Deborah Winslow

Debbie grew up in several small towns in the Central Valley of California where her friends at school, and in the Catholic church her family attended, were the children of migrant farm workers. At the age of approximately eight she took a summer school class with a Jewish woman who was the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her teacher shared material with Debbie that was profoundly disturbing, and which gave her nightmares that caused her to wake up at night screaming. Her parents worried, but Debbie insisted on the staying in the class. That experience, along with the experience of observing the difference in her own family's lifestyle, which was relatively privileged, with that of her friends' families, had a profound impact on Debbie, who began a lifelong search for justice and opportunities to make the world a more peaceful and just place. 

Debbie has for the most part believed in the positive role of religion in transforming society - when it is operating at its pure form, not in its corrupted form. When exchange students visited her family's home, Debbie asked them about their lives and their religions and their world views. After high school, Debbie went to Fresno State University where she learned about the Baha’i faith from a friend. She then went to Japan, where she learned about Shintoism, Buddhism and studied more about the Baha’i faith and other religions. She eventually became a Baha'i, and when to law school.  She has practiced law for approximately 25 years. Debbie has lived in many towns and cities in California. She has also lived in Japan, New York, and Alaska, in addition to traveling to many other countries. Throughout her journeys, Debbie’s focus has always been on what she could do personally to change the world and has avoided discussions about what other people should do, including corporations and governments, conversations which she finds disempowering. 

Debbie endeavors daily to live by the mystical and practical teachings of the Baha'i Faith which (among its many other teachings) include the guidance to prefer one's brother or sister to oneself, the importances of purifying one's motives and telling oneself and others the truth, the pursuant of justice, the oneness of mankind, the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the advice that one should be "content with little and free from all inordinate desire," and it is in this that Debbie has found that for her, living well means living simply.