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)

Jerusalem, a City of Peace

I was talking to Nitsan about a possible trip to Israel where she lives and where "love beyond words" (www.beyondwords.org is bringing peace to troubled land.  I commented to her that I had no desire to "walk where Jesus walked"as I get that that is what some people seems to want or need to do which draws them to travel to Israel.  I recalled how my brother, Phil and his wife Debby did that as God put that on their heart.  I totally get that for some but it is not my thing.  I then, perhaps a defensive part of me or Self not sure, said to her:  "I would rather walk in the footsteps of the way Jesus Walked, I do not need to walk in the footsteps where Jesus walked."  She said I really like that can I use it change it?  I said it i snot mine as I spoke it to her I had never thought of it in that way before.  She shifted it a bit and it became.

"I would rather walk in the way Jesus walked than to walk where Jesus walked"  We both agreed that we both liked it.

I then told her that several years ago I had a vision about running the Israel Marathon and crossing the finish line holding the hands of other communities of faith in celebration that the parts of religion create conflict but the heart of religion, is the harmonizing SELF and Spirit of all faiths.  Nitsan is Jewish.  She looked at me and said:  "That would be a picture of the way of Jesus.  We can work on that happening!"

"That they might be one"

Living in Love and Peace is the Jesus Way

The War for Peace

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said "End War" and another that said "Endless War".  I mused that that is the opposite of "Endless Peace".

Everyone says they are for peace but the peace that they are for is outer peace over their enemy, perceived to be real.  Believing the enemy of peace it outside of me in another persons aggression fuels the flame of war, perpetuates abuse, violence and oppression.

Jesus could not, did not, and would not end war for profit or for outer peace.  The advent of the peace talks that Jesus began were about everyone surrendering their desire to win and fear of losing to the highest good of humanity:  to live in love and peace.  At his birth and through out his life the angles message was, "Glorify God in the highest, and on earth there will be inner peace and good will acts of loving kindness automatically happening toward all by all.

The religious machinery and the political malcontents coupled together to kill him because the message of inner peace served neither of them and threatened both.  The threat was  to shift the focus from religion and military attempt to promote their agendas for peace that only served the sea of turbulence and violence that perpetuate abuse, oppression and resentment.  Jesus message was not about religion or against politics but for "inner peace focus" that perpetuates deference, respectfulness, liberty, and justice for all by all.  Their is an internal resiliency to and for peace when the propensity of fear of loss and of desire to win are set aside and surrendered to the natural flow of inner peace.

"Glory ot God in the Highest and on earth peace good will toward all humanity.

God's Peace is here

I know it is often said but God is here, there and everywhere.   In this remote island, in the middle of no whereville, on the St Croix River in Baileyville, Maine God is wonderfully present.  The wonder of the peacefulness that magnifies sounds across the tranquil waters reminds me this early morning of the tranquility of God's peace in the heart.  It passes and surpasses human understanding and reason.  In the middle of the garden there was a tree but there was also a river of life running through all the problems of life both potentially available with all the blessings of life.  This island is a blessing.  I thank my father in law, Don for the gift that this island was to him and now beyond his living to our living.

Eternal living is like the eternal waters that well up into everlasting life because the flow of the river brings life and caries death away.  Today I drink of the river of life and rejoice in the gifts passed on from generation to generation in a family.  Uncle Jack comes over to the island tonight to share the living waters even in the wake of his wife's passing.  He with Flip were a pair who blessed this family form the goodness of earth and the goodness of life.  Thank you, Don Flip and Jack.  One of three will come to dinner tonight or perhaps all three will be there!

You can feel the peace of nature that is not arguably about anything but receiving that peace.  It is not peace of this world that we think is achieved by peace talks and singed agreements.  It is peace achieved through he balance and harmony of all things or everything God has made for as it interacts with responsible respectfulness to all nature, all is clam, all is bright.  It is indeed a good and silent night

.

God saw everything that he had made and how it balances and counter balances and said it is very good.  Genesis 1:31.  In everything give thanks for this is the Will of God for you.  Everything works together for good and goodness is in everything.

Another breath of fresh air.  It is God country here!

Footprints of/for Peace

Many people love the saying of "Footprints".  thousands have it in one way or another on their walls or in their hearts.  It is ubiquitous and uplifting.  It presents the idea that when I am in trouble God picks me up and carries me through that troubled time.  I do believe that happens sometimes.

When I went through my dark time of the soul.  I pleaded for God to rescue me, pick me up and carry me through but when I never felt God doing that I became more depressed, more isolated, more despairing.  Either God did not care for me or there was something wrong with me that God could not care for me.

After I came out of the darkness of despair into the a new perspective of presence, I rewrote the footprints saying in different words.

