A Time for Peace

This month I am encouraging us to notice the cycles of the moon. In symbol and myth the moon is considered sort of a foil for the sun. Where Sun is energetic, fiery, the moon is cool, reflective, receptive. We live in a culture that is very solar, which values work and business and productivity and growing and speed and fire. We are not encouraged to pay attention to and value and notice the attributes and qualities which become visible after the sun has set. The moon is a symbol for, not the absence of the sun, but the special quiet qualities that are hard to notice in the sun’s bright daytime light.

Because of the war in Ukraine, I want to talk specifically about peace. I believe peace is not simply a cease fire, an absence of hostilities, but its own quality and way of being that must be practiced and cultivated.

Unitarians and especially Universalists have a long history of working for peace, I was talking with Maggie Sheffler about the 4 years they stood out on the town square protesting the war in Iraq – every Wednesday. Our Athens congregation was strongly represented- making a statement with their presence.

At that time when we were getting ready to invade Iraq, many members of the UU church I was serving in Palo Alto, and my co minister Kurt Kuhwald, were very involved in the anti-war movement. One Sunday as we were on the brink of war we even canceled one of our 2 Sunday morning services, so that members could board a bus to the huge protest in San Francisco. I followed in my car with my little Nick, then not yet 2 years old. Tens of thousands of people marched in the streets, and I was lucky to find a contingent of UUs, because poor Nick was overwhelmed by the noise and energy of the march. At the closing rally, many speakers took the stage, and I was surprised at the anger and hatred that was shouted over the assembled crowd. It occurred to me that “anti-war” was different than “pro peace.”

Back in the church office on Monday I talked to our administrator Barbara about the march, noticing this paradox, and the impact of the event on little Nick. Her husband, Paul George, was then director of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, and she mentioned that his marches were generally more “pro-peace” and encouraged me to join those instead. I began attending the peace center marches, which had hundreds not thousands of people in attendance, and the tone was indeed different. Joan Baez often sang, there were prayers for peace, and one afternoon I found another parent set up on a blanket with a sign that said “stories for peace”- she had a collection of books teaching the values and skills of peace to young children. The difference between the 2 marches was stark- there are spaces needed for us to cry out in anger against a war, against our elected leaders, but this little oasis the parent had created where children could be children, could learn the skills of peace, this was different, this was cultivating peace. Perhaps that is one definition of peace, a space where a child, or any person, could loosen their guard enough to feel safe and learn. We know in fact that our nervous systems need spaces where we feel safe for us to heal and grow. Life needs such spaces.

In Seminary I had been introduced to the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, whose writing helped me see the difference between “anti war” and “being peace.” He was a young monk in Vietnam when our war was raging there. His beautiful writings tell of the horrific and tragic things he saw, the friends he lost, but also his profound and enduring commitment to peace, the kind that he had cultivated through his Buddhist meditation practice. Naht Hanh tells us that begins in our own hearts- if we are tending to our own peace, and noticing and working with those things which disturb our peace, like grief, anger, disappointment, pain, it increases the odds we can respond non-reactively when hard things happen in our lives. Hanh writes “Imagine a boat full of people crossing the ocean. The boat is caught in a storm. If anyone panics and acts rashly they will endanger the boat. But if there’s even one person who is calm, this person can inspire calm in others.” [“How To Sit” p. 15]

Nhat Hanh was not content to stay cloistered in the monastery, but was an outspoken and tireless activist not only against the war that ravaged his beloved country, but he spoke for peace, His life was a beautiful illustration of how direct action and contemplation can be woven together.
He writes in his book “Being Piece”

“In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration and misunderstanding. The Peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter. We need to learn to write a letter to the Congress or the President of the US that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way you speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language you use should not turn people off. The president is a person like any of us.

Can the peace movement talk in living speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can be peace. Because without peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement.” [p. 79-80]

Can you imagine that in our own context right now, imagine writing a letter of love to someone with an opposing point of view in the congress right now… It’s easy to dismiss such thinking as idealistic, but Thich Nhat Hanh saw the realities of civil war up close, and still he believed in the power of what he called “Being Peace.”

