PEACE BE WITH YOU…

CONTENTS

Franciscan Prayer Inside Cover

Contents i

Preface ii

I. Peace Prayers 1

II. Peace Talks 6

III. Peace Saints 11

IV. Peace Poems 19

V. Peace Potpourri 28

Franciscan Travel Blessing 39

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Yardley, PA

i
 PREFACE

Praying for a Peaceful Planet

This publication was conceived in the midst of a prayer project based on Peace
Planet: Light for Our World by Nan Merrill. Nan's stunning booklet holds up a
different country on each page, accompanied by a beautiful picture, a simple text,
and a petition for one life-giving desire. Take Bangladesh, for example. The
picture is of a white swamp lily flourishing in a sea of mud. The text reads:

Prayer,
deeply rooted in silence,
with hearts open wide,
brings Light out of darkness
needed somewhere on Earth.

We are asking,
May
Light
flourish on Earth

The booklet invites each of us to envision peace in our mind, choose peace with
all our heart, and be peace in our own life. And it proceeds on the good news
reflected in these words from Nan's preface:

The world sorely needs our peace-focused prayers blanketing the

nations on behalf of all living beings everywhere. The good news
is that the cumulative effectiveness of prayer multiplies. If two
people pray with focus and feeling, the effect is of four people. A
single candle in the darkness dispels the night.

Our project accepted this invitation to go forth in peace and multiply our
candlelight. We traveled through the world one page at a time, each of us
praying for the same country each day and all of us guided by the prayer
attributed to St. Francis, "Lord, make us instruments of your peace...."

Eleven of us from St. Andrew's began on Labor Day 2006 praying for Afghanistan
and asking that Peace would flourish on Earth. We ended on St.
Patrick's Day 2007, praying for Zimbabwe and a Commitment to Peace on
Earth. By then, our group had grown to 47 members dispersed over three
continents and throughout the United States. As the project proceeded,
members requested that from time to time they be reminded of what countries we
were praying for on what dates. I began sending out weekly "Where-in-the-
World-Are-We" emails. It then became natural to share our prayer concerns for
family and friends in that week's countries and that in turn led to a sharing of

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reflections, quotes, poems and other readings related to peace. Our “Peace
Booklet” collects the body of writings that circulated and accumulated.

The prophet Micah asks us to consider what the Lord requires of us. The
answer: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. The Micah
Group is charged with centering and inspiring the outreach efforts of St.
Andrew's and we have chosen the requirements set forth by Micah as our guide.
This project speaks to all three so we decided to "publish" this booklet.

Walking humbly with our God entails realizing that all humans were created equal
and in God's image and prayer for the people of all countries and different faiths
follows in that light. Loving kindness entails a desire to be kind and
compassionate to all people, and to receive kindness and compassion back
(Lord knows, we need it). Doing justice, of course, is the rub. But if we walk
humbly with God and love kindness, it follows that we will also want peace and
prosperity for all, and we'll begin figuring out how to share both and to create a
more perfect, just union among all peoples.

May we be an answer to God's prayers for our world, an instrument of peace,

and a collective and intensifying candlelight that dispels the night.

Bob Anderson

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 I. PEACE PRAYERS
A universal desire for peace expressed in prayer…

A prayer from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer:

God of peace,
let us your people know,
that at the heart of turbulence
there is an inner calm that comes
from faith in you.

Keep us from being content with things as they are

that from this central peace
there may come a creative compassion,
a thirst for justice,
and a willingness to give of ourselves
in the spirit of Christ.

This Morning Prayer is by Albert Ream:

Lord, in the quiet of this morning hour
I come to thee for peace, for wisdom, power.
To view the world today through love-filled eyes;
Be patient, understanding, gentle, wise;
To see beyond what seems to be;
And know Thy children as Thou knowest them.
And so naught but the good in anyone behold;
Make deaf my ears to slander that is told;
Silence my tongue to ought that is unkind;
Let only thoughts that bless dwell in my mind.
Let me so kindly be, so full of cheer,
That all I meet may feel Thy presence near.
O clothe me in Thy beauty, this I pray,
Let me reveal Thee, Lord, through all the day.

A prayer from Wayne Muller:

Remember who you love
Remember what is sacred
Remember what is true
Remember that you will die
and that this day is a gift
Remember how you wish to live.
A Prayer of Lament and Liberation:
God of all nations, the suffering on this earth seems too great, the
oppression of your people everywhere cries out for healing and hope. We
do not understand how we have come to this sad place after so much
opportunity, and grace. We are not content, and we come to You with our
complaints. We are yearning for the freedom that You have always
promised to the saints, the mystics, and the prophets. We desire freedom
of heart and mind for ourselves, truth and justice for all peoples, all
creatures on this earth, and for the earth itself.
We desire to be useable instruments for the purposes of God. May we not
substitute our own darkness for anybody’s light -- nor too easy light for any
necessary and needed darkness. Make us both humble and courageous
at the same time, soft and strong together, properly bitter and properly
sweet. We offer this prayer in deep trust that You are a Compassionate
God who is listening and even answering our prayer. AMEN.

A Prayer from Thomas Merton:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road
ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really
know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not
mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you, does in fact, please you. And I
hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do
anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead
me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will
trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of
death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave
me to face my perils alone.

A Prayer by James Dillet Freeman:

The Light of God surrounds me;

The Love of God enfolds me;
The Power of God protects me;
The Presence of God watches over me;
Wherever I am, God is,
And all is well.
Here are two prayers (one by an Imam, another by a Rabbi) offered at an
interfaith gathering:

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful.

1. By (the Token of) Time (through the ages),
2. Verily Man is in loss
3. Except such as have faith
And do righteous deeds
And (join together)
In the mutual teaching
Of Truth, and of
Patience and Constancy.

-Imam Abdul-Malik Ali of the Islamic community

in Trenton and Islamic chaplain at Rider University.

