We hear stories of peacemakers who draw from their lives and traditions as a basis for breaking down barriers and promoting conflict resolution. An Episcopal priest Charles Gibbs, now in the Washington, DC area, has dedicated his life to peace-building endeavors, including a global interfaith organization. His early awareness of the need to establish connections developed through lessons he learned growing up with an intellectually-challenged brother.
Rev. Kristin Stoneking, tells the story of growing up in a Methodist Mennonite congregation, a “peace church”. Her father was a pastor in Kansas City. The family practiced three dimensions of Gandhian nonviolence: personal transformation, spiritual transformation and social action. Today Kristin is Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith pacifist organization founded just prior to WW1, which popularized the adage: “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”
Quaker author Eileen Flanagan, attends another peace church, a Quaker congregation in Philadelphia, a city with a well-established heritage of Quakerism dating back to colonial times. The idea that “there is that of God in every person” is a guiding principle, that can make reconciliation of differences more practical.
Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, California, says that all religions and all people are engaged in an internal struggle of worldviews — between a life of fear (and a perceived need to dominate others) and one based on love, which leads to caring for others. He draws upon deep study — in addition to being an ordained clergyman, Michael earned doctorates in philosophy and in psychology.
M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, the late Sufi sage, led a remarkable life based on humanity and service. And he taught a perspective on Islam that may surprise people who are accustomed only to the most menacing stereotypes of Muslims. Bawa explained that, at its essence, Islam is nonviolent and that in perceiving others as “enemies,” we are really projecting onto them our own hateful thoughts. The solution is to think deeply and chase away our own tendency to hatred.
Comentarios