All We Are Saying

I can’t remember when I first learned about peace. The word seems always to have been there, in prayers and benedictions (Peace Be With you, Pax Vobiscum), in songs sung at school, camp, church (Peace I Ask of Thee O River, Silent Night) and then the vast slew of songs in the ‘60s and ‘70s that either ratified peace or critiqued violence and war. My school had been a Quaker school and had carried on Quaker traditions and practices; we learned early about pacifism, and sometimes the hard way. Our great headmistress Miss Speer had lived in China in the ‘30s and saw a man on a horse get his head sliced off at the neck, yet he kept riding the horse for a few hundred feet. (Shipley friends—haven’t you carried this image with you forever?) Then there was the Assembly when members of the American Friends Service Committee came to talk to us about Vietnam. The talk consisted of showing us a film depicting what napalm did to the human body, including children. Girls ran screaming and crying from the gym. The headmistress, who may have been Mrs. Epes by then, another great, defended it, saying we needed to know what was being done in the world in our name. I agreed with that, but I also wondered why the concept of peace wasn’t persuasive on its own. Nothing made as much sense.

Yet if it makes so much sense, if it is in our best interest…where is it?

And what is peace, exactly? Is it just a word we say indicating an abstract state that seems impossible in this world? Or is it more down to earth, available to all of us at all times. A practice, in every moment. That if we all commit to it, will lead to a condition of safety, of abundance for all to have delicious nourishment, comfortable appealing shelter, education, opportunity, societal support for those who can’t or don’t want to work; will never exploit members or our own or any other species for labor, food, or profit; will practice the golden rule, supply free excellent health and mental health care for all, and approach each day, each person, each situation, each moment with beginner’s mind.

Peace now, and now, and now…

Thanks for reading this year. New things are in the works for 2024. Happy New Year.