I am using a homemade bookmark in one of the books I am reading (Daring Greatly by Brene Brown.) The bookmark has a photo of a church peace pole. That particular one was part of a series I photographed and printed in Utah as a fund raiser for a church many years ago.
When I was looking for a photo to use for this blog, I had that bookmark, and peace poles in general on my mind. The below photo jumped out at me. It was taken on Maui, Hawaii recording one of the memories around 2015 of my six years in Hawaii. One of the things I love about the Hawaiian culture is it is very peace oriented.
Peace is my favorite part of humanity. It is not hard to compare times of war and times of peace and see one is vastly better than the other.
I am well into the Daring Greatly book. She provides many reminders about the innate indwelling shame and other inner critics that all of us individually carry and how they limit us. This book resembles so many I have read in my twenties and thirties. They all had one central theme: Know thyself. Feel your feelings, know your tendencies. Heal. Then you can live from authenticity and contribute to the wider world.
I often see the peace poles at the churches and organizations where I am doing the spiritual work such as this book encourages. I attempt to live my life as one of those people dwelling in peace, dwelling among peaceful people, and engaging in introspection.
If you think from power centers down, war can seem necessary because intelligent people say true-sounding things to justify it. When you see life from the kids up (the most vulnerable,) you see war and peace issues differently.
My prayer is that one day, war is rare if not abolished completely.
My prayer is that one day, every child be safe from all their fellow humans.
My prayer is that humans evolve to prioritize health and wellness at all level, emotional, physical and spiritual.
Violence would still exist because humans human, but to mass numbers of healed people, it would seem like a very bad idea. Violence would be the exception, not the norm, and violent minded people would not as easily rise to positions of power.
What a phenomenal world this would be.