Peace Means More Than Quiet

Help us, O God, to lie down in peace;
But teach us that peace means more than quiet.
Remind us that if we are to be at peace at night,
We must take heed how we live by day.
Grant us the peace that comes from honest dealing,
So that no fear of discovery will haunt our sleep.
Rid us of resentments and hatreds
Which rob us of peace we crave.
Liberate us from enslaving habits
Which disturb us and give us no rest.
May we inflict no pain, bring no shame,
And seek no profit by another's loss.
May we so live that we can face
The whole world with serenity.
May we feel no remorse at night
For what we have done during the day.
May we lie down in peace tonight,
And awaken tomorrow to a richer and fuller life.
-Rabbi Daniel Grossman of Adath Israel
Congregation in Lawrenceville
Peace prayers/poems by Native Americans

A Navaho poem:
I ask all blessings.
I ask them with reverence
of my mother, the earth, and of
the sky, stars, and the sun, my father.
I am old age: the essence of life.
I am the source of all happiness.
All is peaceful. All in beauty.
All in harmony. All in joy.

By Black Elk:
PEACE
Comes within human souls
when they realize their
relationship, their oneness,
with the universe
and all its powers,
and when they realize that
at the center of the universe
dwells the Great Creator
whose Center
is really everywhere
within each of us.

By Ten Bears:
May harmony live
in the hearts of all people.
May peace be their way,
May we all be kind and gentle,
our paths straight and true.
May Star Beings show the way
and dark clouds never stay.
May life thrive upon the land,
and peace dwell in
the hearts of humankind.
A Prayer from St. Teresa of Avila:

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly
where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite
possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have
received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be
content knowing you are a child of God... Let this presence settle into your
bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It
is there for each and every one of us.

Anonymous:

Author of the world's joy,

Bearer of the world's pain,

At the heart of all our distress,

Let unconquerable gladness dwell.

To see you is the end

And the beginning.

You follow me
And you go before.

You are the journey

and the journey's end.

A Celtic Benediction:

Deep peace of the Running Wave to you.

Deep peace of the Flowing Air to you.

Deep Peace of the Quiet Earth to you.

Deep Peace of the Shining Stars to you

Deep Peace of the Son of Peace to you.

 II. PEACE TALKS
Quotable ideas about peace…

Father Brian McHugh:

As you know, I am fond of taking some words and applying them as I wish!
Uncle Sam saying, "I want you" seems to have been mostly related to
volunteering for military service. I hear the words on God's lips. "I want
you" as my beloved child; as my Voice of Love, Justice, Compassion; as
my hands of healing and support; as my Will to goodness, to humility, to
self-offering; as my heart of openness, of empathy; as my mind of
freedom, of respect.

Mother Teresa:
• Every act of love is an act of peace, no matter how small.

• If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to

each other.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who resisted Hitler:

Do what is right not only to respectable citizens, but
especially to the disrespectable ones as well; be at peace not
only with those who are peaceable, but especially with those who
do not wish to let us live in peace.

Menlo Simons, founder of the Mennonites:

True Christians do not know vengeance. They are the children of peace.
Their hearts overflow with peace. Their mouths speak peace, and they
walk in the way of peace.

Anonymous:
Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or
hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be
calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.
St. Augustine:
Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside yourself.

Brother Andrew de Carpentier, a 57-year-old Anglican priest who directs the

Holy Land Institute for the Deaf near Amman, Jordan:
Deaf people say that the war in Iraq, or any war for that matter, is for
hearing people. Deaf people must get along to survive. Sharing deaf
culture allows students or teachers to bridge cultural differences.

Ben Okri, a Nigerian novelist:

Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they
tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future
consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their
own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings.

Abraham Lincoln:
With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right as
God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in;
to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the
battle; and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all
nations.

Olaf Palme, Prime Minsister of Sweden:

The world has become one -- for good and for ill. It means that we can
benefit from new impulses and contacts across frontiers. But it also
means that peace has become a common priority, a common condition for
survival. We talk about the balance of terror, and we thereby express our
fear for what a superpower conflict can mean. We know that a local
conflict somewhere in the world can affect our own conditions of life, and
can be the spark that ignites a common annihilation.

We cannot be content to let impressions wash over us. We must also

have the capacity to take a stand. We cannot only register, we must also
be able to react.
Thomas Edison:
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

Isaac of Nineveh (died 700 or so):

Asked what is a merciful heart? Isaac replied, "The heart's burning for all
creation, for human beings, for birds and animals, and for demons, and
everything there is. At the recollection of them and at the sight of them his
eyes gush forth with tears owing to the force of the compassion which
constrains his heart, so that, as a result of its abundant sense of mercy,
the heart shrinks and cannot bear to hear or examine any harm or small
suffering of anything in humanity. For this reason he offers up prayer with
tears at all times, even for irrational animals, and for the enemies of truth,
and for those who harm him, and for their preservation and being
forgiven. As a result of the immense compassion infused in his heart
without measure -- like God's -- he does this even for reptiles.

Love of God comes from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer
comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with stripping away of
the self." (quoted by Lorraine Kisly in Christian Teachings on The Practice
of Prayer).

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

• Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.

• Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Gandhi:
With each true friendship, we build the foundation on which the peace of
the whole world rests.

Ararat Hakobyan, a 15 year old Heifer International beneficiary from Armenia:

I believe all peace projects should begin with the children so that
children may live in peace, love each other and do kind things for our
world. This project has fulfilled my dream. My sheep are my treasure!
An Arab proverb:
If you expect to see the results of your work, you have simply not asked a
big enough question.

This was forwarded from a yoga instructor in Maine via by Anne Parker:
It is not my experience that we are here to fix the world, that we are here
to change anything at all. I think we are here so the world can change us.
And if part of that change is that the suffering of the world moves us to
compassion, to awareness, to sympathy, to love that is a very good thing.

Emily Dickinson:
Consider the lilies of the field is the only commandment I ever obeyed.

George Fox, the First Quaker:

Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations,
wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all
sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over
the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in them you may
be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you.

