Department of Peace
2021’s last day. Exhale.
December 31, 2021She isn’t letting us go gently as she finally releases her grip. Colorado. ♡ -dayle
From Marianne Williamson:
“I embrace each moment as an opportunity for a miracle.
Infinite opportunity is built into the nature of the universe.
It is not lack of opportunities, but rather the ways I have sabotaged them, that has obstructed the flow of miracles into my life.”
December 31, 2021
A Revelation of Heaven on Earth
“We return today to CAC teacher Brian McLaren, who illustrates how one of the Bible’s most challenging books—Revelation—can be a source of wisdom and hope for us today:
There’s a beautiful visionary scene at the end of the Book of Revelation that is as relevant today as it was in the first century. It doesn’t picture us being evacuated from Earth to heaven as many assume. It pictures a New Jerusalem descending from heaven to Earth [see Revelation, chapter 21]. This new city doesn’t need a temple because God’s presence is felt everywhere. It doesn’t need sun or moon because the light of Christ illuminates it from within. Its gates are never shut, and it welcomes people from around the world to receive the treasures it offers and bring the treasures they can offer. From the center of the city, from God’s own throne, a river flows—a river of life or aliveness. Along its banks grows the Tree of Life. All of this, of course, evokes the original creation story and echoes God’s own words in Revelation: “Behold! I’m making all things new!”
Rather than giving its original readers and hearers a coded blueprint of the future, Revelation gave them visionary insight into their present situation. It told them that the story of God’s work in history has never been about escaping Earth and going up to heaven. It has always been about God descending to dwell among us. . . . God wasn’t a distant, terrifying monster waiting for vengeance at the end of the universe. God was descending among us here and now, making the tree of true aliveness available for all.
Earlier in the year, Richard shared the shocking hopefulness of the Bible’s apocalyptic literature:
God puts us in a world of passing things where everything changes and nothing remains the same.
The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. It’s a hard lesson to learn. It helps us appreciate that everything is a gift. We didn’t create it. We don’t deserve it. It will not last, but while we breathe it in, we can enjoy it, and know that it is another moment of God, another moment of life.
People who take this moment seriously take every moment seriously, and those are the people who are ready for heaven.
Brian offers this final encouragement:
What was true for Revelation’s original audience is true for us today. Whatever madman is in power, whatever chaos is breaking out, whatever danger threatens, the river of life is flowing now. The Tree of Life is bearing fruit now. True aliveness is available now. That’s why Revelation ends with the sound of a single word echoing through the universe. That word is not Wait! Nor is it Not Yet!or Someday! It is a word of invitation, welcome, reception, hospitality, and possibility. It is a word not of ending, but of new beginning. That one word is Come! The Spirit says it to us. We echo it back. Together with the Spirit, we say it to everyone who is willing. Come!”
-Brian McLaren
-Father Richard Rohr
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‘We’ve been studying war for centuries, we must now study how to create peace…conditions for a deep and lasting peace.’ -Brian McLaren
Plan for U.S. Department of Peace
Ending the scourge of violence in the United States and across the planet requires more than suppressing violence. Lasting peace requires its active and systematized cultivation at every level of government and society. The U.S. Department of Peace will coordinate and spur the efforts we need to make our country and the world a safer place. Nothing short of broad-scale investment and government reorientation can truly turn things around.
Both domestically and internationally, we must dramatically ramp up the use of proven powers of peace-building, including dialogue, mediation, conflict resolution, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, trauma-informed systems of care, social and emotional learning in schools, and many others.
“I believe our country’s way of dealing with security issues is increasingly obsolete. We have the finest military force in the world, however we can no longer rely on force alone to rid ourselves of international enemies. The planet has become too small for that, and in so doing, we overburden our military by asking them to compensate for the other work that we choose not to do. We are less effective, and less secure, because of that,” said Williamson.
As its mission, the U.S. Department of Peace will; hold peace as an organizing principle; promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights; coordinate restorative justice programs; address white supremacy; strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking; work to prevent armed conflict; address the epidemic of gun violence; develop new structures of nonviolent dispute resolution; and proactively and systematically promote national and international conflict prevention, mediation, and resolution. In short, we must wage peace. “Large groups of desperate people,” said Williamson, “should be seen as a national security risk.”
The Department will create and establish a Peace Academy, modeled after the military service academies, which will provide a 4-year concentration in peace education. Graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.
The Secretary of Peace will serve as a member of the National Security Council and will be empowered to coordinate with all Cabinet agencies – including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Justice, and State, and the new Department of Children and Youth.
In 2022, let’s pledge to making this our reality. -dayle
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be free from disease.
May auspiciousness be seen everywhere.
May suffering belong to no one.
