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Cultivating Peaceby Rev. Paige GettyService at UUCSS on April 17, 2005 Opening WordsInto this holy gathering we come full of hope – SermonCultivating PeaceToday is a good day for war to come to an end. With these words Deepak Chopra opens his newest book, Peace is the Way. Two years ago the United States military forces began bombing and invading the country of Iraq. The decision-makers argued that the world was unsafe with Saddam Hussein in power, that he was an imminent threat to the United States and other countries, and that the innocent Iraqi people deserved to be liberated from his dictatorial regime. Today is a good day for war to come to an end. The Iraqi situation is the easy one to target. There are a dozen – at minimum – armed conflicts underway in the world border conflicts, religious conflicts… in Chechnya, Russia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Israel, Palestine, Colombia, Sudan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burma, Northern Ireland… Today is a good day for war to come to an end. In our more personal lives, too. The National Domestic Violence Hotline reports that:
And there is a murder crisis in Philadelphia, where there have been 30 murders just this month. The expression "road rage" has become part of our vernacular. We speak with hatred and vitriol of our political opponents. We see parents yelling at and grabbing their children in the park – because they’re running around acting like children. Today is a good day for war to come to an end. In the depths of our being, our hearts of hearts, we may agree with Chopra, and with Mahatma Gandhi, that peace is the way. But we seem to have decided that peace is an unattainable virtue, an ideal – something to be admired, but also impossible to achieve. Or maybe we don’t really care about peace… for, after all, what seems to come most naturally to us – at least to us Americans – is selfishness, pride, arrogance, greed, vengeance. But as we sit here, gathered as a people of faith, a worshipping community, we must ask ourselves, what are we being called to do and to be in the face of war and violence and hatred? We look to our tradition, we look into our own hearts, we look into one another’s faces, we look to the guidance of the holy one we call God. And we know that we are being called to transcend that selfishness and pride and arrogance and greed and vengeance that comes so naturally. We know that peace is the way. Knowing it and manifesting it are two different things. Most of the time, cultivating peace in this contentious world seems out of our reach. But that excuse is an easy way out of doing the real work of real life. We talk about virtues as if they’re either inherently part of us, or else nonexistent – as if we were either born to be naturally loving, hopeful, compassionate, patient, peaceful… or we aren’t those things at all. Period. But the dichotomy is false. Virtues are not primarily natural, or inherent. They must be deliberate, intentional choices about how we approach living. And virtues aren’t feelings – they are conscious decisions about how to engage the world. A person chooses to be hopeful, or loving, or compassionate in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. One must choose to cultivate peace. Instead, "The year begins with war," writes Wendell Berry. Our bombs fall day and night, Still guarantee[ing] the right …Forgiving
The bumper sticker says, "Think globally. Act locally." The song says, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…" But the slogan has become cliché. And the lyric is ridiculed, dismissed as simplistic and sentimental. And yet, just imagine for a moment the global impact if every single human being were to choose a consciously peaceful stance toward every other human being one met. Peace is not a structure that can be imposed from the outside. It is an attitude, a deliberate conscientious choice about how to be engaged in the world. It is easy to react to violence with violence, to anger with anger. Peace takes effort. And principles matter only if you stick to them when they’re inconvenient…. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…. What is the alternative? We are living the alternative. We have "become what we have feared to be." How can we not choose to start with peace, right here, right now? Religious scholar Karen Armstrong asserts that what our world needs most desperately right now is the compassionate ethic. All of the world’s great religious traditions, in one form or another, share a belief in the primacy of what we commonly call the Golden Rule. Confucius articulated it probably before all others, around 500 B.C.E.: "Do not do to others as you would not have done to you." Armstrong argues that there is such great agreement about the primacy of compassion because truly religious persons are pragmatic… because they know that greed and selfishness are the source of misery, and when we let go of them, people are happier. She offers an argument of enlightened self-interest: Human beings by nature seek ecstasy, a word that comes from the Greek ekstasis, meaning "to stand outside" the self. If we do not find ecstasy in religion, we turn to art, music, dance, sex, sports, even drugs. But such rapture can only be temporary. Religious leaders claim that the practice of the golden rule can give us an experience of ecstasy that is deeper and more permanent. If every time we are tempted to speak unkindly of an annoying colleague, a sibling, or an enemy country we asked how we would like such a thing said of ourselves, and, as a result of this reflection, desisted, in that moment we would transcend our ego. Living