Pace!

Pace is the Latin and Italian word for Peace. So, Pace to you on this Peace Tuesday, August 12, 2008.

Today is an opportunity to focus on Peace in some way because what we focus on expands. Appreciate Peace today wherever you create it, see or notice it, because what you appreciate grows or appreciates. Be Peace today and be amazed at how Peace shows up everywhere. That's how powerful you are!

I have been reading an informative book titled Wisdom for a Livable Planet by Carl McDaniel. I've been reading this book for six weeks! This is because each chapter focuses on a someone who has made a major contribution to current understanding of what it takes to live peacefully and sustainably, noting that the two are inextricably linked. And each chapter is loaded with references to several other notable books. So, I keep getting sidetracked by reading those books instead of finishing this one! I highly recommend this book as a great single source of information about what's happening on our planet regarding the economics and social advantages of sustainable living.

I'm currently "stuck" in chapter 7, reading about Herman Daly who is an economist who has bucked current economic thinking, and makes the case that local economies must be sustainable locally to be viable long term. Infinite economic growth is not sustainable. There are limits to what the planet and what societies can support, just as there are limits to what the human body can tolerate (think drugs, toxins, fat). People need to be able to grow their own food and supply most of their needs for the earth to sustain populations long term. I couldn't begin to paraphrase or represent his logic here so I recommend Herman Daly's book Beyond Growth or Chapter 7 of Wisdom for a Livable Planet to get the details.

Daly makes the point that war or social upheaval is most related to large scale poverty or large disparities between rich and poor. So, a way to work for Peace or ensure Peace in the future would be to do what many NGOs are focused on, which is to provide poor people across the globe the skills, knowledge and capital, through microfinance to create sustainable local economies.

Which brings me to a controversial notion I've hesitated to raise before. Call me chicken! The notion is that war is not the opposite of Peace and, stay with me here, war may be good for something - besides lining the pockets of Haliburton and Blackstone, I mean. Another way of looking at this is to ask the question we never ask, which is, "What is perfect about war"?

There, I've said it, or asked it! It strikes me that war, like anger and fist fighting among individuals, is an expensive though generally ineffective strategy for settling disagreements. So, what's perfect about it is that each time we have a war, it is a reminder that we need to develop other, less expensive, more effective and less destructive strategies for resolving disputes. In short we will keep having wars until human beings finally get the message that wars, as a rule, don't work. There is a case to be made that even World War II was avoidable, had we not punished the Germans and driven their people to look desperately for inspiration to the diseased mind of an anti semitic nutcase.

As humans we apparently need to keep seeing pictures of destroyed homes and families in order to work up the resolve to change the way we operate in the world. We didn't need to go to war in South Africa to end apartheid and we didn't need to fight a war with the Soviets to bring about some change in that country (I realize that Russia is a work in progress). War is not inevitable. Thinking war is inevitable makes war inevitable, a self fulfilling prophecy. And that thinking pushes countries to prepare for what they believe is inevitable, spending billions or more creating war tools. As we like to say in the coaching world, when all you have is a hammer (read war machine) everything looks like a nail (read international situation that needs fixing). Or, what we focus on expands. If our focus is the need to protect ourselves with a large military industrial complex, we are likely to find excuses to use it. President Eisenhower warned us about this!

On a lighter note, I just ordered myself a Peace flag, which I will fly on all national holidays and every Peace Tuesday. It's not that I'm not patriotic, I am. As a former member of the U.S. military I love this country, and I especially appreciate all of the Peaceful things it has done in the world. It's that I can no longer afford, and the planet can no longer afford, for me to be apathetic in the face of a growing need for Peace. And I believe that Peace in my life, my community, my country and the world better supports this country that war does. So, one small thing I can do is fly the world Peace flag. It is a beautiful rainbow flag (though the Wikipedia description is that it is different from the Gay pride flag because it includes an extra turquoise stripe!) and it has the word Peace, Pace or the word for Peace in any language.

So, Pace to you this Peace Tuesday. Take a moment or several moments to notice what you can do to make your life or even the world more Peaceful. As Mother Theresa might say, Peace may seem impossible, be Peace anyway.

Love,

Darlene