Peace
Shanti~Shanti~Shanti
Sacrifice. 🕊
May 31, 2021Memorial Day 2021
‘Lasting peace requires its active and systematized cultivation at every level of government and society.’
-Marianne Williamson
Thinking today of the Black Americans who returned from WW’s I and II only to be met with deeper segregation, violence and lynchings. -dayle
EJI
[EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE]
Targeting Black Veterans
Lynching in America
Inspired to defend their country and pursue greater opportunity, African Americans have served in the U.S. military for generations. But instead of being treated as equal members of society upon their return from military service, thousands of Black veterans were accosted, attacked, or lynched between the end of the Civil War and the post-World War II era.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white supremacy remained law and custom throughout the nation, and many whites feared that Black soldiers who had experienced the pride of military service would resist the disenfranchisement, segregation, and second-class citizenship that still characterized the African American experience. In August 1917, U.S. Senator James Vardaman of Mississippi warned that, once a Black soldier was allowed to see himself as an American hero, it would be “but a short step to the conclusion that his political rights must be respected.” Bringing Black soldiers home to the South with expectations of equality, he predicted, would “inevitably lead to disaster.”
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From professor and author Timothy Snyder:
“This one, from Polish, is about trauma, so I thought it might be fitting for May 31st, which in the United States is Memorial Day.”
‘After the Storm’ by Maria Konopnicka, from 1902.
[“The titular storm is never actually described. It is between the stanzas, in the past.”]
Oh lord, who grants to his world the rainbow
Who lifts to bent flowers a cup from below
Who unfolds the wings of the chick in the nest
Who purples the clouds that escape to the west
By morning the village is free from all care
Here an apple tree’s tended, a roof repaired there
And ere the young dawn can cast its first light
The good country folk have forgotten their fright
Oh lord, who every last trace of discord
Erases from earth by a merciful word
And stills forest’s fierce cry and ocean’s low moan
In the all-quiet heavens where you have your throne
Yet to the wrecked human heart, shattered by storm
Instead of the peace of the spectrum’s calm glow
You give endless thunder without sound or form
Echoes of storms past, memory’s woe.
Konopnicka is out of fashion now, even in Poland. The painting by Józef Chełmoński, of the same era (1896), reminds us of the sensibility.
“There is something sharp here: the confession in the last stanza. Her brave point is that a conceit of art, that nature expresses the soul, that outer appearances reveal inner experiences, is false. A storm means one thing in nature, and another inside a person.
So this is a poem about trauma that acknowledges God, but as something other than consolation. God and nature are on one side, and the person is on the other. The poem is not hopeless, though: by placing her predicament beyond God and nature, Konopnicka is taking responsibility for defining it herself. She does so, I think, rather beautifully.”
[Posted on Twitter by Jonathan Reiner: “Omaha Beach Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, France.”]
‘A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes….love will prevail.’
January 10, 2020
January 10, 2020
Dear Friend,
I ran for president to help forge another direction for our country. I wanted to discuss things I felt needed to be discussed that otherwise were not. I feel that we have done that.
I stayed in the race to take advantage of every possible effort to share our message. With caucuses and primaries now about to begin, however, we will not be able to garner enough votes in the election to elevate our conversation any more than it is now. The primaries might be tightly contested among the top contenders, and I don’t want to get in the way of a progressive candidate winning any of them.
As of today, therefore, I’m suspending my campaign.
My deepest gratitude to those of you who supported my candidacy for all these months. The ideas we discussed are important, and I hope they’ll find seed in other ways and in other campaigns. From rescuing underserved, at risk and traumatized children; to proactively waging an agenda for peace and making humanity itself America’s greatest ally; to integrative health models within our health care system and incentivizing health; to reparations to achieve deeper reconciliation between races; to repudiating the corporate aristocracy; to the creation of a more mindful politics; to changing from an economic to a humanitarian bottom line; to initiating a season of moral repair—we brought issues to the fore that I hope contributed to the campaign season. I remain as committed to them going forward as I was on the day we began.
I learned many things about America during this campaign. I’m more convinced than ever that we’re a good and decent people, that democracy matters, and that what our country has always stood for is worth struggling for. I will continue in that struggle, and I know that you will too.
To our dedicated volunteers, generous contributors, and loyal staff who worked so hard—I will hold you in my heart forever. There are no words for how grateful I am for your kindness and generosity. May you be blessed on your journeys as you have so blessed mine.
To the remaining Democratic candidates, I wish you all my best on the road ahead. It was an honor being among you. Whichever one of you wins the nomination, I will be there with all my energy and in full support.
Finally, these are not times to despair; they are simply times to rise up. Things are changing swiftly and dramatically in this country, and I have faith that something is awakening among us. A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes….love willprevail.
With all my heart I thank you,
Marianne