I was in a dark place, the valley of the shadow of death.  It was a place of darkness and light but at first all I could see is darkness.  I noticed that as I walked though the valley of the shadow of death, I was walking on  the sandy seashore of God's presence.  I  noticed there was only one set of footprints on the sandy shore.  Previously there were two sets of footprints mine and God's.  I had felt God with me, walking with me and talking with me.  God was alongside of me.  I loved those times.  They were great times.  But now why was I alone.  One set of footprints?

Then I heard God whisper to me.  Those were the times when life was so rough, things were so terrible, you lost sight of me.  I was inside you, not just alongside of you.  Hidden in the hurt and pain or your living I was there giving you strength from the inside out.  When you do not notice me I am the most present in you.

I realized that God had not rescued me to teach me of God's inner presence greatest when I feel alone.

I am never alone.  Sometimes I am carried through difficult times other times I am strengthened by the sense of God is in me regardless of anything that goes on outside of me.

Walk in love and peace and love and peace will be in you.  Nurture love and peace in you and you will walk in peace.   The road to peace is not to be rescued from conflict but to be at peace and walk in peace in the turmoil and trouble of conflict.

Footpritns of Peace.  Originally posted in www.parakalein.blogspot.com July 23

The Greatest Debt owed to all by all, might bring peace and justice

A few weeks ago there was a political jostling on the issue of raising the "debt ceiling".  I called my son who is much better about finances than me and he tried to explain to me that we have to do that so our credit will remain good.  I was a bit puzzled and told him that I was.  My puzzlement was that if I raised my debt ceiling I would have less credibility and if I decreased my debt I would have more.  I think he told me that I was right but that we had to do this wrong thing or something bad would happen.  Interesting?

Today, I was reflecting on debt. I was reminded of a verse in Romans 13 which is interestingly enough a passage that deals with the relationship of citizenry to their government.  Verse 8 says:  "Let no debt remain outstanding except the ongoing debt to love one another".  What if we were to raise this debt ceiling and all of us took this seriously.  What if in America everyone eliminated all their debt but increased their sense of owing everyone "love and compassion".  What if that love was unconditional and free of any agenda: political, economic, social, religious or personal?  What if instead of owning things we focused on owing to all people love and care.   The true debt and the only debt we should be servicing is the debt to love one another.

Maybe just maybe their might be peace and justice on earth.  Maybe even our economy would improve because our energy was in the right place.

Maybe if we did the right thing something good would happen?

originally posted on
paraklein.blogspot.com

The Meek will inherit the earth

Posted this on www.parakalein.blogspot.com and decided it is foundational to peace.

The way of peace is the way of meekness.Years ago I took this be-attitude to mean that if I kept my mouth shut, suffered for Jesus, let people trample me under foot, in the end I will get the "well done" and not only get eternal happiness but also I will get to rule the earth.  Today I have one word for that, "Really"!

I see that position or understanding as feeding the ego, depleting honesty, and ruining the church.  It is not about getting power over.  It is about being empowered from the inside out.  It is about speaking out with courage, calmness and compassion toward all even those who would persecute or undermine you.  It is not power of over others it is power to be the authentic person you are and to see God work through that authenticity and audacity.

The meek are not the quiet mousey people that harbor inner angst or anger just waiting for their turn to rule.

The meek are the strong, opinionated, capable, assertive, and aggressive people who have no agenda to control and who can with unconditional love surrender their power without malice toward anyone and can exert their power with charity toward everyone.  The reason the meek will inherit the earth is they are then ones who have been given f=great power but refused to use that power to fulfill their own agendas or to abuse or misuse anyone regardless of how tight they might have been.  Might does not make right in this spiritual system.  Might is willing to sacrifice its power.  Right rules might.  In the kingdom only those who have been meek can be trusted to rule in a Godly way.  In the way of righteousness, might surrenders to right!  

Power is not about exerting control over others it is about being in control of one's human self.  Similarly the divine self is in control from the inside. 

Omnipotence is all powerful from within not over those without.  Guess I am a little still on that from yesterday's blog.  I will control myself and let that be all folks.

Peace a new movement in the making, author people all over the world

I have not posted on this blog for sometime but am having a renewed interest in sowing peace in the world.  This blog is a way to do it.

I am excited about some ideas that seem to be congruent with others that our day is a day of God doing a new thing as we are willing to look at old things in new ways.

Peace ripplers are away of doing it.  Drops of water that make up the power of a tsunami like thoughts are what makes up a tsunami of peace.  Droplets of peace ripplers dropped into one another's lives.  Sowing peace in the presence of all things is a win win.

Several years ago I spoke at a conference and used the imagery of pieces of a quilt paralleling all the pieces or parts of humanity connected and intersecting one another in one way or another in a tapestry of peace.

Pieces of a quilt represent the diversities of humanity connected by the thread of kindness and compassion. Negativity has the potential to cripple the peace ripplers but we will not be deterred.

Drops of peace creating ripples of peace on their way to waves of kindness on their way to a tsunami of compassion and calmness throughout the world.

