Pacifist Posse

Listening to “What do you know…Not Much” on NPR this day, I heard an interview with the author of a book just out iterating some of the findings of the Unlimited Love Institute.
I am delighted to see actual research going on currently and want to share the website with you:
http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org

You may want to check it out!

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The am icable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Perhaps peace is more an ethic and a spiritual goal we are wanting to progress toward.
Perhaps this is just my view!
When I hear/read Tibet held up as a nation of people living in peace for centuries, I am struck by the need for (some) to idealize something we cherish.
Certainly, as a practicing Bon/Budddhist, peace is something to which I aspire and the principles of non-harming an essential method on the path. However, in reading further about the history and culture of Tibet, I find the following:
….caution to those traveling the vast central plains of Tibet as it is inhabited by the Khampas who are renowned for their capture/kidnapping/murder and thefts of unsuspecting travelers.
….a feudal system of jurisprudence in which punishments are meted out according to laws requiring for instance, loss of a hand if one steals, (seems violent to me), and other more gory punishments described in The Golden Letters.
….wars with the Chinese at different periods in history.
I think it would be more realistic to recognize that we pursue something desirable and attainable but not already existing anywhere other than in an awakened heart.
Let it begin with me…

From Badger, who often has things to say about peace:

http://badgerbag.typepad.com/badgerbag/2007/01/online_petition.html