William Sloan Coffin:

May God give you the grace to never sell yourself short; grace to risk
something big for something good; grace to remember that the world is
too dangerous now for anything but the truth, and too small for anything
but love.

Delight Silva, a second-grade student on Caye Caulker in Belize (painted on

board):
I have the power to make a paradise if I practice to protect and keep my
environment clean and nice.
Dwight Eisenhower:
People want peace so much that one of these days governments had
better get out of the way and let them have it.

Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary of the United Nations who died in a plane

Crash while flying to Katanga to negotiate a cease fire:
In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where
all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a
cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch
glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in
which we never get beyond the first syllable.

Rumi, Sufi mystic:

Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall than it does on that wall and a
lot different on this other one, but it's all the same Light.

Etty Hillesum, a 27 year-old Jewish woman who lived in Amsterdam and who
was put in a concentration camp by the Nazis and murdered:
Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace
in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And
the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled
world.

Walt Whitman:
One thought ever at the face --
That in the Divine Ship, the world breasting time and space,
All peoples of the globe together sail, sail the same voyage,
Are bound to the same destination.
 III. PEACE SAINTS
A few examples of people who live, embody and embrace peace...

Edward Hicks

Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was a decorator of carriages and a sign painter who
lived on Penn Street in Newtown. He was also a founder of the Quaker Meeting
House and a prominent preacher in his day, both at home and as far west as St.
Louis and as far south as Virginia and as far north as Niagara Falls and
Canadian towns beyond. Because of this fame and his life of kindness, 3000
attended his funeral at the Meeting House (about the same size as St.
Andrew's).

He was not famous as a painter in his day, but he is now. He painted 62 known
versions of the Peaceable Kingdom based on Isaiah's prophecy (chapter 11) of a
little child who would lead wolves and lambs and other warring creatures to lie
down. That painting (which you can see by googling Edward Hicks) has inspired
peacemakers throughout the world. In a sense, Newtown is one of the centers of
peace consciousness. Here are some thoughts of his:

From a sermon: There is a portion of the Spirit of God, which is light, given to
every rational soul, and as they attend to it in journeying forward, keeping their
faces always to the light, they will have the shadow behind them.... If we
attended to this light of God in our souls, if we followed it, we should experience
the day star to arise in our souls... The light ... will be as a guardian around you,
and it will lead you at last, and be the heavenly passport to gain for you an
admission into the heavenly mansions, where the morning stars shall join you in
singing hallelujahs, and the sons of God shall ever shout for joy.

From a sermon: My soul feels a sweet union with all God's children in their
devotional exercise, whether it is performed in a Protestant meeting house, a
Roman cathedral, a Jewish synagogue, an Hindoo temple, an Indian wigwam, or
by the wild Arab of the great desert with his face turned towards Mecca.

From his final diary entry: I had better mind my own business, which... is to bear
a simple, childlike testimony to this blessed mercy and goodness of my blessed
saviour, which will subject me to be pitied by the wise and prudent of this world,
as a fool or ridiculed as an enthusiast; my doctrine considered madness, and my
end without honor. Yet I would not part with this childlike belief in Jesus Christ,
for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds.... Oh, that I may have that precious
life that is hid with Christ in God, as a passport from this world to the Heaven of
Heavens.

At the end of a sermon: Dear Friends, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort,

be of one mind -- live in peace -- and the God of mercy and peace be with you.
The Amish
Marie Roberts, widow of the gunman who killed five Amish girls and wounded five others
in October 2006, wrote a letter to thank the Amish for their extraordinary forgiveness
after the shootings:
Our family wants each of you to know that we are overwhelmed by the forgiveness, grace,
and mercy that you've extended to us. Your love for our family has helped to provide the
healing we so desperately need. The prayers, flowers, cards, and gifts you've given have
touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond
our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank
you.

Please know that our hearts have been broken by all that has happened. We are filled with
sorrow for all of our Amish neighbors whom we have loved and continue to love. We know
that there are many hard days ahead for all the families who lost loved ones, and so we will
continue to put our hope and trust in the God of all comfort, as we all seek to rebuild our
lives.
_____
Joan Chittister on the Amish refusal to hate:
But it was not the violence suffered by the Amish community last week that surprised
people. Our newspapers are full of brutal and barbarian violence day after day after day
-- both national and personal.
No, what really stunned the country about the attack on the small Amish schoolhouse in
Pennsylvania was that the Amish community itself simply refused to hate what had hurt
them. "Do not think evil of this man," the Amish grandfather told his children at the
mouth of one little girl's grave. "Do not leave this area. Stay in your home here." the
Amish delegation told the family of the murderer. "We forgive this man."
No, it was not the murders, not the violence that shocked us; it was the forgiveness that
followed it for which we were not prepared. It was the lack of recrimination, the dearth of
vindictiveness that left us amazed. Baffled. Confounded.
It was the Christianity we all profess but which they practiced that left us stunned. Never
had we seen such a thing. Here they were, those whom our Christian ancestors called
"heretics," who were modeling Christianity for all the world to see. The whole lot of
them. The entire community of them. Thousands of them at one time.
The real problem with the whole situation is that down deep we know that we had the
chance to do the same. After the fall of the Twin Towers we had the sympathy, the
concern, the support of the entire world.
You can't help but wonder, when you see something like this, what the world would be
like today if, instead of using the fall of the Twin Towers as an excuse to invade a nation,
we had simply gone to every Muslim country on earth and said, "Don't be afraid. We
won't hurt you. We know that this is coming from only a fringe of society, and we ask
your help in saving others from this same kind of violence."
Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human
rights activist. During the Vietnam War, he and other young Buddhists helped
war victims rebuild villages destroyed by bombs. Dr. Martin Luther King
nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He was exiled from Vietnam
in the 1960s and has since written many books on peacefulness and meditation
practices and led retreats on mindful living.

