We talk about peace today, on Mother’s day, because the first Mother’s Day Observance was the brainchild of Unitarian activist Julia Ward Howe.[i] Mother of 5 children, poet, and activist on many topics from safe hygiene for soldiers in the Civil war, to women’s suffrage and the right of women to hold public office, to the abolition of slavery. Howe also longed for peace. In 1872 “after the Franco-Prussian War, Howe began to think of a global appeal to women. “While the war was still in progress,” she wrote, she keenly felt the “cruel and unnecessary character of the contest.” She believed, … that it could have been settled without bloodshed. And, she wondered, “Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?”[ii]”
So today, in honor of Mother’s Day, at a time when our own country has entered yet another war, we talk about peace.
In the Buddhist Sutra, the Dhammapada, verse 5, The Buddha says “Hatred never ends with hatred. By love alone does it end. This is an ancient truth”
Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal says “the Buddha first spoke this poem to his own quarreling disciples. His monastic community had fractured over a minor rule violation. The sangha, meant to embody peace and harmony, had become a verbal battleground offering his poem of peace”… “Hatred never ends with hatred. By love alone does it end. This is an ancient truth”
This teaching of the Buddha has inspired many brave folks over the years to respond to violence with peace. It inspired the famous words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hatred multiplies hate, violence multiples violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” [iii]
Fronsdal says of King: “This is not naïve optimism, It’s hard-won wisdom. Love, as the Buddha teaches it, is not sentimental or weak. Those who love wisely see clearly by knowing the full humanity of others, including both good and bad. Love heals division by viewing others as kin. any conflicts dissolve in the presence of such love. Those that don’t are transformed from battles to be won into problems to be resolved. Without love, friends, and understanding, divisions persist as seedbeds for future conflict. But with love, not only can hate end – the very ground from which it springs disappears.”
No, King was not naïve. He saw the hatred of those ranged against him, he spent time in the jails. He fought alongside thousands of others for many hard years for the rights that eventually were won (and some overturned last week)
He rigorously lived out this ideal of a non-violent resistance, believing that “"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows." He vigorously opposed the war in Vietnam, the cost of human life, the cost of destruction of a country, the material costs that could have been put towards feeding, housing, educating the most vulnerable among us.[iv]
"It is not enough” he said “ to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it."
I’ve spoken before about the Buddhist teacher, monk, activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who saw horrific things in his home country of Vietnam during the war, It was no “naïve optimism” with which he taught peace all the rest of his life. Having seen war, he believed that teaching peace was critically important. He believed that it would take brave people grounded firmly in their dedication to peace, who would practice peace every day. Being peaceful is not always as easy as it seems. I know that though I am committed to peace, I make mistakes, I get angry or impatient, or someone pushes my buttons and I say something I regret. But I do find that with practice, with intention, I can embody peace a bit more each time.
Perhaps the hardest time to practice peace is when someone confronts us with anger, or when someone is hurtful to us. Both Martin Luther king and Thich Nhat Hanh are beautiful examples of people who practiced living peace even when faced with hatred, violence and division. They did this because they wanted to be part of changing the pattern. There is a story about the monk arriving on stage to speak about peace, and being met with angry hurtful remarks. Witnesses say he held his composure, and peaceful presence, though after leaving the stage, faltered with the fatigue of the effort that had cost him.
The monk could have met anger with anger, would certainly have been justified to do so, but who knows how a harsh response might have rippled out into the minds and bodies of those who first spoke harshly to him, and others present in the audience. [Gil Fronsdal writes] “divisions persist as seedbeds for future conflict. But with love, not only can hate end – the very ground from which it springs disappears”
Yesterday at the church spirituality retreat, I found myself standing under a grove of old conifer trees, many stories tall. The rain was falling in big steady drops, but as soon as I entered the grove, the drops were slowed by the canopies of the trees. The giant trees were, with their steady presence, changing and softening the pattern of the rain. There was a sudden quiet there, and on either side of the path by my feet were these stunning patches of glowing green moss that looked soft enough to sleep on. I noticed all the delicate new life emerging, that spring green that is the color of trees just leafing out, of new life and life renewed. Peace. I considered how long such a place would have to be undisturbed for this richness to be possible. How many hundred years had those trees been left to grow in peace? How many years of fallen conifer needles, and leaf litter to accumulate into that springy rich ground cover? how long for the tiny gentle moss to grow to cover it? Peace makes space where beings can grow to old age, and so provide a stable reliable shelter to the little ones who grow at their feet.
One of the basic human archetypes is the gentle, loving caregiver, often called mother. We know that people of every gender can embody that kind of peaceful nurturing presence. I believe this archetype lives within each of us, even if we didn’t experience it in our own upbringing. So I invite us to imagine this morning summoning up that archetype in yourself.
Imagine being present with someone who needs a gentle, caring space- perhaps you have felt this watching a child of any species, a grandchild, a puppy, a nest of chicks by your house, or perhaps sitting by the bed of a friend who is weak with illness. When I call up that inner nurturer, my heart longs to make a peaceful space for them.
Living beings need peaceful spaces:
Think of the toddler first learning to stand, how precarious their wobbling is as they make the developmental journey onto 2 feet.
Consider a child, or one of any age who is shy to speak, taking the risk to express themselves,
Consider a time when you or a loved one were sick, the kind of space that lends itself to healing
Consider after a long journey, or a challenging experience, that sense of finally coming home to a place where you can rest, where you can restore, where you can integrate what you have experienced.
Consider a construction site, how long it takes for the disturbed ground to begin to heal, for plants to return and in their season to grow and bloom
Living beings need peaceful spaces - they are critical for growing, for rest and renewal, for healing, for integrating our experiences, for blossoming and thriving life.
A peaceful space is not one without conflict. If you have ever spent time with a 2 year old, you know that their growth requires them to say no to everything. Their healthy individuated flourishing that will shape who they are as a grown up depends on some nurturing caregiver receiving that sometimes angry, frustrated NO with compassion and good boundaries.
One of the hardest jobs of parents is to set boundaries in a loving way- for safety and for growth. To set boundaries not with threats of violence, but with clarity and patience. Any parent will tell you that at times this is impossibly hard, but we practice- we try, we miss the mark, we try again.
One of the things I love about my congregations is that sometimes I say the wrong thing, and you are so gentle and considerate when you say “Darcey, I think you forgot the hymn, or the name of a longtime member I’ve worked with for years”
I love that people can say in a congregational meeting “I have a different opinion about that” and we are genuinely ready to hear ideas different from our own with an open mind.
We are not perfect, but I see all of us working hard to make this a beloved community where learning and growing, resting and renewing, healing and caring are possible here.
As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book Being Peace
"If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace."I think this was the power that brought so many people out to see the monk's walk for peace -- people around the world just wanting to be near ,to witness people living peace in this time of conflict and war. People are hungry for peaceful spaces, and it is a worthy ideal that we could create little pockets of peace for each other, and for our community.
Let us practice peace together, for the benefit of all life.
