The Righteousness of Peace

Peace is the cry of the World all around
The varied ways to achieve it are everywhere found
While peace talks are held in a harbor of pearls
Plans for war in the other's heart twirls

Peace after all is elusive at best
When the heart is nit at rest
Deceit and maneuvers the day manipulates
The night plans the head he decapitates

He told me I had no peace and I needed some
He shouted it at me, I  mused myself to unwind
The one who has peace is calmer after all
Where the frightened soul by his anger is blind


The trick is so clearly divine
to give up my life without losing it in time
It is the fragmented pieces in the mind of hatred
That must be sacrificed to the power of red

Patience and perspective win out over time
The way of peace is to put all hostility and war too bed!
What brings peace is not military or police at night
It comes when all hearts in compassion are right

St Francis on Peace for 21st century

The Road Less Traveled to Peace More Tranquil

God of all, make me as an instrument of intrinsic peace.

Where there is hatred, let me offer love.

Where there is injury, let me offer compassion.

Where there is doubt, let me offer a human embrace.

Where there is despair, let me offer a holding heart.

Where there is darkness, let me offer the contentment of presence.

Where there is sadness, let me offer the envelope of kindness.

O Divine Leader and Model,

grant that I may first console, and then find I am consoled and consoling;

grant that I may first understand, and then be understood and understanding;

that I may first love, then be loved and loving.

For it is in giving that we receive, and in receiving we give again

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned and become pardoners

and it is in being willing to die that we rise from dead things and

are born anew now to Eternal Loving and Living.

Amen.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Peace and Justice, no just war

Today is the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  I was not alive at that time.  Our territorial United States was attacked.  The horror of that day is not just about history it is about people.  We declared war.  In many ways that war was a justifiable response to an act of willful and deliberate violence against the United States.  We were clearly justified.  Does that make World War II a "just war"?

In my life time, planes did not drop bombs on a military harbor, they became bombs, missiled into buildings with innocent people inside.  Our response of violence and war in Iraq and Afghanistan are justifiable and our response justified but doe that make it a "just war".

I do not believe there is ever a "just war" as humanity and all humanities perceptions are based on human perspectives and both are essentially self-preserving, self-promoting, and self-vindicating.

Justice is welcoming all perspectives and perceptions without prejudice and acting with calmness and compassion toward all regardless of anything.  If everyone one would embrace this concept of calmness and compassion there would be peace on earth and there would be justice for all.  There would be no war not because there was a war to end all wars but because all accepted a way to end the fear of being conquered and the desire to conquer.

For me that is the "Jesus Way".  War is humanities way.  Witnessing peace and love toward all is divinities way.

Acceptable or Accepted

I sat there listening to a preacher teach us all that we are "acceptable to God" and that is why God has called us to be pastors and teachers.

Inside it did not site well.  I had two parts that predominated the uneasy feeling and others that joined in a weaker refrain.  One part said this is an ego inflating way of seeing this calling. We are not called because we are acceptable to God nor is it that we are made acceptable to God.  The calling is to "be the person who God called you to be".  The idea of a "special calling on a select few rubs me the wrong way.  It seems elitist.  So it feels like a rub of friction and frustration not a soothing rub.  God calls us all to be "conformed to the image of the son of God" we are all called to serve and to bear one another's burdens.

My second part said we are not acceptable or unacceptable to God.  Our parts that choose to do certain behaviors those behaviors may be unacceptable or acceptable according to sociological mores or internal affirmations.  In a balanced internal system all parts are accepted in a universal welcoming but their behavior may be acceptable or unacceptable. It is that we are accepted and accepting of all parts in ourself and all parts in others.  It is not about approving or disapproving of the behavioral choices of the part.

Paul Tillich said, "Accept the fact that you are accepted" communicates to the internal parts the grace of God to accept you as you are and to offer you the grace.  The grace of God gives you power to be able to choose that which is the "acceptable and perfect" will of God.

