Striving to Bring Forth Our Nobility

"Only if you perceive honor and nobility in every human being...will you be able to champion the cause of justice. "Universal House of Justice, Baha'i Faith

It is 2001. I am at lunch looking at a cooked guinea pig looking back at me. It is the only delicacy my hosts-an Indigenous family living in the Peruvian Andes-can offer me. But I am more than grateful for the opportunity to partake of it and speak with them about their concerns for their land and their lives, as part my role as chief mediator for a World Bank project.

Unnerved by the guinea pig's stare, I ask myself, How did Billy Davis from Hazard, Kentucky end up in this place at this time, heading a team to mediate a dispute between a poor Indigenous people living in the high Andes and the wealthy owners and managers of an American/Peruvian gold mine situated even higher in the Andes? I cannot draw a straight line from my earliest days in eastern Kentucky as a towheaded kid playing with friends in a coal mine slag to my more recent days as a legal consultant on the development of the rule of law and alternate dispute resolution all around the world.

Growing up in Appalachia had taught me, in some ways, that I was inferior to most other people. In fact, in April 1994, when my alma mater, Transylvania University, gave me a Distinguished Service Award, a former professor approached and told me, "We did not think you would ever amount to much." Yet I have had a truly unusual life. From "being reared" in the hills of Eastern Kentucky to meeting Presidents of several countries and one King to working in over fifty countries at the highest levels of justice reform, my journey has not been typical for a "Duke of Hazard [sic]."

As I look back on my life, one aspect that becomes clear to me is how purposeful I have been. Once I was able to see my path in the field of justice administration, the pattern of my life was set. Early on with the California Judicial Council, I had a sense that I needed to help lead a major change in the U.S. justice system. This desire was influenced by the teachings of the Baha'i Faith: "The best beloved of all things in my sight is Justice." During the course of this journey, I did become a member of the Faith.

Since then, I have constantly sought to find ways to apply spiritual principles to the problems and challenges that come my way. I have not always been successful, but I've always thought that principles not applied to real life have less validity. In this book, I discuss one notable example of how I used a Baha'i principle on nobility to devise a strategy to confront corruption (Chapter Ten).

The dominant theme of my life has been striving to bring forth the nobility in each of us in the pursuit of justice, both in the States and elsewhere in the world. Advancing the cause of justice is a laudatory goal but one that seems elusive; the absence of a commonly agreed-upon standard allows for the idea of justice to remain largely abstract. I have always sought to find ways to reduce the abstract to the practical. In this book, I relate many experiences of making justice translatable and real for people.

Writing about myself has not been easy. Reliving over eighty years has brought back painful memories that I have sought to bury in the past. The entire process has taken me longer than I expected because of the emotional turmoil that so characterized some of my earlier life experiences. Having said that, I am grateful I stayed with the endeavor and finished it.

As a member of the Baha'i Faith, I have tried to cultivate a perspective on life that does not seek to glorify myself. The Faith encourages us to manifest humility and self-abnegation in our lives. I have wrestled with these concepts in writing this memoir, trying to relate my personal and professional experiences in a balanced fashion.

I have never been one to talk about myself; so many of the stories in this book were not known even to my wife and children. Writing is also not my strong suit. I am an oral storyteller, a practice that came from a grandfather who used to put me in a swing on his front porch in Jackson, Kentucky and tell tall tales. That said, I tried to represent all the situations in this book as best as my memory could recall.

Though I can hardly believe that I have lived over three quarters of a century, it's harder to believe that my companion, consort, colleague, spiritual teacher, friend, and mother of our children, Connee, has been with me for over fifty-five years. Without her constant and ever-present vigilance about our well-being, I do not believe I would be alive today. She is and has been a loving partner and a constant inquirer of the reality that surrounds us.

At the end of 2018, our youngest daughter, Hillary, suffered a heart attack at forty-two. As members of the Baha'i Faith, Connee and I believe in an afterlife; at the same time, we are taught that we are sent tests that enable us to demonstrate our faith through our actions. Yet, it was difficult as a parent to see my dynamic and strong daughter in a hospital bed, hugging her seven-year-old son, William, as she prepared for surgery. The shock of this event left me again asking questions about the basic meaning of life and about our spiritual journeys, which I'm compelled to talk about in this book.

Everyone has a spiritual journey. Some are conscious and involved in the effort to draw closer to the Divine Source of Life, while others may not be aware of the dialectic between the "material and spiritual dimensions of life." Because the spiritual dimension of my life has been a dominant force, it receives prominent attention in this work.

Trying to maintain a balance between personal beliefs and professional expectations was and is always a challenge. When I made career decisions that were based more on an appeal to status rather than service, I almost always regretted those decisions.

Although my spiritual journey guided much of my professional career, I did not want to make this into a book about religion. I have thus separated many of my Baha'i stories into "Baha'i Interludes," which are interspersed throughout the book.

Why am I telling my life story? Yes, my friends requested that I do it. But perhaps young readers thinking of embarking on a new life in law might also see this tale as a possible trajectory for their own careers, applying spiritual principles to open up justice systems to those who have not historically had their voices heard.

This book is also a tribute to those friends and colleagues who helped me along the way. I will never forget the contributions they have made to my life and to reforming the administration of justice around the world. I write about these specific contributions in the Thank You section in the back of the book. I owe special gratitude to Elaine Mehollin Earl-Cooper, who accompanied me in writing this book. Her expertise and thoughtful observations were indispensable.

I hope you enjoy reading about my life as much as I enjoyed living it.