|
Page 5 of 17
ON WAR AND PEACE
"According to ancient Chinese and Indian wisdom, small minds perceive the separateness of things but great minds perceive the unity of all." N.S. Xavier
During the 1991 war with Iraq, I, like so many Americans, found myself glued to CNN in fear and fascination. I kept hearing President Bush proclaim that this was the dawn of a "New World Order." I found no comfort in his assurances. I wrote very little during this tumultuous time regarding the war with the exception of a brief entry in the journal that I was keeping for my daughter that read:
"January 22, 1991.
Our country is at war as I begin this, your second book. As you play at nursery school, radio and television announcers speak of our bombing Baghdad. It troubles me - this war - tremendously. As a mother more than anything, for my prayer is the very same as all mothers everywhere, to keep my precious child safe. I want your dreams to consist of fairy lands and unicorns, not haunted by death and destruction and evil. How do I help you to make sense of this war? You are too little to understand, and as the battle rages on in a foreign land, I am grateful. We don't talk about the bombs, you and I. While mothers place gas masks on the tiny faces of their children, I turn off the TV. We play a game and gaze up at the stars while war missiles streak across the sky far away.
You are afraid of witches right now, and we do a witch chasing ceremony each night at bedtime. Witches, my darling, I promise always to protect you from. But who will protect the children far away from the demons who haunt a foreign land? Demons who themselves were innocent once, at rest in the arms of a mother who loved them?"
As a little girl, I would recite the lord's prayer each night ending with, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The prayer held a great promise. Someday the world would be a better place. It was God's plan. For much of my life, I have understood this prayer to mean that God would assert his will at the appointed time and that we must keep the faith. Reading "The Baha'i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion" by Hatcher and Martin, has prompted me to consider a possible responsibility contained within the promise of the "Lord's Prayer." According to the Baha'i, it's the work of all the people of the world, in addition to their faith, that will bring the peaceable kingdom to earth (as it is in heaven.) Hatcher and Martin point to the formation of the League of Nations and the United Nations as important steps towards making the covenant come to pass. If, in fact, we were made in the image of God with our own tremendous capacities to create and destroy, then it may well be our task to turn our own enormous power towards the construction of a world made safe for all of God's creatures.
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Thoreau
We don't raise our young to be dependent forever. We hope that once they have matured, that they'll build from what we've lovingly offered - a life which offers them security, love, happiness, and peace. Should God expect any less of his (her) own children?
There are many visions of world peace, I haven't the slightest investment in who weaves the dream into a reality, only that it is woven strand by strand, and that I myself contribute in some small way to the weaving.
THE GOLDEN RULE
"God is in the details." Meis Vander Rohe
A simple guide for co-habitating on the earth has been given to all people of the world in a variety of languages. While the messengers differ, the message remains the same.
Christianity:
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12.
Brahmanism:
"This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." Mahabharata 5:1517.
Judaism:
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowmen. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary." Talmud: Shabbat: 31 a.
Zoroastrianism:
" That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself." Dadistan-I-Dinik 94: 5.
Confucianism:
"Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you." Analects 15: 23
Islam
"No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself." Sunnah.
Taoism
"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own
loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien.
This universal message is shared with each of us. It's a message that calls for peace, love, respect, justice, and connection. While we have all been taught it, relatively few have manifested it in their day to day lives. It's my hope that as the new millennium dawns, and we grow older and still wiser, that BirthQuakes will become more common, and that when the final tremors still, the Golden Rule might stand firmly rooted in the hearts and souls of those who've been transformed by their quakes.
"Who is wise? He who learns from all men, as it is said, from all my teachers have I gotten understanding." Ben Zoma
|