He wrote this poem in response to the 1965 bombing of a Vietnamese village:

For Warmth
I hold my face between my hands
No I am not crying
I hold my face between my hands
to keep my loneliness warm
two hands protecting
two hands nourishing
two hands to prevent
my soul from leaving me
in anger.

And here are some excerpts from his book, Being Peace:

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but
everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

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 should not turn people off. The president is a person like any of us.

The situation of the world is like this. People identify completely with one side,
one ideology. To understand the suffering and the fear of a citizen of another
country, we have to become one with him. To do so is dangerous -- we will be
suspected by both sides. But if we don't do it, if we align ourselves with one side
or the other, we will lose our chance to work for peace. 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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Excerpt from a 1967 sermon titled Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool:

Maybe you haven't ever thought about it but you can't leave home in the
morning without being dependent on most of the world. You get up in the
morning, and you go to the bathroom and you reach over for a sponge,
and that's even given to you by a Pacific Islander. You reach over for a
towel, and that's given to you by a Turk. You reach down to pick up your
soap, and that's given to you by a Frenchman. Then after dressing, you
rush to the kitchen and you decide this morning that you want to drink a
little coffee; that's poured in your cup by a South American. Or maybe this
morning you prefer tea; that's poured in your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe
you want cocoa this morning; that's poured in your cup by a West African.
Then you reach over to get your toast, and that's given to you at the hands
of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. Before you finish
breakfast in the morning you are dependent on more than half the world.

From Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution:

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this

world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to
make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to
do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish
together as fools. We are tied together in a single garment of destiny,
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one
directly affects us all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be
what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never
be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. That is the way
God's universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

From a speech in December 1964:

World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable.

All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is
a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be
voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence,
hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which
a system of peace can be built.
The Dalai Lama

Because we all share this small planet Earth, we have to learn to live in harmony
and peace with each other and with nature. That is not just a dream, but a
necessity. We are dependent on each other in so many ways that we can no
longer live in isolated communities. We need to help each other when we have
difficulties, and we must share the good fortune that we enjoy. I speak to you as
just another human being; as a simple monk. If you find what I say useful, then I
hope you will try to practice it.

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those
who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us
individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have
inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is
in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so
on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others
feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and
peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings
of love and kindness. For some of us, the most effective way to do so is through
religious practice. For others, it may be nonreligious practices. What is
important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each
other and the natural environment in which we live seriously.

Nonviolence is not a diplomatic word, it is compassion in action. If you have

hatred in your heart, then very often your actions will be violent, whereas if you
have compassion in your heart, your actions will be nonviolent.

(All quotes from The Essential Dalai Lama -- edited by Rajiv Mehrotra)
Nelson Mandela

This is from his 1994 inaugural address (quoting Marianne Williamson):

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does
not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in
some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own
fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero was a Catholic archbishop and an outspoken champion of the

poor in dangerous times. He was assassinated on March 24, 1980 while saying
mass. Here are three samples from a collection of his reflections titled, The
Violence of Love:

The violence we preach is not

the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work.

Without poverty of spirit

there can be no abundance of God.

I don't want to be an anti-against anybody.

I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation:
the affirmation of God,
who loves us
and who wants to save us.
Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and
expressed the dream of a peace built on racial justice in South Africa:

When will we learn that human beings are of infinite value because they
have been created in the image of God, and that it is blasphemy to treat
them as if they were less than this and to do so ultimately recoils on those
who do this? In dehumanizing others, they are themselves dehumanized.
Perhaps oppression dehumanizes the oppressor as much as, if not more
than, the oppressed. They need each other to become truly free, to
become human. We can be human only in fellowship, in community, in
koinonia, in peace.

Let us work to be peacemakers, those given a wonderful share in Our

Lord's ministry of reconciliation. If we want peace, so we have been told,
let us work for justice. Let us beat our swords into ploughshares.

God calls us to be fellow workers with Him, so that we can extend His
Kingdom of Shalom, of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of
sharing, of laughter, joy, and reconciliation, so that the kingdoms of this
world will become the Kingdom of God and His Christ, and He shall reign
forever and ever. Amen.
 IV. PEACE POEMS
Moving, prophetic, literary and insightful perspectives on peace…

Denise Levertov:

Making Peace

A voice from the dark called out,

"The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of
disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war."

But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its affirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses ...

A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words each word
a vibration of light -- facets
of the forming crystal.
Rolf Jacobsen (translated from the Norwegian by Robert Hedin):

When They Sleep

All people are children when they sleep.

There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.

They pucker their lips like small children

and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.

If only we could speak to one another then

when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.

-- God, teach me the language of sleep.

Born in Afghanistan in 1207, Jelaluddin Rumi was an Islamic scholar, a sheik in
a dervish learning community, and a Sufi mystic. His poems of ecstasy have
carried their caring over centuries and are now devoured by poetry fans of all
nations and faiths. Samples follow. More can be found in two volumes of his
poems translated by Coleman Barks: The Essential Rumi and The Soul of Rumi:
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the
ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next,

did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call
to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human
being.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.

Where Jesus lives, the great-hearted gather.

We are a door that's never locked.
If you are suffering any kind of pain,
stay near this door. Open it.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.

Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Two poems on linguistics:
Mary Oliver
The Esquimos Have No Word for "War"
Trying to explain it to them
Leaves one feeling ridiculous and obscene.
Their houses, like white bowls,
Sit on a prairie of ancient snowfalls
Caught beyond thaw or the swift changes of
night and day.
They listen politely, and stride away
With spears and sleds and barking dogs
To hunt for food. The women wait
Chewing on skins or singing songs,
Knowing that they have hours to spend,
That the luck of the hunter is often late.
Later, by fires and boiling bones
In steaming kettles, they welcome me,
Far kin, pale brother,
To share what they have in a hungry time
In a difficult land. While I talk on
Of the southern kingdoms, cannon, armies,
Shifting alliances, airplanes, power,
They chew their bones, and smile at one
another.
Mary TallMountain
Sokoya*, I said, looking through
the net of wrinkles into
wise black pools
of her eyes.
What do you say in Athabaskan
when you leave each other?
What is the word
for goodbye?
A shade of feeling rippled
the wind-tanned skin.
Ah, nothing, she said,
watching the river flash.
She looked at me close.
We just say, Tiaa. That means,
See you.
We never leave each other.
When does your mouth
say goodbye to your heart?
She touched me light
as a bluebell.
You forget when you leave us,
You're so small then.
We don't use that word.
We always think you're coming back,
but if you don't,
we'll see you some place else.
You understand.
There is no word for goodbye.
[*sokoya means aunt -- mother's sister]
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Beloved sisters and brothers, let me tell you a mystery.

