"Nothing But Peace Is Enough"

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The Rev. Suzelle Lynch
September 10, 2006

Nothing but peace is enough. Yet we are a nation at war.

When we went to war in Afghanistan, in October of 2001, we were told that the
purpose of the war was to fight the terrorists who had perpetrated the terrible
crimes of September 11th. When we invaded Iraq in 2003 this terrible,
unprecedented “first strike” war also was supposed to be part of the fight against
terror. And then, suddenly, we were searching for weapons of mass destruction
that would threaten our future, and then, equally suddenly, the war was all about
liberating the Iraqi people, and helping them reach for democracy.

Whatever you think of the war, a few things about it are true. More than 2600
U.S. servicemen and women have died in Iraq so far. Eighteen thousand more
have been wounded. Some sources say that the death toll of Iraqi men, women
and children is nearly 50,000 – which would be like wiping out the population of
Brookfield + Elm Grove, or Wauwatosa. And when I checked yesterday on
costofwar.com, a website maintained by the National Priorities Project to track
Federal tax and spending policies – the cost of the Iraq War in taxpayer dollars
was more than $313 billion dollars -- and rising every second.

Three hundred and thirteen billion dollars. Enough to send more than 41 million
children to Head Start programs for a year. Enough to pay for a year’s health
insurance for more than 187 million children. Enough to give a full four-year
scholarship to college for more than 15 million students. Enough to build nearly
three million new units of public housing. Enough to pay the salaries of five and
a half million public school teachers for a year. (Statistics from
www.costofwar.com)

What do you believe about war? Is it a necessary evil? Do you believe our world
could exist without it? Veteran war correspondent Chris Hedges writes, “War is
part of human society. It has been since the dawn of time and probably will be
until we are snuffed out by our own foolishness.” Hedges wrote a book a couple
of years back called “War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” (a chilling title, for
those of us who believe that peace is possible). His experiences in the war
zones of Bosnia, Sarajevo, El Salvador, Iraq and others led him to write, “Many
of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want
more…. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness
and divisiveness.” (p. 7)

He quotes, too, from historian Will Durant, who calculated that there have been
only 29 years in all of human history during which a way was not underway
somewhere. (p. 10)

Imagine. Only 29 years without war in all of human history.

Even if this were one of those 29 years, we would still not have peace. The news
story about the eleven-year-old Milwaukee girl who was sexually assaulted by as
many as nineteen men last weekend is all the evidence we need to know this
truth, though we certainly have boatloads more of evidence. We can’t distance
ourselves from the stories of what is happening on the streets and in the living
rooms of our communities. We cannot put it off to “bad values” that “those
people” have.

For violence – done in our names under the banner of war, done in our
communities under the banner of neglect –cannot help but affect us, deep in our
very souls.

I don’t know about you, but in a world with so much violence, I often feel
overwhelmed and powerless. I want to turn off the radio so I never have to hear
another story about the terrible fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. I want to
turn away from the newspaper that tells me another Wisconsin serviceman or
woman has died from a roadside bomb. I want to forget the voice of the man on
the National Public Radio call in show describing his friend, a war veteran,
heading off down the sidewalk in Milwaukee in his electric wheelchair to the VA
to get a prescription filled, only to be brutally attacked and robbed by four young
men barely a block from home. They got twenty-one dollars from him. There is
so much violence in our world it makes us all want to turn away, to go numb, to
go shopping, to eat too much, to drink too much, to work too much, to do
whatever it is we do to escape our pain and fear.

But going numb is soul violence. Despair is not the natural state for human
beings. What can we do?

Tomorrow, September 11th, is Patriot Day – a day to remember those who died
at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, certainly. And it is tempting to give
in to the news stories about the experts who say that there will most certainly be
another such attack, and allow Patriot Day be all about fear. But what if we
chose to let it be the beginning of something new?

