Marching for Peace, But From a Heart at War?

For a period in college, I was a card-carrying socialist. It began with my frustration with the U.S. response to 9/11 and the politics leading up to the 2003 Iraq war.

I went to a handful of anti-war rallies during that time, and one of them was with the socialist group I was a member of. My membership didn’t last much beyond that rally.

When I met up with the group, I was given a stock sign to hold with a stock message and a socialist organization logo on it. Then, as the march began around the Washington D.C. mall, our chapter leader got quite aggressive in keeping the 30 or so of us in a particular order as a group to communicate discipline, organization, and seriousness. 

And I saw something in him, in myself, and in others that day.

We may have been marching for peace, but many of us were doing it from a Heart at War.

Here was a disagreement of politics, and we thought we were on the moral side, the side of peace, the right side. (So did the “other” side, by the way.)

Yet we weren’t feeling at peace. We weren’t being at peace. We weren’t coming from a heart at peace. 

I hear it today too: pessimism, judgment, venom, and hatred, supposedly in service of peace, well-being, and a world that works for all life.

Peacemakers, be at peace. From there, and only from there, enter the conversation.

Self-righteousness, sarcasm, and insult aren’t the path to a better future for humanity. It's not healthy in the classroom, it's not healthy in the family, and it's not healthy in society.

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me - in my heart, in my mind, in my body, in my relationships.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.” - Gandhi

Much Love. ❤️