Nothing will be lost. All will be restored.
In the economy of salvation, nothing goes to waste.
Our God is not a God of acceptable losses.
Nothing God has made deserves God's hatred.
Everything that is was created in love.
Each atom, every blade of grass,
and most of all each human soul,
reposes in the assurance of divine, unalterable love.
Nothing will be lost. All will be restored.

And so, my beloved in Christ,

I give you this word:
now is the time for the children to grow up, now is the time for the heirs to inherit.
Nothing will be lost.
All will be restored.
And now is the time.
The whole world is waiting,
the stars hold their breath,
the wild beasts and cattle regard us with growing impatience,
the birds hover over us, the fish all tread water,
the trees shrug in wonder, or stand limbs akimbo,
and deep in our hearts God's Spirit is groaning:
"Be reborn, beloved, become what you are and the world will be free."
The Spirit is crying:
"Look up to the light, your hearts will be whole and the wound will be healed."
The Spirit is singing: "My children, my children are home!"
Two excerpts from the Ashtavakra Gita (Hindu):

All things arise,

Suffer change,
And pass away.

This is their nature.

When you know this,

Nothing perturbs you,
Nothing hurts you.

You become still.

It is easy. (11:1)

The body trembles.

The tongue falters,
The mind is weary.

Forsaking them all,

I pursue my purpose happily.

Knowing that I do nothing,

I do whatever comes my way,
And I am happy. (13:2-30)
Two poems about computing and not computing:

The first excerpt is from a poem by Hafiz, an Islamic Sufi mystic who lived
about 1320-1389. It's in a book called The Gift -- Poems by Hafiz, translated
by Daniel Ladinsky (see book review in Section V).

Now is the Time

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do.
Is sacred.

The second excerpt is from a poem by Wendell Berry, a contemporary American

poet/farmer/novelist/essayist. The poem is Manifesto: The Mad Farmer
Liberation Front and it's in Berry's Collected Poems, 1957-1982.

So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Two more poems from Hafiz (also see the Foreign Policy article in Section V):

God's Bucket

If this world
Was not held in God's bucket

How could an ocean stand upside down

On its head and never lose a drop?

If your life was not contained in God's cup

How could you be so brave and laugh,

Dance in the faith of death?

Hafiz,
There is a private chamber in the soul
That knows a great secret

Of which no tongue can speak.

Your existence my dear, O love my dear,

Has been sealed and marked

"Too sacred," "too sacred," by the Beloved --

To ever end!

Indeed God
Has written a thousand promises
All over your heart

That say
Life, life, life,
Is far too sacred to
Ever end.
 Out of this Mess
To be humble
So that God does not
Have to appear to be so stingy.

O pray to be honest,
Strong
Kind
And pure,

So that the Beloved is never miscast

As a great cruel miser.

I know you have a hundred complex cases

Against God in court,

But never mind, wayfarer,

Let's just get out of this mess

And pray to be loving and humble

So that the Friend will be forced to reveal

Himself
So
Near!

Dante

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,

flows into a pure soul the way that light
rushes into a transparent object.

The more love that it finds, the more it gives

itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
the more complete the joy of heaven is.

And the more souls who resonate together,

the greater the intensity of their love,
and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.
 V. PEACE POTPOURRI
Anecdotes, sermons, book reviews and lessons about peace…

A story from Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith by Henri
Nouwen (posthumous) with Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird:
The rabbi asked his students: "How can we determine the hour of dawn,
when the night ends and the day begins?"
One of the rabbi's students answered: "When from a distance you can
distinguish between a dog and a sheep?" "No," the rabbi answered.
"Is it when one can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine?" asked
a second student. "No," the rabbi said.
"Please tell us the answer then," said the students.
"It is when," said the wise teacher, "you can look into the face of another
human being and you have enough light in you to recognize your brother
or your sister. Until then it is night, and darkness is still with you."

A Swedish folk song translated and passed on by Joanna Budd:

