Keeping The Peace

Mohandas Gandhi said: “There is no way to peace; peace is the way”.

Picture Screenshot of movie Ghostbusters

 included under Fair Use provisions

I loved the first Ghostbusters movie. The evil god Gozer demands that the team choose a form for him to take. Ray thinks of the most harmless thing he can remember, so Gozer appears on the streets of New York as a giant Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. Ray actually brought this monster into being just by thinking about it. But that couldn’t happen in reality could it?

When he was a small boy I gave my son a set of Lego bricks and showed him what to do by putting together the stupidest box with a window, pretending to be a house. I didn’t see much of him for a couple of days until he emerged from his room with the most amazing starship that it is possible to make with only Lego. My son is an artist. Same set of bricks for both of us, but he saw a starship while I saw a box with a window in it. We each live in a world of our own thoughts. Reality for us is not found in objects but in the significance we give to them.

Here’s another thing - you can’t have an argument on your own. Try it if you like – you won’t get far. For a good argument you need an opponent. Conversely, by taking sides, you perpetuate an argument. Walk away and it stops. You can go further and actually love your enemies, and who knows – they may become friends.

We are living in difficult times, when hopes of ending poverty, bringing peace and keeping the Earth green seem to be slipping away from us. All too easy for us to get drawn into the game of blame and counter-blame, anger and recrimination, and in so doing we become part of the problem. If we want to bring healing and peace to the world we need peace in our hearts, peace in every step of the way. Our thoughts can change the world.

"If in your heart you make a manger for his birth

Then God will once again become a child on earth."

- Angelus Silesius

Further reading: http://www.dailygood.org/

Another Lego starship. From https://www.toptoysboys.com/bennys-spaceship-lego-set/

A Change Is Gonna Come

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Robert F Kennedy

Image:Robert F. Kennedy appearing before Platform Committee, August 19, 1964.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4524203

This is my third attempt. It’s so important I can’t mince words. A big change will come and it will be good but it is so big that no-one can fully imagine it.

For too long we have shambled along, muddling by. Our great stores of wisdom, the great religions, have forgotten their meaning and just repeat the same old patterns without knowing why. They have been used as tribal totems, banners to fight under, when they were made for peace. But still they gave a voice to men and women of goodwill and if their ways were mildly eccentric it didn’t really matter.

That’s all changed.

We are so arrogant, we think we’re so clever, as we preside over poisoned seas, polluted air, extinction of species, destruction of the rainforest, floating continents of plastic waste, global warming, poverty, war, mass migration and more. Faced with such monumental challenges we indulge in our own personal grievances and petty squabbles while nothing gets done. Time is not on our side.

We simply do not have the luxury of shillyshallying any longer. We will have to unite. The basic principle of the major religions is this: that if we truly care for each other without preference or prejudice, and if we truly care for the earth and all its plants and animals, we can have happy, fulfilling lives and there will be peace and plenty for all. That’s it. All the rest is embroidery. If we can all come together under these principles and set aside our minor differences, then we can start rebuilding our broken world.

All the old arguments about whether God exists now become obsolete. The question never made sense anyway. True belief cannot be contained in words; it has to be expressed in the way we live our lives. This belief-in-action is something everyone can share in. It’s simply a question of working together for the common good.

Everyone has a part to play in making our new world. We are all here for a reason. Some may be called to become martyrs for the cause, there will be activists, but there will also be a need for artists, poets, flower arrangers and people who sweep the floor. The one thing they will all have is a belief in a better world, and a burning desire to make it happen. They will be guided by a love of this beautiful world with its lands and seas, its plants and animals, and all of its diverse and beautiful people.

As Robert Kennedy said: “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

It can be done, whether in our lifetime or our children’s or great-grandchildren’s, it can be done. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Take that step.

Take that first step - ask yourself: What is the unique gift that I can offer to the world? Then see what happens next.