Last week the world was suppose to come to an end according to one individual ho did have a lot of followers.  There are some things that never change.  One of them is that people want to believe that the world of hurt and pain will be over and the world millennium of peace and love will be ushered in.  Still others seem to rejoice in the death of people who are un-believers.  Like I mourned a few weeks ago when Osama bib Laden was shot, I mourned that anyone would delight in another’s demise.  Yet rejoice they do and predict they will.

I noticed a billboard in the background when CNN was showing all the bill boards lining the highway about the end of the world.  I thought how thoughtful, creative, true and respectful this person was to put this up as a billboard.  I thought, in the midst of hatred and disrespectfulness sow truth and grace as a contributor to  peace.

I put a made up copy of that billboard below with no comment except thank you to the person who visioned it and did it and to the Spirit of Truth and Grace in him that is the heart and soul of true Christianity.

Peace on Memorial day

Today is Memorial Day a day that we remember that the cost of freedom is high, the cost of war is perennial pain and loss very little gain and joy.  We celebrate victories but still mourn the losses.  I recall my dad thinking about his buddies who never came back from storming the beeches of Normandy.  He was in the third wave while friends were in the first wave all died.  We welcome soldiers home from war.  Some soldiers never come home.

Memorial Day is not a victory parade it is an "honoring of the losses and pain of war".  A remembrance that there is a price tag for freedom.

Memorial Day began in response to the Civil War that ravaged our nation.  Abraham Lincoln said it was the worst of times and the best of times for the nation.  In his second Inaugural Address he stated:.  

With malice toward none, with charity (love) for ALL, with firmness in the right as God gives us to know the right,

  let us strive to finish the work that we are in

  To bind up the nations wounds,

to care for him (them) who shall have born the battle and

for his (their) widows and orphans (victims and villains)

to do all which may achieve and cherish

a just and lasting peace

among ourselves and all nations.

The first Memorial Day was crafted for the reconciliation and healing of the breech and betrayals of war.

Today in honor of my father and all those who fought and survived and others who died in World War II, in honor of all those men and women who have died in any war, fighting for any nation, we honor their loss.  In honor of all those who are fighting and who have recently died and their "widows and orphans", we remember.

Today we commit to do "all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations of earth".

The Way is Peace

Attachment Theory looks at trauma as providing an obstacle for establishing or maintaining relationships.  Trauma Theory often attempts to help the victim of trauma by listening to their story and providing an attachment of positive attention.  Helping people to move beyond the trauma into healthy relating is a difficult journey.
I was recently at a presentation on working with servicemen and women who have been traumatized by military operations.  This is a nice word for warfare.  The focus was developing a protocol for assisting the trauma victim after the fact.  I raised a question that I had never thought of before.  I thanked the presenter as it is what I enjoy about these dialogues as they create new thoughts.  The question I asked was had the military thought about being pro-active and not just reactive about this matter.  To teach soldiers about trauma and what causes trauma and how to live more peaceably internally with trauma.  This would teach soldiers about internal peace and how to avert trauma of war.  That question was met by openness of the presenter as a new thought.  A participant commented that if we taught that, that peace can be nurtured and maintained internally, it would be in conflict with military operations which is to stir up hatred and rationalize violence. I was a bit amazed.

Until we look at trauma inside and heal our internal wounds we will continue to live in a violent and chaotic world.  As has been said "peace is not the way, the way is peace".

Recently I was in a discussion group in which a presenter on the theory of attachment said that we have to help people put their trauma aside as it is overwhelming.  I asked what would happen if we could face our trauma in a good way to a good end.  Another person commented if we did that we would not have so much trauma in the world.  Interesting idea.  Maybe a key to peace is

Good is good enough

This is Final Four weekend.  Typical to the human propensity for a champion a winner take all orientation we will crown a Champion of NCAA College Basketball in both the women and men's divisions.  It is not good enough to be good.  We have to be better than the other guy and ultimately we have to let one be the best!  This is the win lose, winner take all paradigm of humanity.  While it can be fun in some arenas like basketball it can be catastrophic in other arenas like global violence, global famine, and oppression for the sake of succession.

Interestingly enough when God created, after each day of creation (mostly) God said it was good.  He did not say it was better.  Never did he say it was best.  There was no competitiveness just a cooperative and collaborative affirmation of goodness.  After the sixth day God did say that he looked at everything he had made and said that as they all worked together to create and sustain balance in the universe, they are very good.  Balance and harmony is about valuing everyone and everything.  Pouring value into everything and everyone.  If we all contributed to each others value as part of the human race maybe violence would cease and that would be very good.

I heard a suggestion that I though was "very good".  If everyone, when they filled out their census forms answered the question about your race, checked other, then wrote in human we would decrease our emphasis on the competition of racial distinction and balance out and harmonize as members of the "human race".  Novel and nurturing idea.

A member of the human race!