About Stefan Pasti
Stefan Pasti is the founder and resource coordinator for The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative.
Beginning in the early 1980’s, Mr. Pasti developed a “compilation of excerpts” (from books, articles, etc.) style as a way of synthesizing complex information into an organized format which seemed to make “connecting the dots’ moments more likely to occur. [Examples: newsletter “Disarmament News” (20 pages; May, 1982); critical challenge assessment, quotation collection, “moral compass” commentary “Developing a Tao Compass” (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (64 pages; 1987); quotation collection “An Arrangement of Quotations from ‘Sathya Sai Speaks’ (Vol. 1-15)” (301 pages; 1997, 2006) (Table of Contents); critical challenge assessment, solution guide “IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011-2012: Summary Report” (444 pages; January, 2012) (Table of Contents); and the key CPCS Initiative document “Invitation Package for Possible Board of Advisors” (589 pages; Nov., 2013) (Long Version Table of Contents)].
Mr. Pasti’s advocacy for ecologically sustainable communities begin in 1984 with the first version of the short story “The Spirit of the Sacred Hoop”. [Two other examples: 1) a most comprehensive outreach effort in 1991, with the newsletter/pamphlet “Where a Village is Tended, a Toxic Waste Dump Cannot Grow” (pages 1-2) (pages 3-6) (pages 7-12) (pages 13-16) [which includes a 51 point list titled “How modern agriculture-based villages can contribute to the continuity of peaceful human settlements” (pages 3-5)] and 2) "Brainstorming Zero Carbon ASAP Campaign" (157 pages; June, 2019).]
Regarding employment, Mr. Pasti says in his “Autobiographical Sketch” (see link below): “… I began to see that my life path was going to be more of an ‘organic process’ than an exercise in ‘career development’… “; and “I would again and again find myself making unusual choices for employment, choices that possibly only someone else in a similar set of shoes could easily understand… “ Thus, to make the contributions he believes are uniquely his to make, Mr. Pasti has been employed in many different settings, including retail bookstore clerk, mail clerk, door-to-door canvasser for citizen action groups, dishwasher, cook, stone mason helper, field worker/truck driver on an organic farm, driver/warehouse, bus driver/program assistant, activities director for elders with special needs, delivery driver/bindery assistant, delivery driver/stock and returns.
Although writing was already the most important feature of Mr. Pasti’s life, the 9/11/2001 tragedies were a turning point. After 9/11, his work seemed to crystallize around interfaith and community revitalization themes. He began work building The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative in 2001, with the first website (in 2005, no longer accessible) featuring:
“The IPCR Journal/Newsletter Spring 2005” issue (14 pages)
and eventually
"Peacebuilding in its Most Compassionate Form" (41 pages) (Aug.-Nov., 2007)
"The Twilight of One Era, and the Dawning of Another" (35 pages; Sept.--Oct., 2009)
"The IPCR Workshop Primer" (425 pages) (February, 2010)
"A Four Page Summary of The IPCR Initiative" (2011)
culminating in
“IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011-2012: Summary Report” (444 pages)
(5 page Table of Contents)
After some consolidation work in 2013, Mr. Pasti revised the website into The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative. What he considers his best contributions to those themes are featured on the CPCS Initiative (www.cpcsi.org ) homepage, and included on the “Collected Writings” webpage.
Mr. Pasti’s parents attended church regularly (at Presbyterian or Methodist churches), and at one point taught Sunday school for high school students. Mr. Pasti attended Sunday school, and then attended church services; and eventually [at about age 16 (1971)] became a member of a Methodist church in Rockville, MD. However, his mother’s illness with Multiple Sclerosis (diagnosed around 1970) resulted in such inner turmoil that he sought out, and found, spiritual inspiration from many sources and traditions. The most important of those influences (see below) are from the list of 31 on the “Key Sources of Inspiration” webpage. [Note: The “Key Sources of Inspiration” document includes representative quotes and excerpts from related sources for each entry.]
1. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
2. Kuan Yin
3. Nature
4. I Ching
5. “Ramacharitamanasa (‘The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama’”)
6. Prayer Room at Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC), a Tibetan Buddhist Temple
(an inspiration for “Interfaith Prayer Vigils”, see https://www.cpcsi.org/interfaith-prayer-vigils )
7. Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi--“the hugging saint”)
8. J.C. Kumarappa (economist who worked with Mahatma Gandhi)
9. Mahatma Gandhi
Although Mr. Pasti does not have traditional credentials, he has a “trained eye”, and a time-tested intuitive “feel”, for analyzing complex information regarding challenges of our times, identifying pathways for solution-oriented activity to flow, synthesizing such information into understandable parts, and organizing those parts into a well organized document (much like the work which would need to be done to sort through participant input during a Community Visioning Initiative).
From 2013 to the present, Mr. Pasti has had physical health issues originating from a fall out of a hayloft during his high school years, which has resulted in chronic musculoskeletal issues (and which resulted in his receiving Social Security Disability beginning in February, 2016). However, during this time—and even though he has had difficulty sitting (hip/pelvis issues), and sometimes cannot stand for long periods of time—Mr. Pasti has continued his advocacy for peacebuilding, civic engagement, and ecological sustainability with this The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative website (www.cpcsi.org ), and through tweets, etc. on the Twitter platform (see “CPCS Initiative at Twitter”).
[Additional Note: In March-April, 2017, Mr. Pasti updated his “Autobiographical Sketch” (previous versions in August, 2009 and March, 2012) from 11 pages to 83 pages. For some introductory notes, see #20 in the “Collected Writings of Stefan Pasti” section of this CPCS Initiative website.]