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I drove through a storm today. The wind howled and rocked my car. The rain blew sideways and the thunder make me shake. It sounded like bombs above the trees, above my head, as I made my way into my nice cozy house. I had nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. The words were already raging in my head, running through my veins 'til I literally had to step up the pace putting the groceries away as fast as I could so that I could sit with you and write. I didn't want to lose the words.... because storms do that to me. They wake me up and stir up things I need to say. They talk to the muse and the muse talks to me. Today we want to talk about what it means to be free. Because I am free I can talk about it you see.....and if you are free, so can you. Sometimes I look at my world and I wonder why it was made. There are moments when the skies drop bombs, poison, bullets. Neighborhoods shake. Not just "over there" but in many cities and corners of the world. Children run, families flee. There is nowhere to hide. We live in this reality today.
But that is not the world I want.
I took my grandfather's marble from the bowl and poured a cup of coffee in a cup that sometimes brings out the guilt in me because I know that I am blessed to have a cup of coffee. I thought about how it came to be that I am still so moved by one little blue marble he left so long ago, and what it means to many of you. I wondered what he would say about our world today and that we are still blogging for peace after all this time. I felt his wisdom and his love. On days like today when I'm running through rainstorms and listening to God, I realize that I need not long to hear Papa's voice even though I miss him terribly. He is already here. He is here because I feel his love. And that love is constant. There is nothing more powerful than that. What kind of world do I want? I want to live in a world ruled by love. Don't you?
I blog for peace because I need to live in safety
I blog for peace because I want everyone to live in safety
I blog for peace because I am weary of war, tired of tyrants
I am tired of empty words and generations bought with the blood of the generation before them
where young men and women fight invisible enemies and no one understands why the trees are laced with thunder instead of leaves
so they fight to keep peace
I blog for peace
because peace is worth my time
because a little girl with long dark locks in a faraway land needs hope
her mother needs a home to raise her children and cook loaves of bread
her father needs to sleep and pick her up in his arms without first laying down the weapon in his hands
her brothers need to play in fields where danger does not grow under every spot of grass
where fields are plowed for what fields are made for and little boys grow up believing they, too, will plant their own dreams in freedom's field
instead of prisoners in armies and lands where the worth of a human means nothing more than what can be earned by its killing
I want a world where religions and doctrines are not bent into violent justificationswhere those who preach hate and intolerance will take a cold, hard look from whence it came, at what Gospel they are warming up to, whose God they bow to, whose Jesus they serve
What do I want my world to look like?
I want to live in a world void of nuclear weapons
I want to live in a world built on trust and the sanctity of human life
I want the homeless in my own country to have plenty of food and a place to lay their head at night
where children don't have to sleep in shelters with strangers
and nobody freezes to death
or starves
because, oh yes, it happens everyday all the time whether we want to look at it or not. Is there freedom in that? Are you proud of your country, your world, now?
What kind of world do I want?
I want families to be able to sit out on the porch at night without fear of stray bullets
I want people to stop hating each other just because they look different or love outside the box of norms
I want a world where all children get an education if they want one, regardless of gender or status
I want a world where my cup of coffee is the norm and the world is full of plenty of safe food and water
where human beings begin to understand that if we are to survive without blowing each other up, we have to lift each other up instead
What kind of world do YOU want?
The point is...enough is enough. Ask yourself: what state of affairs is worth advocating? What is important to you? Do any of my wants and dreams strike a chord with you? I don't blog for peace because I am naive. I blog for peace because I am aware. How much more human suffering can one planet withstand? And it's not just "over there"...it's here. It's in your backyard and mine. Violence. Just waiting to sprout destruction. It's growing like weeds in our world and it has to stop. We have to stop picking up weapons to solve problems. We have to stop picking up guns to make statements. Violence has to stop defining us as a human race. It has to stop becoming who we are as a people. Advocating for peace is about lifting the human spirit to a better place, not about empty phrases from aging hippies and wannabe social activists hiding behind keyboards.
It's about taking food to a food pantry, sending aid to the displaced, mending the suffering of humans instead of minding their business, choosing a charity to serve, using your best gifts to heal those around you and refusing to see any problem too big to solve. It's about a thing called hope and action. Without it, we have absolutely no chance.
I want my words and my life to count.
So I am blogging for peace on November 4th along with some 20,000 (and counting) Earthlings from six continents and 182 countries (and counting) who will also ask those around them to stop for one day and contemplate the possibility, the honor, the awesome dream, of living in a world without war, without hate, without violence. Oh, but Mimi, you can't have everything. That will never happen. You can't change people because people are people and some are evil and it's just too big a problem to fight.
Don't you hear the whispers?
Maybe it won't happen. Maybe it will. But I'm not going quietly.
if enough of us say it
if enough of us believe it
if enough of us cultivate it
if enough of us work for it
peace will come
in its own way, in your life, in mine, ripple by ripple by ripple
because it's not just made of change
It's made of freedom. It's made of human dignity. It's rooted in the ways of compassion.
Change? Political change?! Peace talks? Change? How about this:
I'll change me.
Today
and tomorrow
and the next day
I know what kind of world I want.I want my children and this generation to love and embrace freedom.
I demand their freedom
I speak for their future
I have my words
I have my pen
and I softly quietly in the most thunderous voice I have in my being
demand they be given the chance to walk in a world of freedom
because it is the only world worth living in
Don't tell me love can't change the world.
It is the only thing that ever has or ever will.
I'm going to go here and find a blank sheet of Internet blog paper known as a peace globe template.
I'm going to make sure my neighbor hears "Dona nobis pacem" loud and clear everyday and on November 4th. I'm going to think about my own life and how I want to live it. I want to make sure that on the inside of me there is no malice, no vengeance, no revenge, no desire to humiliate or harm friend or foe. No plan to return hate for hate. Then and only then can I go about advocating peace in someone else. I am going to post my thoughts on Nov 4 with all of you and we will celebrate the change it makes in each of us. Because I know it will. And others will join in because you chose to change your thinking.
How do I know?
Because our words are powerful
Not just to the guy across the street or the people in my personal life, but also to the dark-haired little girl across the world who seems to be on my mind today. I see her running through a world that must stop blowing each other up. Maybe she can stop running then.
Once upon a time there was a peace blogger from India. It was the very first year of the Peace Globe movement and I sent out a call to a handful of far-friends known as bloggers. Call it naivete. Call it hope. I asked for all bloggers everywhere to ask for peace just one day and to sign their name.
"Yo Mims. This is a bit like digging a tunnel to China armed with a plastic spoon.....Ergo, I sign up," said Prometheus the enigmatic peace blogger. And it was. Until we gathered hundreds...then thousands..of spoons.
Join us
Nov 4
I blog for peace
Join us for BlogBlast For Peace Nov 4, 2013
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