Seeking peace

SOUL FOOD

About a week ago, I talked to a woman named Karen McCarthy Casey,

who helped the Huntington Beach Church of Religious Science design a

program for an international campaign called A Season of Nonviolence.

She has a keen interest in fostering peace and nonviolence through

clear, honest and articulate communications.

Casey believes that having compassion for one another is essential

to all of us living in peace. And she believes that communication,

when successful, is a path to compassion.

She mentioned a T-shirt slogan she has a special fondness for. It

reads, “You cannot hate someone whose story you know.” For Casey, the

sentiment attests to the role communication plays in compassion.

Not long after talking with Casey, I came across a story written

last year by author Aimee Liu just days after the first anniversary

of Sept. 11, 2001. Liu tells of coming home to find foot-long flags

on 2-foot spikes left by a local Realtor on her lawn. Attached to

each flag was a tag bearing the name of the Realtor and a note,

“Proudly wave your flag on these days.” A list of holidays followed.

The complimentary flag accompanied by this note made Liu, in her

words, irate. It was, she wrote, a clear “case of massive involuntary

flag-waving. Imposed flag- waving. Worse, commercial flag-waving.

Mandatory flag-waving.” It was a warning to “hoist the Stars and

Stripes -- or else.”

Never mind that Liu simply plucked the flag from the pot it was

left in, removed the notice and placed it in another spot, unseen

from the street. She wasn’t arrested or forced to return the flag to

its geranium pot at gunpoint. But Lui went to her keyboard and used

her irritation as a wrapper for a rant about Section 215 of the

Patriot Act. The whole story struck me as hyperbole, an unnecessary

and misleading whine.

Maybe I could introduce Liu to Casey. I know a priest, a

missionary for a long time in Zimbabwe, a scientist and a theologian.

Father Roy Bowler once remarked in response to another man’s

persistent whining, “It is a great big irking world out there.”

Life can be vexing and it’s full of injustice. None of us are

going to make it better by adding our peevishness to the big irking

pot then stirring it. Tranquillity in our lives and peace in the

world starts with us. It’s a choice.

Jesus said, “Whatever you want men to do to you, do also unto

them.”

Everyone knows the Golden Rule. Still, the things that Mohandas K.

Gandhi called the seven social sins -- politics without principles,

wealth without work, commerce without morality, education without

character, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity and

worship without sacrifice -- remain commonplace.

Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see.”