What if we decided that we would, instead, follow the teaching of Buddhist monk
Thich Nhat Hanh, and make this fifth Patriot Day our time to begin a practice of
peace in every step, peace with every breath, peace in every moment?
In his little book of meditations called, “Peace is Every Step,”
Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us to see each day as a gift. “We have the
capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and
happiness to ourselves and others,” he writes. “Peace is present right here and
now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or
not we are in touch with it. We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue
sky. We don’t have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes
of a beautiful child. … We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way
that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available.
We are very good at preparing to live,” he says, “but not very good at living. We
know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very
hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering
that we are alive in the present moment... Every breath we take … can be filled
with peace, joy, and serenity.”

Now, that may sound very nice, but the first time I heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak
of peace and mindfulness I wondered both how to do it, and what difference it
could possibly make to anyone in the world besides myself.

Let me answer the second question first. Being mindful, being peace, ripples far
out beyond the one who practices such things because, as the Buddhists avow,
we all are connected. We’re interdependent, interconnected. What each of us
does affects every other living thing.

One way to think about this might be in the light of what's often called “the
butterfly effect,” an aspect of chaos theory. It refers to the idea that even
something as tiny as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings might create changes in the
atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or, for that matter, might
ultimately prevent a tornado from appearing). The wing movement makes a
small change in the initial condition of the climate system in which the butterfly
lives, which sets off a chain of events leading to an event much larger in scale.
Had the butterfly not fluttered, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly
different. (Adapted from a Wikipedia article, and other web sources.)
The idea is that we influence one another without conscious awareness of doing
so. Have you ever felt your mood improve just by hearing your child’s laughter?
Have you ever felt your spirits drop when you witnessed someone being unkind
to another person or an animal? What if those changes in you were like the
fluttering of the butterfly – tiny, but able to initiate a shift in the trajectory of a
much larger system?

But the importance of being peace is more than this. When we come from a
peaceful place, an inner harmony, we are less reactive, less defensive, less
fearful, and better able to respect the dignity of others, to share our time and
resources with those who most need them in a spirit of generosity, and, in
general make decisions that will serve the common good instead of simply our
own good.

Cultivating inner peace is not an escape from the overwhelming culture of
violence in which we live. It’s not intended to be a healthier method than
addictions for avoiding chaos or responsibility. Indeed, it calls us to a larger
sense of responsibility and a renewed courage to act with compassion and
caring.

So how do we cultivate inner peace? How do we have peace in our every step?
Remember the days just after September 11th happened? Those few, precious
days before we began the war on terror? For a few powerful moments, the
United States, in our vulnerability, was embraced by the world. Formerly a
superpower to be feared, we were suddenly interconnected with everyone else.
Suddenly we knew what so many nations experience time and time again – a
devastating attack on our own soil – and they knew we finally understood. In our
shock and grief, we also turned to each other – people came to church in droves,
seeking to touch one another, to sing together, to speak of our connectedness.
As individuals, we became achingly aware of how precious we are to each other,
and we began to express it with words and deeds.

I remember catching the hand of a woman in my former church as she walked by
where I stood at the doors of the sanctuary, greeting people. “I love you, Patti,” I
said. She stopped, shocked, and we stood for a moment, eye to eye, hand in
hand. You see, she disliked me. She had been angry with me for some reason
for a long time – but had never been willing to talk with me about it. And there I
was, telling her I loved her.

I did love her. I still do. Even through her anger, her beauty shone. The next
day she sent me an email message, and eventually we talked about what it was
she was upset about. That was peacemaking.

And it is one way that you might begin your peace practice – by seeking to
reconcile with someone in your life. Greet them with an open heart, and an
honest mind, and as you do, listen to your body. Watch for the tight shoulders or
racing heart of fear or anger. Notice these things, let them go if you can.
Breathe in peace. Breathe out peace. Notice that it is difficult to make real
peace. Notice the places in the conversation where you want to give up, and the
places where you must give up being right, being safe, being hurt.

