On Sunday January 28, Daniel O'Rourke was the main speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northern Chautauqua (http://www.uucnc.org/), located in Fredonia, NY. His topic was "Peace is Relationships." The title is a variation on Louise Diamond's insight that peace is connections. Among others, Dan cites Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, who said that if the present collective madness continues, it is unlikely that our planet will survive another hundred years. The following is the text of his presentation:
Peace is Relationships
by Daniel O’Rourke
INTRODUCTION
Unlike many who write on peace, Louise Diamond in her little volume "The Peace Book" defines it. "Peace," she says, "is more than the absence of war, violence or conflict. Peace is a presence -- the presence of connection." Personalizing her insight I’ve called this talk “Peace is Relationships.”
What does Diamond mean when she says peace is connections? What do I
mean when I say peace is relationships? Both connections and relationships imply the need of an other. Both acknowledge incompleteness. Our incompleteness as a man or a woman. Our incompleteness as creatures. Our need for support, for friends, for neighbors and coworkers. Both acknowledge the incompleteness of our societies and nation states.
I’m speaking of the human need to be fulfilled, to be completed, to be inter-dependent. A clear-headed realization of our need for the other -- whether that other is spouse, partner, family, neighbor -- or the Holy.
MEN AND WOMEN
That’s a heady introduction. Allow me now a stereotype that, I hope, will help make my point.
The stereotype unpacks something like this. Among themselves men talk about five things: cars, sports, sex, money and politics. Women, on the other hand, speak to each other of one thing -- relationships. Relationships with partners, with parents, with children, relationships with friends, in-laws and coworkers. Relationships. Women, of course, in as much as the stereotype holds, are much closer than men to the truth of things. For relationships are closer to life itself.
ADOLESCENT MALES
Father Richard Rohr, the author of From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality has made the shrew observation that the trouble with the modern world is that it is run by adolescent boys. Boys even more than men think in terms of weapons and tanks, win-lose games, the acquisition of turf and power. That kind of thinking does not produce peace.
“I object to violence,” Gandhi told us of this male adolescent proclivity, “because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
TIME IS GROWING SHORT
Eckhart Tolle, the author of "The Power of Now” speaks of the need for a shift in collective consciousness. Only this, he says, will transform humanity from its self-centered madness to the recognition of oneness. This collective consciousness is the sum of individual consciousness. I sneeze here in New York, the mystics tell us poetically, and a candle flickers in Tibet. The physical and economic worlds are shrinking; the spiritual world is smaller and even more connected.
Time is growing short. Technology has greatly increased our capacity for human madness. Our primitive ancestors could kill a few tribal enemies with clubs.
In the trenches of World War I, machineguns, airplanes and poison gas slaughtered or maimed 22 million. That senseless bloodbath took five years. Today we have the ability to incinerate millions in minutes. For the first time in history, our survival as a race is threatened.
The 20th Century saw a hundred million people die in all its wars, persecutions and ethnic cleansings. And the 21st century is not beginning any differently. If this madness continues, it is unlikely, Tolle predicts, that our planet will survive another hundred years.
Is this a doomsday prediction? Perhaps. It could be, but there’s no doubt that we now face a collective insanity that threatens the entire planet. Many will scoff, but our chief weapons are not ballistic shields, preemptive strikes or troop deployments. Our most powerful weapons are spiritual. They are justice and compassion, understanding and tolerance, charity and acceptance. Essentially, these values are relational. We must cultivate these connections in our personal lives, our communities and between nations. If not, we will continue our relentless march toward Armageddon.
INNER PEACE
World peace begins with inner peace. This peace arises from a relationship –- a connection -- with the Good, the Holy, the underlying Mystery that many call God. This connection with the Source, which sustains us, brings with it a serenity and calmness. It transcends our pettiness and selfishness. It is the stillness and tranquility -- the peace -- that the masters taught.
The Dalai Lama for example said that, “internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it?" he asks, “By realizing clearly that all mankind (all humanity) is one.”
PEACE WITH OTHERS
This inner peace leads inevitably to peace with others. The two are intimately related; they flow from the same Source, they grow in the same Ground, they are gifts from the same Universe. Inner peace reaches out and touches others.
It overflows into our families, out to co-workers and neighbors. These
connections recognize our shared humanity; they build relationships and
peace. They manifest themselves in understanding, in tolerance, in a lack of judgments or condemnation. They are contagious and lead to forgiveness and reconciliation.
WORLD PEACE
In an upward spiral, these relationships expand to peace in the wider world in which nations respect other nations’ rights to justice, dignity and autonomy. This leads to trust and cooperation. It can bring inter-national harmony. Again, peace is not just the absence of conflict; it is a presence. It is the presence of relationships, our inter-dependence and inter-connectedness with other nations.