I NATT JAG DRÖMDE (Swedish)
I natt jag drömde något som jag aldrig drömt förut,
jag drömde det var fred på jord och alla krig var slut.
Last night I dreamt something I've never dreamt before
I dreamt that there was peace on earth, and all wars were over.
Jag drömde om en jättesal, där statsmän satt på rad.
Så skrev dom på ett konvolut och reste sig och sa:
I dreamt about a big room where officials sat in a row
They signed a contract and got up and said:
Det finns inga soldater mer, det finns inga gevär
och ingen känner längre till det ordet militär.
There are no more soldiers, there are no more weapons
And no one recognizes the word 'military'
På gatorna gick folk omkring och drog från krog till krog
och alla drack varandra till och dansade och log.
On the streets, people walked around from pub to pub
And everyone drank and danced and smiled.
I natt jag drömde något som jag aldrig drömt förut,
jag drömde det var fred på jord och alla krig var slut.
Last night I dreamt something that I've never dreamt before
I dreamt that there was peace on earth, and all wars were over.
A sermon by Pam Nesbit on St. Francis:
Proper 21B October 1, 2006
As you may or may not know, this past week there was a very rare convergence
of solemn holy seasons between Moslems and Jews. The Jewish New Year,
starting with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur, began on September
23rd at sundown. These are the high holy days - the most sacred time of the year
- when Jews are called to fast and pray. This is especially true on the last day of
the season, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which starts tonight. The Jewish
New Year always falls at this time of the year - it moves like Easter does, a
moveable feast, but always at a certain time of year. The Moslem month of
fasting, called Ramadan, is also a moveable feast, but is not fixed to a certain
time of year. Each year Ramadan moves forward about two weeks. The Fast of
Ramadan calls Moslems to fast and pray for a month, it is a time of purification
and renewal. It began this year on September 24th. It is very unusual for the
Jewish high holidays and the Fast of Ramadan to occur at the same time. This
convergence won’t happen again for many years.
There are people - Jews, Moslems and Christians - who are hoping that this
convergence of holy days can be an opportunity, a time for dialog between
people of these faiths. It is hoped that a time of fasting and prayer can bring
about a lowering of defenses that can defuse the deadly situation that we all -
Jews, Christians and Moslems - find ourselves in today. But for Christians this is
not a holy season. It seems to me that the Christian season that most closely
corresponds to the High Holy Days of the Jews and the Fast of Ramadan for
Moslems is Lent - which won’t happen until late next winter. So Christians who
want to support and join in on this dialog have been looking to the Feast of St.
Francis of Assisi - October 4th - to find our own template, our own way to enter a
conversation about peace among people of different faiths. So I want to talk to
you today about St. Francis - because he is our most lovable saint, and because
looking at Francis’ life might help us find a way to be peacemakers ourselves in
this most dangerous time.
I recently heard Father Richard Rohr describe slavery as the inability to imagine
that things can be different. By that definition we Christians, Moslems and Jews
seem to be slaves to an increasingly dangerous world. We have become
convinced that the violence, the ever-increasing violence, is inevitable. It was the
great gift of St. Francis of Assisi never to be enslaved by the thinking of his time.
If slavery is the inability to imagine that things can be different, Francis was one
of the most liberated human beings in history.
Francis was born in the 12th century in what is now Northern Italy, the pampered
son of a prosperous cloth merchant. He was born with the gift of what we now
call charisma - he always knew how to attract people. As a young man he used
that gift to become king of the party animals - the master of revels - the one most
likely to think up the really cool way to heat up the party.
Francis was only five years old when the Saracens - the army of Moslem soldiers
under Saladin the Great - took Jerusalem from the Christians. This was a
terrible, an unimaginable shock to the people of Europe. The horror and
humiliation, the outrage that non-Christians could rule the land where Christ had
lived, colored every aspect of life as Francis was growing up. If you can imagine
taking the shock and horror that we Americans felt on 9/11, and multiplying it
many times over, you can imagine how the people of Christian Europe felt. They
believed that God himself had been assaulted and shamed, and that they as
Christians were called to avenge this dishonor. Crusades were launched, which
tried unsuccessfully to take back the Holy Land for Christ.
In the midst of this ongoing war, Francis, the golden boy, wanted to be a hero.
He wanted to do great things for God. He became a soldier, planning to risk or
even give his very life in the crusades to prove his love for God. But it didn’t work
out. He was taken captive and then released after a year. Then he became ill.
All his plans to be a hero failed. So he fell into despair, and in his despair, he
began to pray. He spent time in contemplation of the crucified Christ, simply
sitting and looking at Christ on the cross. For a long time he just looked at this
picture of God, humbled and humiliated. And he began to see that God has no
honor to defend, but constantly gives of himself for the love of creation. In this
time of contemplation, Francis simply fell madly in love with this radically humble
God, and then made his whole life be about offering that same love in the world.
So his heroism took a totally unexpected turn. He would be called to give his life,
but not to take the lives of others. And he heard that crucified and loving Christ
tell him, "Francis, repair my church."
Well, on the face of it, the church of Francis’ time wouldn’t seem to need to be
repaired. Francis grew up in the church triumphant, the church undivided, the
church all-powerful. The church of great cathedrals and bishops who were
princes, whose authority over all aspects of life was unquestioned. The church of
Jesus Christ in Italy and all over Europe was wealthy and powerful - utterly
successful. Rather like Francis himself before he changed. Why would such a
church be in need of repair? And how was he to repair it?
Francis the humble hero began to quietly show the church what he believed it is
to be a Christian. He began by giving away everything he owned, which was
deeply disturbing to his father, who had assumed that his only son would one day
take over the business. When Francis’ father tried to make him stop giving things
away, Francis stood in the town square and stripped off all his clothes, all those
beautiful, colorful clothes that his merchant father had bought for him, and he
walked away forever from his father’s house. He walked toward a leper colony
outside of town and forced himself to overcome his fear and disgust and to
embrace a leper. He did these things because he was determined to
be free. He was determined, absolutely determined, to rid himself of everything,
every tie, every object, every fear that stood between himself and his beloved,
humble, self-giving God. He memorized the gospel because he refused to own a
bible. And then he lived it. It was Francis who said, “Preach the gospel at all
times, if necessary, use words."
Francis said he was married, to a Lady named Poverty, not an actual woman, but
an ideal. Like the romantic he was, he joined his body and his life to being poor,
but he spoke about it as a passionate romance. When you marry someone, you
join yourself to them - literally you join yourself physically, financially, socially,
