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A Season for Peace?
Here we are again—at that time of year when we often hear “Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men.” I’m grateful we do. It’s a time when people of many religions celebrate holy days and whether it’s a year-round observance for people or not, it’s good to at least have an annual reminder that “at peace” is a desirable place to be.
Whether we’re talking about inner peace or world peace, I mean now, in this life—not the afterlife, next time, or something we hope for our grand-kids. I wonder if either type of peace can really be put off until later. Don’t we need a sense of both? Now?
Some people appear to consider happiness and peace as places to reach or goals to attain. They are, of course, in some ways, but not at the expense of peace.
Some even think we should get better at being evil than the bad guys so we can defeat them and then, miraculously, we’ll be at peace. Won’t we actually become what we fear?
Some people believe that happiness is a destination, not a road. It’s probably easier for readers of TLC to recognize that happiness and peace are on the path we travel. It’s the experiences we have through life and not simply a goal to reach or sacrifice for now to achieve at a future time.
The worst-case scenario should at least include a few teases along the way, shouldn’t it? Only seems right that we have some experience of where we think we want to go. So we have our ways to tune into peace.
We meditate, contemplate, do yoga, kundalini, take seminars, get into nature, go to church and have fellowship with others. Most of us accept that having a sense of peace means having an awareness of ourselves and living an examined life and taking some responsibility for how things turn out for us.
It’s not always easy to get truly independent, really to separate ourselves and see who we are apart from others—from our parents, family and friends, or our desire to please or wanting to be seen as doing the right thing or what good people do.
There are many paths and ways to notice how we operate—and to become aware that there is more. My purpose here is not to define a path, but rather to acknowledge the process: that there are many paths, and suggest that it can—and is—happening more and more quickly. As a friend of mine said, it’s like we have to take the seminar or add the software to become more conscious, but the kids coming in are hard-wired. They get things quickly. I never thought of evolution as something you could watch.
I think it’s important to mention this because those of us who have been on the planet for a while may think we all have to go through this process of being at peace with ourselves before peace manifests in the world—and so everyone needs to focus on their self to bring about peace in the world.
Maybe not. Maybe it’s now more about participating toward it. Maybe it’s not about creating the perfect peace first—but creating some sense of peace, and evolving it. Maybe it’s an idea whose time has come that will take us down the path kicking and screaming.
Looking around, there is little doubt there are many people who would benefit from some self-examination. What I’m saying is that the youth of today seem light-years ahead as far as knowing what is theirs to do and separating that from what belongs to others to do. They seem to have a better sense of themselves and what they want—and allow that in others as well.
While they are brighter and seem to grock things more quickly, that’s just part of life. What they lack is the benefit of experience and the sense of history that more experienced people can offer and can contribute. It’s a necessary partnership or combination.
They may not have the life skills that some older people have, but younger folks constantly challenge the ideas that “it can’t be done,” “we’ve tried it before” and “that’s just the way it is.” They counter with “it has to change, it’s not sustainable,” and “why not?”
With the Occupy movement, I have to add, “The King has no clothes.” In other words, you’re not fooling anyone, Wall Street. We see your greed running amuck. We notice.
Obviously, a lot of young people are part of the Occupy movement. I hope they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I hope people don’t stand back and say it’s something young people are doing or it’s their thing and it doesn’t belong to everyone. It wasn’t the young who created the issues they are bringing up.
In the sense that they are challenging and changing the conversations we have about our country and our world, it could be considered their thing—but it is not theirs alone to challenge or change. I hope more people join in and find ways to sustain these questions and begin new conversations.
One of those conversations is about peace—world peace. It’s about the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower predicted in the 1950s, and with which we’ve been living for decades.
When our country spends more money on its military budget than the rest of the world combined—we’re at that place Eisenhower warned us about.
When our country then turns around and says it has nothing for the sick, the old or the poor—even children—we’re there. There meaning an unsustainable society and an economy that runs on greed, war and conflict in the world to “prosper.”
Something the young know better than most of us is how unsustainable it is to gain a college education—to take on a debt that may be as great as the debt for buying a house—and then not find a job. Because making a profit seems more important that educating a society—something we all know we need to do if we embrace the idea of a government directed by the people.
In today’s political climate we can expect one side to say we need to help make education more affordable, then the other side to counter that the way really to save money and cut taxes is to eliminate high school because the truly talented will get to college on their own.
Then the first side could be expected to counter with how important education is today and state they have to draw the line on this—so they are open only to eliminating the last two years of high school, but, of course, it’s all negotiable.
Did the expression “cry uncle” came from references to our Uncle Sam?
More and more people are seeing that having everything we do be profit-driven needs to shift. The good news is there are obvious ways to shift—such as a focus on energy independence, incentives and schools for family doctors, affordable or free education in exchange for public service, and nation-building here in the USA.
Some are certain that government spending has never worked. They say it didn’t when President Franklin Roosevelt tired it on domestic programs during the Great Depression and that it was WW2 that really brought us out of that depression. But wasn’t WW2 simply a government program on a greater scale than FDR’s programs?
With today’s polarity, however, maybe change will have to come other ways.
One idea I heard this past month came from remortageAmerica.com. In brief, the idea is to shift money availability to those who will spend it. The Fed loans money to the biggest banks at no interest right now and they aren’t spending it or loaning to people to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Why not give loans to homeowners, have them pay back interest-only for two years. On an average that would give people an extra $7500 a year to spend, stimulating the economy. It’s a bailout aimed at those who would really create jobs, through their spending.
The world is changing rapidly and will continue to shift. Some may go kicking and screaming trying to maintain their unsustainable ways—or even go the opposite direction. I wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, to one day hear that energy companies wanted an extra tax on small solar producers—homeowners—who already pay extra for the privilege of producing energy for them.
Or hear power companies don’t know what to do when solar users turn on their lights, then turn them off and then turn them on again. Heavens! Given that everyone has a tendency to do that, over and over, it makes you wonder how these monopolies have survived so far. Maybe some just won’t be capable enough to make the transition that will come.
There are a lot of good ideas and technologies out there capable of totally shifting our energy and economic landscape—perhaps overnight.
I hate to think that some people may just be watching because of how they think peace needs to manifest. We only have to look at how rapidly the world is changing to know we’re in a new game now.
It’s an exciting time of change. We can watch it happening all over the world or we can participate. That would be a surprise to established politicians, wouldn’t it? Many of them declared us pizzas (i.e., vegetables) with short memories a long time ago.
They’re not the best judges though. I for one feel empowered and capable—and humbled—to discover that I may have sufficient memory to be a potential presidential candidate, sometimes.
Happy Holidays!