When we accept the fact that we are accepted by god regardless of anything we experience peace and love in the primordial sense of perfect love and peace.  They are the only qualities which are coupled with perfect.  When all parts are accepted and they trust that acceptance they settle, and experience the calm and compassion that are the essential qualiteis of God and the Image of God in us that we call, Self.

Isaiah tells us 26:3, that we are kept in "perfect peace" when we stay focused on the God who accepts us as we are.  John tells us in I john 4:8 "perfect love casts out all fears" for fears have to do with punishment and the one who is accepted by God no longer fears punishment.  Acceptance is transformational.  Acceptableness is judgmental.

Just peace just justice

Yesterday I spent some time with a wise, well read, and well written friend who asked me to dialogue with him about Just War and Holy War.  The context if I understood it right was a dialogue among scholars in both the Christian and Muslim Traditions.  The Christian advocates were defining the idea of a Just War.  I wondered to myself is this deifying war.  The Muslim advocates were defining the idea of a Holy War. I wondered to myself who defines holy.  At the time my only response was to present the idea that no war is holy and no war is just.  

When we define justice in our terms and in our perspective and in our side we are in fact I think engaging in an injustice.  Is there such a thing as a just war?

After over 24 hours of thought, my idea on this matter would be to answer no with two quick qualifiers.  I have a part that truly understands that when someone is a menace to society's code of conduct or more particular the "dignity of humanity and human rights" it is a just act to protect the menaced or bullied person or group of people.  I quickly add, while that makes the intervention whether arms or restraint or arms of violence, justifiable that does not make it a defense for a "just war theory".  Justification is not justice.  Justice is when all people's right to dignity and to determine their own destiny are equally respected and any behavior or belief that threatens the rights of any one person in favor of the rights of another is not right.

Similarly, there is no holy war except in the eyes of the one who declares it holy or declares that they have a "holy directive".  The nature of holiness is to be free of "one sided ways of seeing the world" and seeing the world with open eyes to all prejudices and perspectives.  To claim a holy purpose that is self-serving is not a holy war but a war using God.  God's holy purpose is to transform people from over and against thinking that promotes self justifying and self deifying purposes that are counterproductive and violent in nature into an alongside of (parakalein) orientation that sees.  God invites the world to watch as he receives the anger, hostility, and war of humanity against divinity and transforms that war into a war that is won by surrender, sacrifice and serenity. 

Whoever is willing to lose his life, will truly be set free to live his life, this is the principle of God.

To argue for a "just war" or a "holy war" is to argue against the message of peace and love.  War may have at times a justifiable or holy purpose but to declare war holy or just is counterproductive to "loving your enemies" so that hey will be free of their need to do violence and live in peace and love toward all.

Violence may sometimes have a justifiable or holy intention but to endorse violence as a way of being is counterproductive to living at peace and with love toward your neighbor.

The crucifixion intentionally receives the violence of humanity with the intention of transforming that way of living into the way of love and peace.

There is no such thing as a holy war or just war.  There is such a thing as holy surrender and just sacrifice.  There is such a thing as a holy or just intervention on behalf of the oppressed, afflicted, and abused.

The Mission of Parakalein

The mission of Parakalein is to present and represent the God of love and peace in kindness and mindfulness and to “call” (kalein) all tribes (Religious Groups), all nations (Ethnic Groups), and all people (racial groups) into an “alongside of” (para) posture and position toward each other.  This promotes the experience of the global community of all faiths as “one” because they are one in love and peace toward all. (2011)

The Vission of Parakalein

The vision of parakalein is to see God as not against any person and group or for any particular person or group, God is “alongside of all” in internal serenity, with a willingness to sacrifice and surrender, to lead humanity into the steadfast love that is who God is”.

God is along side of “creation” and calls all of humanity to come alongside of each other welcoming all parts of

humanity into a  community “alongside of” one another with appreciation and respectfulness toward all resulting in “liberty and justice” for all. (2011)