Able and Equal: A Gentle Path to Peace

Take a fresh look at the familiar concept: “I’m OK, You’re OK.”

Develop the Five Healthy Core Beliefs that underpin a sense of self-worth.

Discover a basic daily practice of self-care and self-support.

Go beyond Self-esteem to the wider perspective of Human Esteem, and enter the gentle path to becoming Peacemaker in your inner world and in the world around you.

In this book, pastor, psychotherapist and pioneering social activist Denton L Roberts presents a set of simple yet profound ideas, and practical exercises, taking just a few minutes each day, that can lay a foundation of calm inner confidence in the face of life’s challenges.

Roberts anatomizes the idea of OKness into the five Healthy Core Beliefs, gleaned from his therapy practice and in his ministry, that “You and I and all human beings are in our nature Capable, Powerful, Valuable, Lovable and Equal.” For some of us it can be harder to admit to these qualities in ourselves than to attribute them to others.

“Am I on my side, or on my case?”

This key self-confrontation, can revolutionize your perspective and your experience.

Along with an accessible explanation, full of wisdom, humor and anecdotes from both aspects of his professional, as well as his personal life, Denton Roberts provides a Workbook section, with a sequence of brief daily practices, that can help you fully to feel your way into the truth that you are indeed Capable, Powerful, Valuable, Lovable and Equal to any other human being.

For personal use, as a guide for those who help others, in personal and professional relationships, and in the wider divisions in our communities this is a book of immediate practical relevance and lasting value.

“Able & Equal provides us a simple, practical handbook for life. It invites each of us to join a precious adventure – towards human esteem, love, constructive living in peace. It engages us personally… and provides a path worth committing to and following – the path to life and peace – beginning, always, with ourselves and now.”

- Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, Legislator, Self-Esteem Task Force

“Our problems are exacerbated by the fact that the world has become one before it has become whole. The contribution of Able and Equal to correcting that dilemma by extrapolating from the condition of the of individual wholeness to the universal, is significant and timely.”

– Norman Cousins

When originally published in the late 1980, Able and Equal was ahead of its time in foreshadowing Mindfulness, particularly Compassionate Mindfulness, laying emphasis on somatic experience and the felt sense, and in its challenge to cultural limitations.

Sadly, Denton Roberts died in 2011. At that time it was said of him: “from the hot days of Selma, to the poverty-scarred streets of South Central Los Angeles, to a nation inebriated on the wine of war, to the hallowed space of Ground Zero in New York City, Denton provided leadership and love, presence and prayer, counsel and creativity...he kept his eyes on the prize of equality, loveable-ness, empowerment, and the precious value of every human being.”

That spirit is still much needed in the world today. With society wracked by ever deeper divisions, and personal insecurities becoming more and more widespread, Not So Common publishing have decided now is the time to republish Able & Equal in a new, updated edition.

Denton L Roberts, who died in December 2011, was both a pastor and a psychotherapist. He is remembered fondly in both communities as "force of nature." He did ground breaking work with a socially and racially mixed congregation in South Central Los Angeles, and took a leading role in both the US and International Transactional Analysis Association. He is particularly remembered for his work on Social Justice. At his funeral he was described as "a raconteur with few peers, and a caregiver par excellence, a shepherd to church members, and a citizen of the world." He was praised for "unflagging commitments to do what he could in a world racked by pain and rocked by unrest... From the hot days of Selma, to the poverty-scarred streets of South Central Los Angeles, to a nation inebriated on the wine of war, to the hallowed space of Ground Zero in New York City, Denton provided leadership and love, presence and prayer, counsel and creativity.....he kept his eyes on the prize of equality, loveable-ness, empowerment, and the precious value of every human being." He conveyed "calm to the distressed, peace to the tormented, challenge to the wandering, insight for the confused, grace for the troubled, humor for the overstressed, hope for the brutalized, and love for the abandoned...while he "kept a firm hand on the plow that turned over fresh furrows for the individual... with clear-minded insights, an unfettered intuition that bordered on genius, and a deeply compassionate heart.... as he helped to strengthen and transform life-saving, life-giving institutions." Frances Thronson, his co-author, recalls Denton as effervescing with ideas which she had to work hard to capture and to get down on paper in a form that would make sense to mere mortals. Readers of Able & Equal will experience the touch of his gentle wisdom and humanity as well as his passion for human worth and social justice. They will understand the respect and affection with which he is remembered by those who knew him.