in this way, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, we would enjoy a constant, slow-burning ecstasy that leaves the self behind. The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once remarked that when we put ourselves at the opposite pole of ego, we are in the place where God is. Being compassionate is a choice. In every moment, at every turn. "If every time we are tempted to speak unkindly of [someone]… we asked how we would like such a thing said of ourselves, and, as a result of this reflection, desisted, in that moment we would transcend our ego." In that moment, we would be cultivating peace. In. That. Moment. And perhaps this is the very hardest part for us – the one-moment-at-a-time part… the requirement that we suspend any expectation of immediate global gratification… the acceptance of the fact that peace requires persistence and patience, and a faith in the power of sustained effort. Peace is not going to just happen. We must cultivate it. You know that I’m talking to myself at least as much as I’m talking to you. I am not patient with tasks that require my consistent attention or devotion. I do better with those tasks that have a clear beginning and end – the ones that can go on a list and be checked off when they’re complete. I do not care well for plants (though I’ve been advised that if I really want to change my ways, I’ll start first by ceasing to say, "I do not care well for plants."). The ones in my office are alive only because other people come by and say, "Hey, Paige, that plant looks a little thirsty." Or, "Uh, Paige, that plant in your window is turning brown – maybe it doesn’t like the direct morning sun." Eight years ago, when Graham was disposing of most of his earthly belongings in preparation for his months in a monastery in Thailand, he offered me his only plant – a beautiful and flourishing one – as a sign of his faith in me and in our relationship. "I trust you to keep this plant alive while I’m away." Really, I knew it took a lot of trust in my willingness to pay attention to it, to water it and feed it and love it. I knew I would have to cultivate the health of that plant. Except that when he returned – and saw that the plant still was alive – he admitted to me that the plant was a pothos, essentially utterly indestructible. Most of us are not like the pothos plant, though (although it would seem that a few of us are). Most of us are vulnerable, tender, destructible beings. We are children and innocents and lovers. We need regular care and feeding. We want to savor the beauty of one another, of the earth and its creatures. We just want to live and to love in peace. And so we must lovingly and consistently cultivate that peace with our care and feeding of one another. We cannot choose for another how he will respond to our expression of peace. But we can choose our own stance, our own attitude – and if we choose anything other than peace, then we are perpetuating violence and war. Today is a good day for war to come to an end. In his book Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh writes the following of his experiences with other monks helping victims rebuild villages during the Vietnam War: We wanted reconciliation, we did not want a victory. Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace. In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. The peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter. We need to learn to write a letter to the Congress or to the President of the United States that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way you speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language you use would not turn people off. The President is a person like any of us. Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can be peace. Because without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement. I had the privilege last week of experiencing a lecture and photography exhibit by Jim Blair, who is a retired photographer from National Geographic. His program was titled "Where God Lives." and he shared photographs from his assignments all over the world – all of them expressing religious practice or devotion or sacred places. One photo touched me more deeply than all others. It is a very close-up picture of a Hindu woman – just framing her face, with her hands held in front of it, palms together, head slightly bowed. [bow]As we looked at this picture, Mr. Blair said, "This stance is universal. Everywhere it means respect. Everywhere it means peace." In all our interactions, to abandon self-righteousness and pride. To choose to consider another’s perspective. To seek reconciliation, not victory. To look one another in the eye and bow in respect for one another as human beings, touch by the divine spark. How better to cultivate peace? Today is a good day for war to come to an end. If you want to show your love for America, love Americans. (Walker) If you want to show your love for humankind, love humans. Each one of them. [bow] Amen. Works Referenced: Karen Armstrong, "Compassion’s Fruit," AARP Magazine, March & April 2005, 54-58. Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1998). Deepak Chopra, Peace Is the Way (New York: Harmony Books, 2005). National Domestic Violence Hotline, "National Statistics," 17 March 2005 http://www.ndvh.org/dvInfo.html#stats. Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1987). Alice Walker, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth (New York: Random House, 2003). Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), "Current Wars," 20 March 2005 http://comnet.org/wilpf/listofwars.html. Closing Words“I Am Only One” by Edward Everett Hale I am only one, but still I am one. |