Servant Leadership and Peacemaking

Peacemaking.  My Servant Leadership class met this week and we talked about peace and peacemaking.  This topic always strikes me as both vague and overwhelming.  Discussing, say, Peace in our Community or Combatting Violence in Our Neighborhoods is conceivable.  But the term 'world peace' is just inconceivable as a goal because it is too vast of a concept.  When I hear the word peace, I think of bumper stickers.   For awhile, everyone in Madison (WI) seemed to have the one that said Visualize World Pea (s) and instead of Peace there was a picture of green peas.  There are also a lot of quotes about peace.  And this is what was handed out when I went into class.  It isn't that I don't believe in peace and non-violence but where do you begin?  Back to the overwhelming nature of the topic.  Well, we read over these quotes in class and then picked one person at a time to discuss the quote.

Peace...starts with 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...

--14th Dalai Lama

Several classmates tell stories of personal epiphanies and share ideas of peacemaking.  So peace starts within each one of us.  When you pull it together enough to be self-aware and look outside of yourself, notice your neighbors, really notice them, notice your community, opportunities are all around to be involved in some way.  Getting less vague.

"Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won't be able to find it.  But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you."

--Ajahn Chah

I thought of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in La Crosse.  The past couple of weeks the topics were Compassion and Connection and then Moral Vision and Courage for this Moment in History where they discussed the "Occupy Movement".  So many opportunities we have in our community to listen, absorb and connect to important things going on all around us.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main....Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

--John Donne

The importance of building up trust between each other was discussed.  The professor leading our class, Rick Kyte, told a story about sitting in on an Ethics class taught by Tom Thibodeau (Viterbo University).  Tom showed up to class without a syllabus and pulled up his chair and told the students, "let's talk about your expectations for the class and then let's share our stories".  So at some point, a student shared a highly personal and vulnerable story. The first day of class.  And this much trust had already been built up.

Rick shared another story about his wife who at one point taught little children.  When a small child is playing in a sandbox and another child grabs his pail, the child hits the other one on the head with his plastic shovel. The teacher explains the words that need to be used, instead of hitting.  By the next year, when this same incident happens, the instruction is "use your words".  So as young people we learn to use words to solve conflicts.  Not all of us learn this though.  And some don't learn it as well as others.  So when conflict happens, the choice is to face off with someone as an individual, thinking only "I want to win".  Or you can use words.  And remember that something much bigger is at stake.

As I walked around our campus, through the wet, spiralling snow, the peace quotes swirled through my head.  

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction.  Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding.

--Albert Einstein

I still can't Visualize World Pea(s).  But it's easier to look around and see words being used, work being done and both individuals and a community working together for something bigger.