Something interesting has happened with the peace movement since the angry days of Viet Nam.
When documentary filmmaker Michael Moore ranted at Pres. Bush at the Academy Awards last Sunday he sounded out of line and outdated. Other stars, unlike Moore, made calm statements in support of peace and were applauded; Moore was booed.
I have been reading all I can get my hands on about how to react to the war without “dissing” the soldiers sent to fight (as Molly Ivins said in a recent “Progressive” column).
The sense I’m getting is the impulse to turn away from becoming strident and angry, but instead focus on “peace,” to hope the war is over as soon as possible. Pretty much everybody can get behind that and there are some good suggestions around on how to support that concept.
A recent “Utne” article is titled, “Make protests fun: 1-2-3-4, we don’t want shrill chants no more.” It quotes Mark Sommer, director of the Mainstream Media Project in California, “To be driven by fear and anger more than hope and determination is to catch the very illness we seek to combat.”
Sommer advocates mass demonstrations that include music, dancing and mass silence, “Everyone has a different version of how they find the deepest part of themselves. Whatever you call it-praying, meditating-to stop and listen to what can be heard when thousands of people stand in silence is transforming.”
Madison’s Buddhist community is holding regular walking meditations in support of peace and last Sunday’s “Parade” magazine’s lead article was, “Can prayer really heal?” Scientists are finding that prayer and faith have been shown to speed recovery from depression, alcoholism, hip surgery, drug addiction, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis, heart attacks and bypass surgery.
It looks like praying for those in trouble really helps them as well as making us all feel better for doing it. Why not apply this to the painful world situation?
In the “Parade” article they asked Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen To Good People,” to compose a prayer for our troubled world that can be said by anyone of any faith. It reads, in part:
Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness
So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all people as our neighbors
I have participated in two “peace” demonstrations this winter and both times the easy, natural thing seemed to be to stand and pray in silence. The candlelight vigil in Baraboo was most powerful when everyone stood silent in a circle, each holding his or her own dim, wavering flame.
Here is a Peace Rose….
