As I sent out holiday greetings this year, I hesitated each time I wished my friends and loved ones “Peace.” How could I offer such wishes when I don’t believe peace is possible in a culture that believes peace can only be preserved through military might?
We live in a nation with a military budget larger than that of the rest of the world combined. I wonder, if we listened to other nations, whether we might not hear them tell us that they fear our threat to world peace, that they wonder when we will demand a “preventative military strike” against them? Is this why they want to protect themselves?
For several decades, various administrations of our nation, helped topple democratically elected leaders in Iran and Latin and South America because their “leftist” leanings were deemed a threat to democracy, replacing them with regimes that leaned to the “right.” I wonder how many Americans realize that the monster hanged December 30, 2006, was once our friend. We created Saddam: advised him, supplied him with weapons, shook his hand after he gassed 50,000 of his countrymen. He was still our friend then.
Yet it was into this sort of culture that the Christ Child was born. The Romans who occupied the Holy Land (and much of the known world) believed, as we do, that peace required military might. They had a term for it “Pax Romanum.” Those were violent times none-the-less. Resistance was brutally crushed.
On the night the Christ Child was born the angels sang “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will.” They were not singing of Pax Romanum. They proclaimed peace because this child was peace. This child would not insist that heaven come at the price of the sword. This child reminded us that those who “live by the sword will die by the sword.” This child died proclaiming that peace means to love even our enemies, to do good to those who hate us.
What will peace mean in our time? Do we need to pack away the word “peace,” as promised by the angels, and create a new word for the militarily-imposed peace we practice? Perhaps Pax Americanum: Peace through military might.
Or did the angels’ message mean that “men of good will” will always find peace in the light of the child born that night? That we were being given a divine example of what peace means. That by living lives of personal love and forgiveness we could experience such peace within ourselves even in times of conflict and violence? Perhaps we’d do well to remember the words of Etty Hillseum, the Dutch Jewish mystic, who died at Auswitzch.
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”It is this inner peace that allows me to wish you all: Peace and All Good now and throughout the coming year.
Beryl is the author of The Scent of God, and a Star Tribune "Best of 2006 Minnesota authors"
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Comments: 36
So many of the leaders who we have enabled in the past are now our 'evil doers' of the present, or near past.
We do have to find inner peace amidst the external turmoil. That ideal is also Buddhist. Inner peace reflects out and hopefully begets positive change.
I'm 'lifting' part of the comment here, made by Ed Nudelman, but adding a thought or two. Ed said "I very much share your view that if peace is not first won in our own hearts, we'll never see it on this planet." Well said, Ed!
However, in our complex world we must use more than our 'thinking and feeling' hearts, given to each of us by our miraculous creating G_D to find PEACE and WORTHY PROGRESS . We must realize that in our presently very troubled WORLD, in which we human beings deeply participate both absorbing and creating ever more complex 'experiences' and thus -- in some sense -- continually generate uncoordinated knowledge due to our finitenesses, we generate differences and thus problems. Anxieties and Angers are generated by diversities and differences. Solutions must be worked at carefully to find satisfactory resolutions. Our human finite mind/brain reasoning, that other gift from G_D must be utilized then. In each and every one of us it is "our thinking and feeling and self-organizing MINDS", with their innate capacities to utilize (stored-weird) LOGIC and make critically important JUDGMENTS. That, to me, is what our ancient parents, Adam and Eve, chose for us, their progeny when they chose to 'become more godlike', and to discover the responsibilities with which to grow themselves and ourselves ever more FREELY into NEW persons. We are ALL on a path these days of finding out that coordinated freedom must look a lot like LOVE in orrder to find PEACE. Creating advances and thwe future that matters is a communal, many persons job. A societal, cultural effort. Cooperating and coordinating efforts, at all times. Creating COMPLEXITY that works!
So? TRUE WORLDWIDE PEACE MAY arrive if we can find and apply the WISDOM that lies hidden in us and everywhere around us if we are wise enough, and lucky enough to hit on those precious reasoned 'thoughts' of ours and utilize those precious created 'things' to learn to behave in ways that are properly sacred and civil. We must all strive, I think, to shape ourselves into becoming NEW PERSONS who, to use a useful phrasing, "give a damn' about our human selves (who are everywhere on Earth), and start to build the CITIES OF GOD that express MEANINGFULLY the best of human thoughts, feelings and Insights.
I think it was one of our VERY WISE gather.com colleagues who suggested the term INVOLUTION to be tied to the WONDERS of EVOLUTION. We must find out how to re-create, CONSCIOUSLY, our whole inner-selves. To use somewhat better known language: "to ever expand and synthesize our Consciousnesses and Consciences!"
