Home|  Who we are   | What we believe | events and activities | slideshows | contact information |special events

This page is dedicated to words and works of and about Peace. It will include resources provided by Fields of Peace, a newly formed network of faith communities--Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Native American, Taoist, and others.

Fields of Peace may be contacted at fieldsofpeacepv@charter.net

Fields of Peace may be found on the web at www.fieldsofpeacepv.org

What follows is from a handout called "Wisdom in 3s"

Rest. Be Kind. You don't have to prove anything--Jack Keroac

Instructions for living life:

Pay attention. Be Astonished. Tell about it.

Mary Oliver (from "Red Bird"

I have three treasures:

The first is called compassion; the second is called thrift; the third is called not presuming to be above nature.

Tao Te Ching #67 (Sam Hamill translation)

 

There are three things that are important in human life.

The first is be kind. The second is be kind. The third is be kind.--Henry James

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God.--Micha 6:8

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Zen Buddhist monk, Vietnamese refugee, and world-renowned peacemaker. In France, he founded a monastic community called Plum Village. At the entrance, there is a sign which does not gove the name of the village or indicate its location. Insteadm the printed sign says (in French):

"Go slowly, breathe, and smile."

Fields of Peace asks this question of us: What three words or instructions would you place at the entrance to your village of peace?

The following is from sources other than Fields of Peace.

A.J. Muste once wrote,

"There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way."

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said:

"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal."

The following is from a radio interview with Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi

http://www.goodradioshows.org/peaceTalksL38.html

 

Boss is conducting the interview:

 

ARUN GANDHI: I think the most vivid memory I have of living, as a young boy, with him was his lesson in anger management. I was a very angry, young man when I was growing up in South Africa. I became a victim of prejudices, was beaten up by whites, and then by Blacks, because both did not like the color of my skin. It filled me with a lot of rage. I wanted, "eye-for-an-eye" justice. That is when my parents took me to him in India. I had the opportunity to live with Grandfather.

The first lesson he taught me was to understand that anger, and being able to channel that anger into positive action. He said that anger is like electricity. It is just as useful and just as powerful, if we use it intelligently. It can be just as deadly and destructive, if we abuse it. Just as we channel electricity, bring it into our lives and use it for the good of Humanity, we must learn to channel anger in the same way. We can use that energy for the good of Humanity, rather than abuse it. He taught me how to channel anger, how to write an anger journal - with the intention of finding a solution. I did this for many years. It helped me considerably in understanding and channeling the energy into positive action.

BOSS: How old were you, when you got to live with him?

GANDHI: I was twelve, when I went to him and I lived there for about eighteen months.

BOSS: I've been told the story - I haven't heard you tell it, and I'm sure you've told it many times - about you, doing your lessons and tossing the pencil away. Could you share that with listeners?

GANDHI: Yes! I think that story really brought to me the profundity of his philosophy of nonviolence. Until then, I had a limited understanding of nonviolence - as we all have, today - and that is "nonviolence" being the opposite of "violence." Our concept of violence is the physical use of violence: fighting, killing, murders, rapes and all that.

This incident happened when I was coming back from school. I had a little pencil in my hand and I threw that pencil away because I thought it was too small for me to use.

That evening, when I asked him for a new pencil, instead of giving me one, he subjected me to a lot of questions. He wanted to know how the pencil became small. Where did I throw it away: that sort of thing. I could not understand why he was making such a fuss over a little pencil - until he told me to go out and look for it.

I said, "You must be joking! You don't expect me to look for a little pencil in the dark!"

He said, "Oh, yes, I do. Here is a flashlight. Take this and go out. Look for the pencil."

I must have spent about two hours, searching for it.
When I finally found it and brought it to him, he said, "Now, I want you to sit here and learn two, very important lessons. The first lesson is that - even in the making of a simple thing like a pencil - we use a lot of the world's natural resources. When we throw them away, we are throwing away the world's natural resources. That is violence against Nature.

The second lesson is that, in an affluent society, we can afford to buy all these things in bulk. We over consume the resources of the world. Because we over consume them, we are depriving people elsewhere of these resources and they have to live in poverty. That is violence against Humanity."
That was the first time I realized that all these little things that we do, every day, consciously and unconsciously, are all acts of violence: either violence against Nature, or violence against other human beings.

Then, to drive home this message, he made me draw a family tree of violence -- on the same principles as a genealogical tree -- with Violence as the grandparent with two off springs: Physical Violence and Passive Violence. Every day, before I went to bed, I had to examine everything that happened during the day, analyze it and put it in its appropriate places on that tree. If it were the kind of violence where physical force was used, it would go under Physical Violence. If it was the kind of violence where no force is used, and yet I have been able to hurt people, then it would go under Passive Violence.

