Becoming Worthy of Peace

What so many of us have done in the name of peace has created more trouble than solutions. We know it, yet we continue to walk down the same path.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about getting cynical about our leaders, our government, our foreign policy and staying on that theme for years.

Don’t get me wrong. I know in my heart when I see evil, and to advance this war as this administration has done is evil. To set up secret prisons, and to advocate for torture, is evil. Torture in itself is evil, and we all know it. There’s no need for debate about that, it’s just evil and always has been.

To raise fears about our brothers and sisters coming into the US from Mexico, saying "We must secure our borders and build a wall!", getting us to look way over there at those coming into our country to work the most menial jobs, while at the same time ignoring the war-profiteering by oil companies, Halliburton and other cronies of Mr. Bush & Co., is evil.

But here is a worse evil: to let ourselves get discouraged to the point of being cynical.

Peace comes to those who make themselves and their country worthy of peace. It doesn’t come to us when we sit back and are intellecually critical, without putting our own convictions on the line. Peace doesn’t come to us when we profit in our mutual funds and 401(k)s from the war companies’ profit-making, while we complain about the latest bad news from Iraq, sipping a latte.

We have to know how powerful we are, and take that power and exercise it. We have to do what we can, in whatever form and function we see fit, in order to at least do some small step toward creating a more peaceful world.

Mahatma Gandhi said two things about this in his time:

                    "Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep."

                    "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good."

Of course, we want things to go smoothly in our lives and in our world. Of course we want peace within our own lives. And of course we get annoyed at even being shaken gently to awaken and become worthy of peace.

I know how you feel. I get annoyed too.

But the cost of peace, as Mr. Gandhi stated so clearly, is to act like women and men, not like sheep. To think independently, to speak out when injustices happen, to defend those who can’t defend themselves.

That is our call to arms. To be a Non-Violent Army. To refuse to cooperate with evil, wherever we see it. And we’ve certainly seen it enough these last seven years under the regime in the White House. There’s no question about it, in my mind. What has been perpetrated as defending our nation by this administration is injustice, it’s evil, and it’s wrong.

Here’s what you can do, from your own conscience:

Find your path to stand up for good. Follow your heart in creating some avenue that generates peace, peaceful relations, promotes peace in your community, or asks our leaders at all levels to vote for peaceful solutions instead of war.

Take a stand, speak your mind, and remember the fifth Rule of Life:

            Don’t let them scare you.

In Peace,

Don, aka "The Gandhi Guy"