spiritually - marriage is meant to be that kind of commitment. And when Francis
"married" poverty he committed himself to it - or her as he spoke about it. He
took on the life of the poorest of the poor - hunger, cold, humiliation; the terrifying
vulnerability of the poor was what he chose and what he loved. Because he was
convinced that this is what Christ had chosen.
And he managed to make it look like fun. Like a person in love doesn’t really
mind what it costs to be with the beloved, Francis never got bitter or crabby. He
was often disappointed. People were attracted to his way of life because of his
antic, lovable spirit. But they found they couldn’t stand to live that way. Even in
his lifetime the Franciscan community was being pressured to give up Francis’
radical commitment to poverty. The princes of the church were made very
nervous by Francis’ Christ-like life - even though Francis never criticized the
church or anyone else - at least not in words. He just offered a very telling
contrast. So the Pope insisted on ordaining Francis a deacon, and Francis
obeyed, but he had no desire for position or authority. As I said before, more
than anything, Francis wanted to be free. He would not have possessions. He
would not have authority. He would not have enemies. He saw this as the life
offered by the gospel, and he wanted it. And to this day, it seems to me that folks
like me, and maybe you, people who also want to live a Christian life, look on
Francis’ life with a combination of fascination and horror. I think he always
affected people that way. How could he possibly live like that? I couldn’t do
that! And yet, and yet… I can see the freedom. I can feel in my own life, how
my possessions and my positions and my prejudices bind me, and implicate me
in the violence of this time.
As I said before, all throughout Francis’ life, battles took place between the forces
of Christian Europe and the Saracen army, horrible battles bringing terrible loss
of life, and causing disaster to those innocent people unlucky enough to be
caught up in them. Francis decided he was going to stop the killing, and he went
out to Egypt to talk to the leaders of the Christian armies. But they would not
listen to him, in fact they blew him off, and went into a battle in which 6000
people were killed. So Francis decided to talk to the Saracens. He decided to
walk into the armed camp of Melek El Kamil, the nephew of Saladin the Great, to
convince him to accept the good news of God in Christ, in hopes of stopping the
killing. Everyone assumed that this was suicide. It was known that although the
Saracens were willing to allow Christians to remain Christians, they were not
willing to allow Christians to try to convert Moslems. Francis’ friends and
followers tried every way they could to stop him from going into El Kamil’s camp.
Didn’t he understand that these people are killers? Didn’t he understand that
these followers of a false God were outside the mercy of God? That they weren’t
really human? Committed to killing Christians? Didn’t he realize that the only
solution is to wipe them out? That God wants us to wipe them out?
Apparently Francis in his hard-won freedom did not understand that. So he
walked unarmed into the camp of Melek El Kamil with only one of his brothers as
company. He met with El Kamil and told him that Jesus Christ is the savior of the
world and of El Kamil’s soul, and that he would do anything to convince him of
this. Now El Kamil was a devout Moslem. He said that he was content with his
faith and that there was nothing Francis could do that would convince him to
change it. And so they began with an impasse. Francis was not going to convert
El Kamil, any more than El Kamil was going to convert Francis. So far, this is not
really a surprise. But the surprise is, perhaps, that then they kept talking. And
they kept talking for days. They ate together and they talked together, and slowly
each began to recognize in the other, even across an impossible barrier of belief,
each began to recognize and respect in the other, a man committed to God. And
El Kamil did not kill Francis. He agreed to terms to end the fighting, but these
were not acceptable to the Christian leaders. And the war went on, and Francis
went home. And from that time the Franciscans have been the caretakers of the
Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
Last June on the Sunday of Pentecost, Virginia Hamby and I went to Philadelphia
and walked with about 300 other people, Christians, Moslems and Jews, from
mosque to church to synagogue in the name of peace. We wore white clothes,
some held signs that only said "peace" in three languages, and we just walked
along, adults and children, walking in and out of different religious institutions,
praying for peace. We ended up at the Society Hill Synagogue where we all
rested our weary feet while the rabbi spoke to us. He read and taught from the
Hebrew Scriptures and ended with these words. "Today we have walked
together, talked together, prayed together and soon we will eat together. I don’t
know if doing these things will bring about peace. But I do know, that if we do not
do these things, peace cannot come." This seems to me to be in the spirit of
Francis. Even if we cannot give up everything that stands in the way of perfect
freedom, surely we can open ourselves a little bit. We can notice when we are
being invited to believe that killing people is our only hope. We can refuse to
participate in conversations of hate. We can spend some time in contemplation.
We can take to heart the prayer of St. Francis that we will pray together during
the prayers of the people. We can ask Francis to walk with us as a soul-friend, to
help us repair our lives, repair our world, and to repair our church.
In 1219 St. Francis and Brother Illuminato accompanied the armies of western Europe to
Damietta, Egypt, during the Fifth Crusade. His desire was to speak peacefully with
Muslim people about Christianity, even if it meant dying. He tried to stop the Crusaders
from attacking the Muslims at the Battle of Damietta, but failed. After the defeat of the
western armies, he crossed the battle line with Brother Illuminato, was arrested and
beaten by Arab soldiers, and eventually was taken to the sultan, Malek al-Kamil.
Al-Kamil was known as a kind, generous, fair ruler. He was nephew to the great Salah
al-Din. At Damietta alone he offered peace to the Crusaders five times, and, according to
western accounts, treated defeated Crusaders humanely. His goal was to establish a
peaceful coexistence with Christians.
After an initial attempt by Francis and the sultan to convert the other, both quickly
realized that the other already knew and loved God. Francis and Illuminato remained
with al-Kamil and his Sufi teacher Fakhr ad-din al-Farisi for as many as twenty days,
discussing prayer and the mystical life. When Francis left, al-Kamil gave him an ivory
trumpet, which is still preserved in the crypt of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.
This encounter, which occurred between September 1 and 26, is a paradigm for
interfaith dialog in our time. Despite different religions, people of prayer can find common
ground in their experiences of God. Dialog demands that we listen to the other; but
before we can listen, we must see the other as a precious human being, loved by God.
The flames behind Francis and the sultan have a dual symbolism. In Islamic art, holy
persons are shown with balls of flame behind their heads. The second purpose of these
flames is to disarm a later medieval legend in which Francis challenged the Sufis to step
into a raging fire to prove whose faith was correct. In this icon, the flames represent love.
The text at the bottom is from the beginning of the Koran: "Praise to God, Lord of the
worlds!"
Excepted from: http://www.trinitystores.com/?artist=1
A meditation shared by Tommie Borton:

Just now, we invite you to tune inward and focus on your breathing.
Let your body relax, and be aware of the sounds around you.

Whatever you hear, focus on your breath as it moves in and out,

bringing you into the here and now.

This is where loving and peace reside.

Relax into the loving.

Be aware of peace radiating through you and extending out from you,
to gently hold the planet earth and all of God's creation, in your loving
care,
as you chant the words of the peace prayers:

I Love You,
Te Amo,
Eu te amo,

God Bless You,

Dios te Bendiga,
Deus te Abencoe,

Peace Be Still.
Paz, Manten Calma.
Paz Mantenha a calma.

I Give You My Peace.

Te Damos Nuestra Paz.
Te dou a minha Paz.
A book review by Bob Anderson:
Foreign Policy
From a Christian perspective, "foreign policy" may be an oxymoron. Jesus sought
out and loved every person his society considered unlovable and foreign, whether
in status or by location: for example, women, children, lepers, tax collectors,
sinners, Samaritans, Syrophoenicians, and Gentiles in general. In his first sermon,
he honked off the hometown crowd by saying a good word about an enemy
general from Syria, and in his Sermon on the Mount he astonished the crowd by
insisting that they love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. Having
received the keys of the church, Peter flung open the gates to all peoples by
proclaiming that "God shows no partiality among nations." Today, our baptismal
covenant turns the convictions of Jesus and Peter into these commitments of
ours: "we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as
ourselves" and we will "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect
the dignity of every human being." In short, there are no foreigners, only human
beings -- all created in God's image and all equally beloved.
Hafiz agrees. Hafiz, an Iranian who lived from about 1320-1389, is one of Islam's
most loved poets and God's most loving voices. His poems are stunningly
translated by Daniel Ladinsky and collected in The Gift. Here are two samples,
with labels by Ladinsky:
An Infant in Your Arms
The tide of my love
Has risen so high let me flood over
You.
Close your eyes for a moment
And maybe all your fears and fantasies
Will end.
If that happened
God would become an infant in your
Arms.
And then you
Would have to nurse all
Creation!
 I Have Learned So Much

I Have learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.
Now that's all very sweet but why should "realists" waste a second thinking about
Hafiz? Because Iranians love poetry like Italians love opera and the books of
Hafiz outsell the Islamic Book of God. And because governments should not be
confused with peoples. We are all members of one family sharing one home and
we all have a common interest in friendship, even if our leaders have more of an
interest in retaining their power. And because decency demands that we know
something about other human beings if we're going to consider attacking them.
And finally because the foolishness of God -- loving your enemies -- may in fact
be a more effective way over time to achieve and cherish a lasting peace among
nations than a ready resort to war with all its unintended complications and
horrific consequences.

To Jesus, Peter, and Hafiz, I add one more foreign policy expert, Pogo the
possum. Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy and they is us." Or to put
it as Jesus might have: "We have met the 'foreigners' and they are our friends."
Another book review and an invitation to turn prayer into practice:

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Last Labor Day, a small, email-linked group from St. Andrew's began praying for
peace by focusing on one country a day. Our prayers were birthed in Nan
Merrill's beatific booklet, Peace Planet: Light for the World. Through that book,
we envisioned peace for the whole world, the way God intended it to be. Our
group grew to over 50 people, from Yardley to Sydney to Stockholm to London to
Chicago to Boston to New Orleans and all over. Yesterday (St. Paddy's Day), we
ended this cycle of prayer with Zimbabwe. A new cycle of prayer will begin soon
for prayers for peace must never end.
But Christian prayer cannot be divided from Christian practice. Prayer, I believe,
is not a wish list of our own desires and demands, but rather a beseeching of
God to grant us courage and commitment in responding to God's prayers and
heartaches for our world -- for example, prayers for us to be more loving and
compassionate and generous and just and, yes, more peaceful. The instructions
for putting our prayers into practice are found in the scriptures, especially the
gospels.
So without dimming the vision of Peace Planet, let us turn now to the gospels
and to a book by a novelist, poet, and essayist whom I love: Wendell Berry. The
book is Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings about Love,
Compassion & Forgiveness. Berry has done something as simple as it is
challenging; he has extracted the teachings of Jesus on love, compassion, and
forgiveness from the King James Bible and quoted them one after another. Here
is a sampling of these familiar verses:
*Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of
God.
*Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
*Judge not, that ye be not judged.
*Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword.
*Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
*He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
*But I say unto you, Love Your Enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you,
and persecute you.
These texts are neither isolated ones nor optional ones nor ones that can be
intellectualized away. They are the womb of Mary and the warp and woof of the
life of Jesus, the demanding heart of the gospels, and the doorway into
embracing and enacting the love of God.
In an essay prefacing the gospel passages, Berry notes the disparity between
what Christians have preached about Jesus and what Christians have done for
Caesar:
The Christian followers of Christ have thus committed themselves to an
absurdity that they can neither resolve nor escape: The proposition that
war can be made to serve peace; that you can make friends for love by
hating and killing the enemies of love. This has never succeeded, and its
failure is never acknowledged.
And in an essay following the passages, Berry enjoins us to follow these
commands, not bury them with grains of salt:
In the Sermon on the Mount and in other places Jesus is asking
his followers to see that the way to more abundant life is the way of love.
We are to love one another, and this love is to be more comprehensive
than our love for family and friends and tribe and nation. We are to love
our neighbors though they may be strangers to us. We are to love our
enemies. And this is to be a practical love; it is to be practiced, here and
now. Love evidently is not just a feeling but is indistinguishable from the
willingness to help, to be useful to one another. The way of love,
moreover, is indistinguishable from the way of freedom.
So the question becomes this: how are we to practice love, especially peace?
Perhaps we could form a "Peace Corps" to give life to the peaceful corpus of
Christ. That corps would invite parishioners and others to share a commitment to
envisioning and enacting peace and would honor all the many, many ways
peacemaking is practiced daily by people with different pursuits and
perspectives.
This idea is in genesis (and Genesis) and we'll flesh it out in the Micah Group
and report back. But for now, may we begin to let the gospels open our hearts to
the blessings of peacemaking.
Go in peace and be light for our world.
A Franciscan Travel Blessing

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,

half truths and superficial relationships
so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice,

oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with enough foolishness

to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.