When I began to do this, within a few months I filled up a whole wall in my room with acts of passive violence. That is when I realized how much passive violence we commit.

Then, Grandfather explained to me the connection between the two.

He said, "We commit acts of passive violence all the time, every day, consciously and unconsciously. That generates anger in the victim. The victim, then, resorts to physical violence to get justice." Passive violence fuels the fires of physical violence.

So, logically, if we want to put out the fire of physical violence, we have to cut off the fuel supply. Since the fuel supply comes from each one of us, we have to become the change we wish to see in the world.

 

I would ask us to consider what would we put on our tree of violence?

 

The following are prayers for peace from many different tradtions: I cannot cite the sources. They were found on the internet under a search for prayers for peace: My best recollection is that they were found at

http://www.angelfire.com/md/elanmichaels/christianpeace.html

Native American Prayer for Peace

O Great Spirit of our
Ancestors, I raise
my pipe to you.
To your messengers the four winds, and
to Mother Earth who provides
for your children.
Give us the wisdom to teach our children
to love, to respect, and to be kind to each
other so that they may grow
with peace in mind.
Let us learn to share all good things that
you provide for us on this Earth.

Buddhist Prayer for Peace

May all beings everywhere plagued
with sufferings of body and mind
quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid,
and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending
one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wilderness--
the children, the aged, the unprotected--
be guarded by beneficent celestials,
and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood.

Bahai' Prayer for Peace

Be generous in prosperity,
and thankful in adversity.
Be fair in thy judgement,
and guarded in thy speech.
Be a lamp unto those who walk
in darkness, and a home
to the stranger.
Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light
unto the feet of the erring.
Be a breath of life to the body of
humankind, a dew to the soil of
the human heart,
and a fruit upon the tree of humility

Sikh Prayer for Peace

God adjudges us according
to our deeds,
not the coat that we wear:
that truth is above everything,
but higher still is truthful living.
Know that we attaineth God when we loveth,
and only that victory
endures in consequences of which no
one is defeated.

Native African Prayer for Peace

Almighty God, the Great
Thumb we cannot evade to
tie any knot;
the Roaring Thunder that splits
mighty trees:
the all-seeing Lord up on high who sees
even the footprints of an antelope on a
rock mass here on Earth.
You are the one who does
not hesitate to respond to our call.
You are the cornerstone of peace.

Hindu Prayer for Peace

Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.
Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.
Oh God, lead us from death to immortality.
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.
Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in
celestial regions.
May there be peace on earth. May the waters be appeasing.
May herbs be wholesome, and may trees and plants bring peace to all.
May all beneficent beings bring peace to us.
May thy Vedic Law propagate peace all through the world.
May all things be a source of peace to us.
And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all,
and may that peace come to me also.

Jewish Prayer for Peace

Come let us go up the mountain of
the Lord, that we may walk the
paths of the Most High.
And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares,
and our spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation--
neither shall they learn war any more.
And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the
Lord of Hosts has spoken.

Muslim Prayer for Peace

In the name of Allah,
the beneficent, the merciful.
Praise be to the Lord of the
Universe who has created us and
made us into tribes and nations,
That we may know each other, not that
we may despise each other.
If the enemy incline towards peace, do
thou also incline towards peace, and
trust God, for the Lord is the one that
heareth and knoweth all things.
And the servants of God,
Most Gracious are those who walk on
the Earth in humility, and when we
address them, we say "PEACE."

Christian Prayer for Peace

Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS,
for they shall be known as the Children of God.
But I say to you that hear, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you.
To those who strike you on the cheek, offer the other also,
and from those who take away your cloak,
do not withhold your coat as well.
Give to everyone who begs from you,
and of those who take away your goods,
do not ask them again.
And as you wish that others would do to you,
so do to them.

Shinto Prayer for Peace

Although the people living
across the ocean
surrounding us, I believe,
are all our brothers and sisters,
why are there constant troubles in
this world?
Why do winds and waves rise in the
ocean surrounding us?
I only earnestly wish that the wind will
soon puff away all the clouds which are
hanging over the tops of the mountains

Jainist Prayer for Peace

Peace and Universal Love is the essence
of the Gospel preached by all the Enlightened Ones.
The Lord has preached that equanimity is the Dharma.
Forgive do I creatures all, and let all creatures forgive me.
Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity.
Know that violence is the root cause of
all miseries in the world.
Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage.
" Do not injure any living being."
This is the eternal, perennial, and unalterable
way of spiritual life.
A weapon howsoever powerful it may be,
can always be superseded by a superior one;
but no weapon can, however,
be superior to non-violence and love.

Zoroastrian Prayer for Peace

We pray to God to eradicate all the
misery in the world:
that understanding triumph
over ignorance,
that generosity triumph over indifference,
that trust triumph over contempt, and
that truth triumph over falsehood