Peace Talk — Autumn 2005
The Quarterly Newsletter of Peace Action MaineWelcome to the first Midcoast area Peace Fair. It is an honor and privilege on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, to stand here, alongside veteran peace-builders as well as the newcomers to this cause. We have all found our way here drawn by our shared interests in peace-related activities. As United States citizens, we share a common history and responsibility to heal this history as well.
In the Conversation Cafe at the Peace Fair visitors participate in a discussion of what to do with the Brunswick Naval Air Station site after BNAS closes.
When the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States military in 1945, I was not yet born. However, I feel the overwhelming grief that remains in the hearts and minds of those who survived and lived through those times, as well as those who witnessed it.
I have been to Japan and to Dachau. I have felt the extraordinary weight of the United States’ conscience for actions taken and not taken. I grieve, along with everyone, and we become united in this grief and in our need to heal it. But how do we heal such atrocities against humanity? How do we make sense of such overwhelming acts of destruction?
I know for me, personally, the answer does not lie in being against war. To be against something implies a struggle, animosity, aggression. Rather, I believe it is imperative that we find ways tangible ways to be for peace. And as difficult and as necessary as it is, we need to examine the dark places inside ourselves which harbor hatred, aggression, fear and anger. We must expunge these things and supplant them with forgiveness, compassion, love and bliss.
But even this is not enough. We need to reach beyond our own concerns and help others in their struggles for peace and justice. The Dalai Lama says, “Human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. We must all learn to work not just for our own self, family, or nation but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival.”
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, who at 15 was boarded on a train heading for Auschwitz, wrote, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, one can save the world.”
We heal wounds from the past by taking positive action in the present, by grieving and letting this grief open our hearts, and by eventually forgiving ourselves and others for our respective roles in war or social injustice. We must find ways to cultivate compassion and loving-kindness and let our speech and actions be guided by these qualities.
Mother Theresa once prayed, “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Imagine, with hearts that open, we could begin to feel our humanity connected with that of the world, and peace would be the result.
We are a society that has known war in every lifetime since before our birth as a nation. While war has become familiar, we must not fall prey to the disempowering belief that “war is inevitable.”
War is a choice. Peace is pro-life.
Sister Joan Chittister, a social psychologist, author, and Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, urges us to ask the following questions: “What role, if any, can we have in peace-making in a world in which religion has become more central in politics than at any time in the past 500 years? What role do we have, in a world that calls itself religious, but functions as if it is not?”
According to Unifem, she tells us, before the turn of the century, in United States history, five percent of war-related deaths were comprised of civilians. During WWI, 15 percent of the total war-time casualties were comprised of civilians. That figure jumped to 65% during WWII, and in the 1990’s, over 75 percent were civilians. Today, over 90 percent of those killed in war are civilians. For every US soldier dead, 14 civilians die. We are living in an age of genocide, in which there have been over 200 wars in the 20th century alone. Sixty million people have been killed, most of these civilians were women and children.
We can no longer take war for granted. Nor can we sit quietly or passively by as witnesses. Starting today we must find active ways to invest in generating a future of peace for our children.
It is important to remember that we are each powerful; we make choices every day, from the sublime to the mundane. The idea that to be a peace activist or to make change requires extraordinary ability, time, money, power, is not an accurate or helpful one.
It is even challenging to put the ideas of peace and activism together in the same sentence, because on the one hand, working toward change can be extremely trying, frustrating and provocative. On the other hand, it requires the cultivation of and willingness to embody peace within ourselves.
Change in the name of peace that does not emanate from a place of inner peace is just another form of oppression, disconnection and aggression, which leads to alienation and fragmentation rather than connection and healing.
E.B. White said, “Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.” If we merely savor the day, we may unconsciously add to the problem by not fully engaging our energy and resources toward change. And if we only work toward change and forget to savor and celebrate, then we add to the disharmony and fail to enjoy this life.
Our vision for this fair is for us, as a community, to put peace on the front-burner, out in public, accessible to everyone of all ages and interests. We are here to share with each other what it is we are doing to generate peace.
We are here to offer everyone who attends a chance to make a difference today by making peace flags, folding paper cranes, writing letters, becoming more educated, envisioning, and experimenting with ways to promote individual and internal peace.
We are here to celebrate and savor the beauty of the day with music, poetry, stories and a film festival.
And we are here to reflect on the results of the path of war, and in the face of grief and outrage, we are here to celebrate our triumphs and inroads in building a more conscious and peaceful world.
We must generate new connections and unite in our efforts to expand the ripple caused by our endeavors to generate peace and justice today and into the future.
Webster’s Dictionary first defines peace by what it is not: “The absence of war or other hostilities.” Further down, it’s defined as “harmonious relations, inner contentment, calm, serenity.” This alludes to how peace is a function of our inner chemistry. In order to feel peaceful and act in accordance with this feeling, we need to know how to manage our internal chemistry. Find out what it is that calms and centers us and helps us feel connected and safe. Do more of that.
Candice Pert, a neuroscientist, author of Molecules of Emotion, tells us that in order to balance our body chemistry, we should do more of what our ancestors did 30,000 years ago as long as it makes us feel more peaceful. Pick berries, walk, run, build a fire, plant and harvest, sleep outside, fish, sing, play drums, dance, hunt — whatever it is that nourishes us. A woman whose brother was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center said, “Peace is not a noun, it is an action verb.” It is also a state of being. It is the result of cooperation, collaboration, deep listening, understanding and accepting differences. It is made up of risk and willingness to be in partnership and it is dependent upon the presence of justice, respect, fairness, equality, and love.
Elaine McGillicuddy leads Peace Fair participants in Dances of Universal Peace.