Some Thoughts about Peace –

May We Walk the Path of Peace on the Earth We All Share

Carol A. Hand

I share these words of wisdom from around the world and across time as a morning prayer. For the sake of all we love, may we end the death and suffering that comes from war and choose the path of peace …

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Photo Credit: The Shore of Lake Superior 2009, photographer – Jnana Hand

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
– Black Elk (1863-1950)

“We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will – and determination – to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

“Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.”
– Hafsat Abiola 

“There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.”
– Kofi Annan 

“Time itself becomes subordinate to war. If only we could celebrate peace as our various ancestors celebrated war; if only we could glorify peace as those before us, thirsting for adventure, glorified war; if only our sages and scholars together could resolve to infuse peace with the same energy and inspiration that others have put into war.

“Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war?

“Every nation has its prestigious military academies – or so few of them – that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war…”

– Elie Wiesel

 

Source for quotes: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Copyright Notice: © Carol A. Hand and carolahand, 2013-2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Carol A. Hand and carolahand with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

41 thoughts on “Some Thoughts about Peace –”

  1. Beautiful quotes. I love the first one, the allowance for a deep sense of connectedness, both to ourselves, and to the earth! The deep sense of soul which comes with this, and the sense of belonging (I think) takes us deeper into a sense of depth, life and quality, and into the ability to shape new understandings.

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  3. Beautiful quotes….I agree above:-) Thank you for sharing I enjoyed reading all of these today…I just returned from a “peaceful” ride on the river + being one with nature is where I find peace…“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
    – Black Elk (1863-1950)…..oh too beautiful….our relationship with nature just nurtures that “oneness wiht the universe”…..I sometimes just go outside and unplug and find that peace and oneness….

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  7. Reblogged this on Lead Our Lives and commented:
    THIS post is a lovely reminder of Who We Are, what we have the capacity to be and the human imperative we have to remember who we are (as spiritual beings) and in so doing offer love to all living beings.

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  9. My contribution to Peace today was to invest in a little apparatus that makes hundreds of bubbles when you pull the trigger. Already it has brought smiles to many many faces…including people that I have never met (and me as well). If each person could do just one thing per day to make someone smile it would make a difference. Thank You Carol for your gentle reminder of how life should/could be.

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  10. When great trees fall,
    rocks on distant hills shudder,
    lions hunker down
    in tall grasses,
    and even elephants
    lumber after safety.

    When great trees fall
    in forests,
    small things recoil into silence,
    their senses
    eroded beyond fear.

    When great souls die,
    the air around us becomes
    light, rare, sterile.
    We breathe, briefly.
    Our eyes, briefly,
    see with
    a hurtful clarity.
    Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
    examines,
    gnaws on kind words
    unsaid,
    promised walks
    never taken.

    Great souls die and
    our reality, bound to
    them, takes leave of us.
    Our souls,
    dependent upon their
    nurture,
    now shrink, wizened.
    Our minds, formed
    and informed by their
    radiance,
    fall away.
    We are not so much maddened
    as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
    of dark, cold
    caves.

    And when great souls die,
    after a period peace blooms,
    slowly and always
    irregularly. Spaces fill
    with a kind of
    soothing electric vibration.
    Our senses, restored, never
    to be the same, whisper to us.
    They existed. They existed.
    We can be. Be and be
    better. For they existed.

    -Maya Angelou

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  12. Great quotes especially the first one by Black Elk! I love a good quote has a kind of calming effect, Thanks

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    1. Thank you, mjh! It’s one of my favorite quotes, too, and Black Elk Speaks (J. G. Neihardt, 1959) is one of my favorite books. His words about peace are particularly poignant given his life experiences and what he witnessed at Wounded Knee as a child in 1890. “When I look back now from this hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloodly mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.” (p. 230).

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  14. Thank you, Carol for sharing these wondrous words of peace, may they fuel their ambition.

    I believe, while there are those of us who struggle for universal peace, you, I, and others, and I say universal because there is a difference—now I do not mean to be the force of war and anti-peace, nor its messenger—but there was never a time of universal peace in the history of Homo sapiens and their sapiens, nor shall we know universal peace until we shift the paradigm (if that’s even possible) to compassion, a compassion that excludes no sentient life. Until we stop spilling all blood-of-life, we will accept the ways of war. The ways of war are all violence, all threats of violence to all creatures desiring life of peace. The way of blood is the way of our own selfish and petty desires and that gives credence to war.

    Carol, I’m sorry for rambling, I do appreciate you and your efforts, I know you as one on the side of Light.

    Peace, strength, and courage.

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    1. Peter, thank you for speaking so eloquently about the need to live in peace with all our relations. It is true that this dream has ever eluded humanity as a whole, but it’s what gives me hope for the future, as does your work. Peace, strength, and courage to you as well.

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  15. ““The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people…” I love this, Carol. Finding acceptance and peace within the walls of our own skin will be a good start at making a difference in the world. Thank you for a beautiful post ❤

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    1. Thank you for such a lovely comment, Mandy. “Finding acceptance and peace within the walls of our own skin” is something you address in your inspirational work on healing 🙂

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  16. As Eric Jensen writes in Endgame, the principal cause of most wars is to resources from groups and/or communities who refuse to to give them up voluntarily. The main cause of America’s genocidal wars against Native Americans was their refusal to give up their land and natural resources voluntarily.

    As far as I see, can corporate oligarchs have even more power now that they did when they wiped out most of America’s Native Americans.

    Thus the only solution I see for ending war is removing these assholes from power.

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    1. I agree – the question is how to do this. I am encouraged by the example of communities that have been taking stands that preserve their sovereignty – Ukrainian women who have been blockading their communities to prevent their sons from being conscripted into the military, communities that ban fracking or legislate GMO labeling. Of course, it has always been the barbarians at the gates who demand not only the resources of communities (including land), but also a population of slaves to do all the work.

      I wonder – is New Zealand is any better than the EU or US?

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  17. With all of humankind’s experience of war we are seemingly even more prepared to continue its horrors. I have never been so bereft of hope – or so angry to watch the extremes of deceipt to which our belligerent leaders will go and our population follow. There are no white hats in this cowboy movie. Yet there is no choice but to cling to hope’s faintly beating breast. As Cervantes said, “Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
    Hold on to your vision, Carola.

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