NOT COMMON WISDOM
Is this idealistic? Absolutely! Is this what the masters and mystics taught? Certainly! Would the military agree? Definitely not! Neither do politicians preach this nor political scientists teach it. But Jesus warned us; the peace that he and other spiritual masters bring is not the peace the world offers. (John. 14:27) Real peace is different. It is "the presence of connections" and too often we are disconnected. Peace is relationships. Selfishness, pettiness and tribalism needlessly fracture them.
BROKEN CONNECTIONS
There are, of course, connections that should be broken. There is an important difference between physical and spiritual connections. A physical connection is not a relationship at all. Certainly sometimes we must dissolve legal bonds. Some divorces are for the peace of all involved. But even then on a spiritual level civility and courtesy should characterize divorced spouses. If the spiritual connection continues, the divorce too can be peaceful. With mature people many divorces are.
Neither does peace mean we should be against all war. Pacifists would strongly disagree, but I believe war should be the very last option. Martin Luther King was right when he observed that "wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows." Wars are quick fixes and the fix doesn’t last. History certainly teaches that.
World War I solved nothing and the spiteful, vindictive treaty at Versailles prepared the ground for the Nazis and World War II. World War II accomplished much, but at Yalta and Potsdam its promise evaporated into the cold war. And that war that was not always cold. Just ask the Hungarians. And what will this war in Iraq leave us?
GLORIFICATION OF WAR
Our societies have glorified war. We lionize our warriors. We canonize our military. We make heroes of our veterans. And some are heroes like Jason Dunham of Allegany County here in western New York who threw himself on a live grenade to save his comrades in the back of a troop truck in Iraq. On the other hand, members of the 502nd Regiment in the 4th Infantry raped a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya north of Baghdad and then murdered her and her family. And some guards at Abu Ghraib were sadists. The military like any group (like Democrats and Republicans, like Christians and Muslims) have their saints and heroes and their sick and perverted. Yet all societies at war glorify their military.
As Chris Hedges, the author of the bestseller, “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning,” said sadly since the time of the Greeks and Romans, societies have sacrificed the lives of their young to the gods of war.
In this regard we should ponder the words of an idealistic President Kennedy. “War will exist,” he said, “until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior receives today.”
WHAT CAN WE DO?
What can we do to achieve peace? Inner peace means we have to slow down. We have to center ourselves; we have to reflect and be silent. We have to push the mute button on the meaningless chatter that clutters and overwhelms our lives. We have to heed the example of the masters who stepped aside to meditate, reflect and commune with the Holy.
Peace in our hearts, in our families, in our world does not arise spontaneously. These connections do not just happen. We have to work at them. We have to work at all relationships. We have to work at our
marriages. We have to work for peace.
We must be unselfish, emphasizing what is good rather than carping and
complaining. Remember the prayer of Francis of Assisi? Make us instruments of Your peace. At their best, statesmen and diplomats do just that.
Such spiritual centeredness has even moved world leaders. Dag
Hammerskjold, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote
that, “We die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance … of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” We need that spiritual power to enlighten our limited understanding, to solidify our relationships, to reach out to the other.
That steady radiance of which Hammarskjöld spoke will enable us to do what is just for our families, our neighbors and communities. It will also goad us to work for justice in our own way in the wider international arena.
Atheists and agnostics may disagree but the Mystery, the Holy, the Source of all is unavoidable. Over the door to his home, Carl Jung inscribed five Latin words, “Vocatus atque invocatus Deus aderit.” Whether you acknowledge Him or not God will be present. Whether you call on Her or not, God will be there -- under a variety of names.
JUSTICE
Peace is relationships but it is also the fruit of justice. In the Sermon on the Mount, that most famous of Jewish rabbis not only said, “Blessed are the peacemakers….” (Mt. 5:9). He also said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice….” (Mt. 5:6)
Five centuries before Jesus, students asked Thucidides, "When will justice come to Athens?" The Greek historian answered, "Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are." Such an attitude demands great compassion.
Are you and I indignant today about AIDS in Africa, the genocide in Darfur, the war dead in the mid-East? Are we concerned about the victims of injustice even when they are not Caucasian, when they are not literate, when they are not American? When we are equally concerned for them, peace will come to Athens. Then it will come to our war-weary world.
CONCLUSION
Peace? Who has the answers? Bush and Blair? Abbas and Olmert? Al Maliki or al Sadar in Iraq? Putin in Russia? President Jintao in China? I don’t think so. Politicians and generals are often adolescent boys more concerned with things and power than with connections and relationships.
I submit that the idealists and mystics such as Louise Diamond, Richard Rohr, Gandhi and Jesus, Martin Luther King, Chris Hedges, Dag Hammarskjöld and Eckhard Tolle have the answers. We must change our collective consciousness.
If we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got.
If we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got
-- needless war and senseless death.
Daniel O’Rourke
Cassadaga. NY 14718