Despite his courage and integrity, he and other pacifists were often misunderstood and persecuted. He writes:

“During the war in Vietnam the young Buddhists organized themselves to help victims of the war rebuild villages that had been destroyed by bombs. Many of us died during service, not only because of the bombs and the bullets but because of the people who suspected us of being on the other side. We were able to understand the suffering of both sides, the communists and the anti-communists. We tried to be open to both, to understand this side and to understand that side, to be one with them. That is why we did not take a side, even though the whole world took sides. We tried to tell people our perception of the situation; that we wanted to stop the fighting, but the bombs were so loud…we wanted reconciliation, we did not want a victory, working to help people in a circumstance like that is very dangerous, and many of us got killed. The communists killed us because they suspected that we were working with the Americans and the anti-communists killed us because they thought that we were with the communists. But we did not want to give up and take one side.” [p. 69-70]

This is often a criticism of people working for peace- that they are disloyal, that they are not doing all they can to help the cause. They have chosen not one side or the other but the side of peace, the side of ending the armed conflict. As you heard in the teacher’s words, this path is not always respected or understood.

As a lifelong pacifist, I have often heard the criticism that it is foolish to face a conflict unarmed, to expose oneself to violence undefended. I have also heard the criticism that pacifism is just a disguise for cowardice. But when I think of great pacifists like Thich Nhat Hanh and the Monks of Vietnam or Martin Luther king and those who peacefully met military aggression in the civil rights movement, I see not naivete but courage and integrity; what courage to arm oneself only with peace, knowing our peaceful actions can be met with violence. These folks can be called foolish, naïve, but to me their principled courage says “violence is a choice, and though I may not be able to end this violence by my choice, I at least have not perpetrated, have not let it spread, even though there is a steep price to be paid.

Now it should be said that cultivating peace has a shadow side- it can lead to quietism unless we are careful. It’s easy to confuse cultivating peace with avoiding conflict. One criticism of liberal white religious folks in the 20th century is that the White churches who had fought for abolition in the 20th century consolidated their work around the peace movement and neglected justice. This was an important criticism by Dr. Martin Luther King, that we sought peace at the cost of working for justice- because certainly working to end hundreds of years of systematic racism is going to make some waves, is going to create conflict. MLK’s life embodied that narrow path of working for justice in nonviolent ways. As MLK wrote in 1965:

“World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew… Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.” [Dreams of Brighter Tomorrows in Ebony Magazine, March 1965]

Dr. King and Nhat Hanh were friends, and in nominating his friend for the Nobel peace prize King wrote in 1967:

“I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of this prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam. He is an Apostle of Peace and Nonviolence. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”

Surely those ideas of peace are needed now more than ever, as our world is caught up in conflict and war.

I encourage you to consider- in what ways do you cultivate peace? How can we be those voices of reason, sanity and understanding amid the voices of violence hatred and emotion”? Not everyone is called to be a Buddhist monk, but … for us- how are we creating peaceful spaces. How can we create pockets where we can sooth our battered nervous systems, where we can heal, process. How and when can we cultivate those energies of peace, quiet and contemplation? I have a friend who notices the bitter arguments on Facebook around, for example, racism. In her heart she is deeply anti racist, but there is a point at which the posts become not an attempt to create a better world for people of color, but loyalty tests- who says the right things the right way, and who can be caught out for using the wrong words. She decided that within her Facebook spaces she would notice where genuine dialogue and learning were possible, and focus there.

I asked my colleagues about Unitarian Universalism and peace, and one minister said “Please try to nuance the difference between UU pacifists (such as Julia Ward Howe, Emily Balch Greene, and others) and those who tried to serve the cause of peace more pragmatically: through diplomacy, the development of international structures, deterrence of aggressors, and military service to keep the peace.” Just because your minister is a pacifist, doesn’t mean all UUs have to be.

We are not all called to follow to live a life like Thich Nhat Hanh; he carved out his own path as only he could. But this weekend of the new moon I offer the invitation to notice and cultivate the lunar aspects of ourselves, and specifically to cultivate peace in our own ways, to create moments and places where healing and growth can happen, and to bring peace to our own hearts. As we navigate these stormy seas, can we aspire to be one person who is calm, in hopes that by being peace we can inspire peace in others