Each one of us comes into this world with capacities for compassion and for
violence. The spiritual work of peacemaking calls us to exercise our compassion
muscles until they are strong and ready to be called into service at any time.
Earlier this week I was waiting at the checkout counter of a pink and frilly store,
waiting to pay for something I had promised to buy for my seven-year-old
daughter. The woman in front of me was grandmotherly, and she was taking a
very long time to get out her credit card,.. to sign the slip,… to put her pen and
wallet away,… to pick up her package…. and get out of my way! The fumbling
and bumbling teenage clerk behind the counter wasn’t helping much, either.
I wasn’t even in a hurry. But some part of me wanted to crowd that
grandmother, to sigh loudly or cough so she would know I was waiting, to make
her hurry up! Some part of me wanted to frown at the struggling teenage clerk,
to criticize her or say something snide. Practically twitching with impatience, I
started looking around for something to distract myself. And there, on the
counter, was a display of peace sign earrings….

Whoops.

I had forgotten who I was, forgotten the beauty and dignity of the person standing
in front of me….

I took a step back, took a deep breath, and began to let go of my impatience and
anger. I remembered a quote I had read earlier in the day during my sermon
research, from philosopher Baruch Spinoza: “Peace is not the absence of war,
it’s a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and
justice.”

Nearly everything we do in life can be done in the service of benevolence,
confidence, and justice – nearly everything we do can be in the service of
peacemaking.

Psychologist Lawrence LeShan, in his book “The Psychology of War,” writes:
“As a holdover from the violent past, every government today has officials in
charge of ‘war’ or ‘defense’ at its highest level. Nowhere, to my knowledge, is
there an official at similar levels in charge of ‘peace.’ The U.S. constitution is
perfectly clear as to which organ of the government has ‘the power to declare
war.’ Nowhere does it state which organ has the power to declare peace or
strive to maintain it.” (In Utne Reader, Jan-Feb 2003, p. 58)

In reality, it will never be our government’s job to declare peace and strive to
maintain it until each of us is willing to do shift our lives and our actions from a
culture of violence to a culture of peace. For peace is not about smooth surfaces
and unruffled waters; it is not about pushing conflict underground. It’s about
being in right relationship with others.

Is it possible to eliminate war? Some say yes, others, no. Our privileged
western notion that we could all just get along if we tried hard enough denies the
reality of the poorest nations, which are frequently colonized and invaded and
manipulated, and of the poorest among us in this nation, who have been told so
often directly and indirectly that they are worthless that they cannot help but
believe it and take the law into their own hands. I say it doesn’t matter if we
believe we can eliminate war or not, for we must act either way.

And we must act for peace. Your next West Wind newsletter lists some
important upcoming opportunities, like signing the Declaration of Peace before
September 21st, which is the International Day of Peace established in 1981 by a
United Nations resolution. It tells you some recent history of our church – that as
a congregation we adopted a statement of conscience opposing the war in Iraq
three years ago, and have been active in peace work ever since. It reminds us to
contact our senators and congressional representatives and ask them to support
the Declaration of Peace.

And we must follow, as best we can, the path of inner peace, as Thich Nhat
Hanh describes it, as Howard Thurman urges us and as these words, from Taoist
author and artist Deng Ming-Dao advise: “Only when peace lives within each of
us will it live outside of us. We must be the wombs for a new harmony. When it is small,
peace is fragile. Like a baby, it needs nurturing attention. We must
protect peace from violence and perversion if it is to grow. We must be strong to
do this. But force, even in the name of honor, is always tragic. Instead, we must
use the strength of wisdom and conscience. Only that power can nurture peace
in this difficult time.”

May we have the strength of wisdom and conscience. May we exercise the
muscles of our compassion until they are strong and ready. May we breathe
peace and walk peace in every step. May we give our time and resources to
those who need them with generous spirits. May we seek right relationship with
one another and with all persons.

For nothing but peace is enough. Amen.