Taking action/Opening Space for Peace

Wed Sep 12 23:22:01 PDT 2001

Peggy -- Thank you for your thoughtful piece and useful information.  I
want to share notes from a talk I gave at a peace vigil yesterday.... I
urge each of us to not only contact leaders and the powerful voices of the
media as you wisely suggested... but to BE leaders in every conversation:
we need to find the way to OPEN the SPACE and sustain the container for
conversations of peace, for transformation and healing...

Finding the Path of Peace in the Face of Terror
This infamous September 11, 2001, was International Day of Peace.  How
ironic; how remarkable.  How marked for all times.  Let us seize upon this
coincidence to study peace, to reflect on today’s horrors, and try to find
our way through the arduous and challenging path to peace.  Surely a better
question for us to consider –rather than “Who did it” is “How do we create
a culture of peace?”  What is peace?  Clearly one component of peace is a
feeling of safety – what we are longing for so deeply on this frightening
day.  Revenge cannot bring safety; violence can only beget violence.  What
if we really studied and came to know the challenges and practices of peace
as intimately as we do those of war?

I have been thinking about some of the vital and hard lessons learned by
students of Columbine:  they quickly learned there was no easy answer
possible – no quick and deceptive salve of vengeance or safety from
heightened security and lock down measures.  They came to understand that
they had to tend to the root cause --which was the climate of their school,
the human fabric of relationships in their school  – the un-peaceful
culture of bullying, judging, isolating, exclusivity – and they learned
that the healing needed to begin within each of the students themselves –by
reaching out to each other, including the rejected and oppressed and
unpopular
. They continue to struggle today with this slow and arduous
task
 one person at a time.

I can’t help but wonder, --Does this week’s terror represent a similar root
cause of  our global climate and human fabric?  The in-
crowds/continents/nations/peoples  and outs, the haves and have nots --
played out on a global campus?  And if so, don’t our remedies fall in
building relationship, not in revenge?

In the words of Martin Luther King, “Before it is too late, we must narrow
the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds,
which precipitate and perpetuate war.  One day we must come to see that
peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we
arrive at that goal.  We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.”

We know the outcome of the violent path –of revenge –of an eye for eye:  a
cycle of violence, generations of blinding/blindness.  Those of us who
believe in Peace, who are ready to stand up for peace, face a difficult
path, as anger and righteousness rear up and find loud, ugly voices amongst
our neighbors, friends and leaders.  We must each of us hold to the voice
of Peace.  This is the true challenge and work  of peace – not in easy
times – on sunny days where love and acceptance float in on a gentle sea
breeze.  But today, beneath clouds of debris and ashes and fear.  Do we
have the courage?  The perseverance?  The vision?  Can we hold the course
amidst accusations of being dreamers, idealists, tree huggers, pansies and
worse.

Let us be inspired by Robert Kennedy’s wise words:  “Each time a person
stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out
against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.  And
crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring,
those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of
oppression and resistance.  Few are willing to brave the disapproval of
their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their
society.  Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or
great intelligence.  Yet it is the one essential vital quality for those
who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

There are many actions we can take, one conversation at a time.
--Be allies to all peoples, including our Arab friends and neighbors who
must feel very afraid of the backlash building
--Stay hopeful, keep our hearts open
--Seek out our enemies; build relationships; find out what they need; work
together to meet legitimate needs
--Remember peace is The Way – in thought, in speech, in deed
--Write our representatives and leaders and hold them to non-violent,
peaceful responses
--Demand that we form  a U.S. Department of Peace (see web site
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/peace.htm)
--Join in action for community and peace building  (for example, Global
Peoples Assembly, see www.ourvoices.org)

We will be challenged in every conversation and email exchange we face in
the coming days and weeks.  This is a defining moment in our history.  A
turning point.  What direction will the collective conversation take?  Can
we hold to the higher purpose and intention of Peace and resist the false,
temporary salve of revenge – which only feeds the cycle of violence?

Dorothy Day said:  “What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a
pond causes ripples that spread in all directions.  And each one of our
thoughts, words and deed is like that.”  Please take a moment to reflect:
How can you find a way to transform the pain and grief the in this tragedy
to bring a spirit of peace and wisdom to the conversations that will come
in the next days and weeks?

As my friend and author Vicki Robin said, “May we flood our streets with
love rather than fear”?  Let there be peace on earth
 and let it begin with
me

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>From  Thu Sep 13 10:29:04 2001
Message-Id: <THU.13.SEP.2001.102904.0200.>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:29:04 +0200
Reply-To: florianfischer at ff-wey.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: florian fischer <florianfischer at ff-wey.com>
Subject: Re: Stillness
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on above the main-entrance of the oldest church in the city of berlin
there is fixed a huge poster, ca. 5 x 10 squaremeters, printed
in about 40 languages of the world in huge letters the word "shocked".
florian

Robert.Chaffe at nre.vic.gov.au schrieb:

> .....Our church has a simple sign on a piece

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