PEACE to ALL of US,
Dick
In that essay, the author refers to the Peace and Reconciliation tribunals that took place in South Africa after apartheid. Whenever I hear those stories, I am reminded of how important it is to listen to one another's stories. Fear often tries to thwart this need to listen, but listening is the only road to understanding. Confined by our own insights, we cannot understand, we will not understand. And without understanding I doubt there can be peace.
So yes. We start working on our own inner peace as we listen to others. This is really hard when abuse and accusation color the telling, but it is possible. I love that word Dick used "involution." Succinct and gemlike in all its refractive possibiity.
When you all made comments about INVOLUTION, suddenly a light went on for me. Years ago when I was 'gung-ho' on technology and had the good fortune at MIT to know some key players AND developers, there was theory being developed that can augment for us here the deep notions of INVOLUTION 'technically' The 'links' tie to communications theory ideas and concepts. Those two terms, from a field known as 'cybernetics' , are (1) FEEDBACK. and (2) FEED_FORWARD.
Cybernetics was developed in the middle part of the last century by Norbert Wiener at MIT, who was a great mathematician, along especially with another great mathematician,John Von Neumann then at Princeton, who was a developer of the great Theory of Games and many other contributions that helped to develop modern day astounding advances in Communications Theory and Economics too (this is where John Nash of "Beautiful Minds' and Nobel Laureate fame came from intellectually). There are patterns of SYNTHESIS all over the place. 'Wholistic 'mind and heart' stuff.
My 'borrowing' from these modern day PROPHETS hangs on a comment I read somewhere or other (in Norbert Wiener I think). It is sort of technical and relates to REALITIES:(which we can never ever know fully because of its features, which include both phenomena and noumena).
The recollection is : "Reality is only one ensemble from an infinite set of possibilities." It means that there are in the future (link to FEED_FORWARD) an infinite set of different choices that we individuals can make always, and while thinking BEFORE (a priori) the likely new behaviors (a posteriori) (think FEEDBACK and re-thinking the past, DIALECTICALLY) generate likely better future scenarios; sort of 'simulation methods' of exploration to gain 'explanation and positive and better decisions and courses of action.
Finding PEACE demands deep human and civil cooperative efforts based on careful empirical and synthetic analytic dialogs and multilogs. That is the task before us NOW as our CONGRESS, for the first time in years and decades, seems to be finding itself aware of the ir need to be CAREFUL and CARE FULL as they deliberate about possibly sending troops into a seemingly (without clarification) 'meaningless' set of angry behaviors." Reality can never be fully grasped, but PEACE can be grasped. You know the old adage: If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and .... like a duck, its likely to be a REAL DUCK."
Dick
It is us, the American people, who gave permission to George W. Bush to go to war by not speaking up. As a nation, we have accepted war as the way to solve problems.
I believe that our planet is a reflection of our own inner consciousness as humankind. War, environmental problems, all reflect what is happening within us in terms of our thoughts and feelings. Etty wrote that "every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable."
The war that I think we are struggling with in our own minds is "What is right?". It is the same questions that we as humans have asked ourselves since our creation. Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourself and to forgive. But when faced with the choice in our everyday lives, it can be difficult to live by his teachings. Until we each decide to live by these teachings, how can we expect our country's leadership to do the same?
The 2007 Gandhi/King "Season for Non-violence" begins on January 30. I encourage everyone to find out more about this at http://www.agnt.org/snv02.htm .
In most Unity churches they end the service with the "Peace Song" which says, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." It is a reminder for me that peace on earth is a choice that I make at any given moment on how I'm going to choose to think and act.
Thank you for this beautiful article, Beryl. I think of the same thing but I do believe that peace begins with us inside and it's a domino effect. How can there be peace in the world when we can't even get along with our siblings or our next door neighbors. However, we have to constantly pray for peace within ourselves - this I try to do daily. As always, Beryl, I send you happy thoughts and wish you a wonderful day - Salud.
It is quite sad that, in this world of ours, it seems harder to build an effective communications channel than a devistating weapon, harderr to listen attentively than to lash back defensively. But that, I believe, is indeed our lot.
Demonstrations and marches seem to have had little effect on the course of our country. Perhaps several million people looking to create Peace around them could have a profound effect.
Hope 2007 is a most successful, blessed year for you and that it is filled with a deep peace and great happiness for you.
Inner peace is an excellent start.
This is such a great article and comment thread. Wishing you and all of us peace!
Thank you for this most thoughtfully written piece, Beryl.