Stephen Robbins Schwartz (1949-1993) was an author, publisher and retreat leader. He received a B.A. in literature from Brandeis Unversity and an M.A. in education from the State University of New York.
He found a way to use words that help to open our heart in a compassionate way for our experience and the experience of others.
Steve died at a very early age, only 43 years old.
With this page I wish to honor and celebrate his contribution and to make it more available to people, to whom his work might be of interest. I did not know him personally. Please contact me if you have stories or information that you might wish to include on this celebration page. May his work find many friends. Blessings!
Publications
The Prayer of the Body (Issue in on Steve in THE SUN, 1992)
Obituary by Sy Safransky
Books
Problems Are the Doors Through Which We Walk to Peace (1987)
Stephen Schwartz was inspired by A Course in Miracles and held talks at events organized by the Foundation for Inner Peace. These are transcripts from these talks.
The Compassionate Presence (1988)
Stephen Schwartz describes his method in this book.
Angelic Dialogues (1993)
Compiled in the last year of Stephen Schwartz’s life, these dialogues reveal the depth of spiritual experience and compassion that Stephen brought to his work with participants. I cite Dr. Arnold Katz:
“I believe that Stephen’s work represents a unique development in our capacity to enable human awareness and understanding . . .One of Stephen’s notable acheievements in what he calls “angelic dialogues” is to have adapted the practice of presence to the “interactive space.”. . .I have come to understand that Stephen’s work represents a profound contribution to our understanding of what it means to be a human being and what it means to be truly helpful to another human being.“
Continuation – Robert Gonzales and the work of living compassion
Robert Gonzales appreciated Stephen’s work, he must have seemed like a colleage to him. Robert told me he found out about Steve, after Robert had already found his own way to increase connection with human spirituality, inner and outer – so he was not influenced by Steve – but nourished.
Stephen’s work seems to come from a deep trust, inner intuition and spaciousness. He models with great sensitivity and delicacy how to bring people into peaceful contact with need energies, with the felt-senses in their bodies. Meeting, accepting, sharing, letting in and letting through. His main focus are the living energies in the body, the feelings and they are felt in their dynamic aliveness, moment to moment. So for me there is a direct line from the work of Stephen Schwartz to the work of Robert Gonzales and all of us who further support this approach to life.
Although it is clear to me that Marshall Rosenberg focused on the same point of contact to spirituality – connection with life energies in the body and between bodies – Marshall, by working closer with the NVC process and its four steps, loses a bit of the immediacy that I feel present in Robert or Steve. To name the steps – needs, feelings, observations, requests – has both advantages and disadvantages, I find. On one hand it brings some wonderful clarity and orientation, on the other hand, one risks getting lost in the steps and thinking, rather than feeling.
Additionally Marshall had a push towards changing the world, which, as he himself realized, could become more of an obstacle to change, when not coming from a deep inner place of acceptance. Steve is focussed on inner violence, healing and peace.
I believe the most powerful resource and helpful orientation is peace in our heart.