Q-BLOG #19 Frieden/Pax/Paz/Peace

Many of you may remember the TV series The Pretender. The main character, Jarod, is on a mission to find out who he really is. He was taken, we are led to believe, from his parents at an early age because he had a special gift. His gift is that he can get into the frame of mind of another person and be that person…do what they do. So he escapes from The Institute and is off looking for his identity; his parents. In his search, he becomes various people of various professions and helps to correct injustices he finds. Always, regardless of who he pretends to be,at the very foundation of everything he does, he is himself. Yet, he does not see this. His search is outside himself. He looks for peace, but he is too afraid to look within, because even he is afraid of what evil he may find. He can pretend to be everything and everyone else in the world, but he cannot find the courage to “pretend” himself. He goes on looking outside of himself, hoping to find someone (his parents) that can reflect what he is too afraid to look for or at within…

Peace: Inner contentment, serenity; the absence of mental stress or anxieties


Peace and Justice are something each of us wants in our lives. We pray for peace in the world, in our communities, in our churches and work places. We sometimes pray for peace in our lives, and peace in ourselves. Yet, peace seems to elude our world, our communities, our work places and churches, and yes, even our lives.
I wonder in prayer and in thought why, if so many people are praying and seeking peace, is there no peace, or very little of it? And then I thought of water and how it reacts to different stimulus as introduced in the movie, What the Bleep Do We Know!?. How much water we are and how the stimulus in our world effects us. How many times a day are we introduced to negativity? How many times a day do we have emotions or words introduced to us like, love and peace? How many positive thoughts are thrown in our path? How many negative thoughts do we encounter daily? The answer is clear. It is clear in our lives. In our churches. In the places we work. In our communities. In our world. We are bombarded with negative thoughts or things that create negative thoughts.

Peace: An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities
Freedom from quarrels and disagreements; harmonious relations
Public security and order


I was taught that charity begins at home. So does peace. But there seems to be little time for either these days. There seems to be little time for home. We have become so busy obtaining so much in our material world that we do not see the peace we are neglecting. We can keep pretending that what we do does not affect how other people live. We can keep pretending that peace is ours as long as we have our big cars, our big homes and our things. We can keep pretending almost everything, but can we “pretend” to be, to discover who we really are?

My friend Catherine was in Baghdad Saturday. She shared a story with me about being in the convention center and as she was walking up these stairs, she saw a little boy. She loves children and she became very excited, because here at Camp Liberty, you do not see children. They are missing. Her excitement caused the boy to give her a hug. When the hug ended and a small conversation ensued, the boy pulled up his pant leg to reveal a prosthesis. At 11 years old, war has affected this child. This war. How has it affected those of us in the western world? Does anyone understand what is going on if they do not know someone here to even want to understand? This reminds me of one of the first blogs I wrote. It was a conversation with someone I met at the gym. His comment was about why America was so willing to go to war. Here is an excerpt from that Blog:

“You in America want to do the right thing, and you believe that war is the right thing. Yet, you have not experienced a war on your soil since the Civil War. You do not have the memory of war that we in Europe have, and so war is a viable option in the US. My grandmother lived through WWII. She was in Paris when the German tanks came rumbling in. She witnessed children and women and men being shot and crumbled under the tracks of tanks and other machines of war. She knew what war was and remembers it still. People lost their homes, their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, and often times witnessed these deaths. America has only seen this on television. It appears like a game. There is no consequence other than maybe your gas prices will go up. But other than those you send to war, America has not suffered war.”

I wonder how that 11 year old boy feels about war. Or the families here that have seen war take their friends, their families. Or the American, Italian, Polish, British, Spanish, Ukranian and Bulgarian families of those who have died here feel about war. To date we have lost 1763 American soldiers. Over 15,000 Iraqi civilians have died, and they believe this number to be low. How are other Americans, who do not know someone here, affected? Is anyone else really affected by this war?

We are like Jarod, searching for a peace outside of ourselves and our country. We are too afraid to look within our own borders and our own hearts. Like Jarod, we fear what evil we may find we have contributed to and do not want to face it. Yet facing it may be our only way to peace.

Peace. Where can we find it?

Here is something I wrote not too long ago. It defined for me the beginning of a look within myself and taking responsibility for my own actions and my own happiness. Discovering my own reality in a world filled with illusions. Discovering my own peace.

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Untitled.

When I was younger
I don’t think I loved me….you see,
Because I tried to be everyone else but me.

I tried to work harder…
cry harder…
play harder…

I thought I was an apple tree…
Or a pear tree.
Or some other kind of tree…

But not my own kind of tree…
A Pine tree!

But I didn’t know any Pine trees.
So I tried to be something other
than ME.

When I was older,
I still didn’t love me.

I thought I discovered the tree in me,
But it was just another thing
I thought I should be.

The Student Body Tree.
The Speech President Tree.
Even the football, basketball and swimming tree.

But they were just covering my
Pine needles and pine cones
And keeping me from experiencing
My true, big, real Pine Cone ME!

…and my child years
…and my teen years
Were now beyond me. Behind me…

…and I don’t think I loved me.

You see, I found out what people
Thought of my kind of tree.
“soiled and bad-
Sinful and sad.

Nasty, disgusting, and well, just all around bad!”

It is no wonder I’ve been not wanting to
Find my real Pine Cone me.

I prayed to God,
“oh how could it be that something like ME
Could be meant to be?”

“Am I evil, dirty, sinful and bad? Am I this down
To the core, living in the gutter, dirty rotten tree…?
is that really me?”

…and I heard nothing…
And so I hated me too.

I didn’t love me.
Not one needle, not one cone,
Not one pine nut…
that was from my ugly pine cone tree.

I acted out what I was…
What people said I was…
…and how I now felt—

What I BELIEVED to be the me
I truly was.

I found myself trying to be
What they said was me.

How could I live after this thing, this me
They said I was?...
This me I was destined to be?

But my soul was sad.
My heart grew MAD!

And something inside me knew,
THIS COULD NOT BE!

It could not be the me that
Everyone claimed me and my type to be!

But, I still didn’t love me.
And I became an angry me, not knowing me.

Time went on and my anger slowed…
I grew up and began to see…
…that there was a truly different me.

And I started to face my true destiny.

Yet, People yelled back,
“You aren’t a minority!”
“You don’t deserve equality or the full rights of society!”
“Your relationships are weak and sinful and bad!”
“You can’t expect to be the same as a REAL mom and dad!”

Ahhhhh, yes I CAN, because I have found the REAL, TRUE ME!
And I am NONE of the things you claim me to be!

I’m a beautiful, wonderful now growing PINE CONE TREE!
…and I am finally beginning to Love and Embrace me…

Because I am seeking and finding the true me,
Not in the world, not in what others say or think about me,
…but in ME!

IN ME!

MY SPIRIT. MY SOUL. MY DIVINITY.


I wish you blessings.
I pray that you choose love over fear.
Most of all, I hope you seek, find and love the true You.
Peace. Robert