestine. That will help me out a lot as well. And it gives you an idea of what to expect in the show. But also this book the The Book of Forgiving by Desmond Tutu. It really is a book that I believe is essential for the healing of the nation.
Our nation is going through a lot right now too. And so, if you understand how important these stories are and how important it is to learn to listen, then I see the [00:14:00] hope of creating something beautiful between all of us.
Richard Matthews: creating a better world for tomorrow and for our children to have.
So again, thank you so much for coming on and doing this intro episode with me. If you’re listening to this, Go and hit that like and subscribe button. We’ll put the links to those books in the in the link for this episode on the learning to listen to Palestine.
com or sorry, listen to Palestine. com. So they we’ll have the resources there for you to pick up any of those things and thank you so much for being on here today, Lenny and look forward to seeing where you go with this podcast and the way that you’re going to change the world.
Lani Lanchester: Thank you so much.
Narrator: Thank you for tuning in to this enriching episode of Learning to Listen to Palestine. I hope today’s stories and insights touched your heart and opened your mind. If you found value in our conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with friends and family. Your support helps us reach more listeners and foster a global community committed to understanding and peace.
Don’t forget to explore our book, Learning to Listen to Palestine, for a deeper [00:15:00] dive into these poignant narratives. And if you’re inspired to take action, join a local group or start one at your library to engage with Palestinian stories firsthand. See our show notes for inspiration. We’ll be back next week with more profound stories and thoughtful discussions.
Until then, remember to listen, learn, and build bridges. Keep the conversation going and stay connected. Thank you for being part of this journey.
