Let Peace Begin With Me...

To realize true fulfillment we need to call out the falsehoods that have prevented us from living our best lives, and abandon them. Number one among these falsehoods is the belief that others are to be blamed for the life we have. We will never change as long as we foster this lie. So let us begin by taking responsibility for the circumstances of our lives. If you don’t like them, get about the business of changing them. Don’t wait for change to come. Be about the business of bringing about the change you need. The greatest spiritual influences always lead us to recognize the seeds of our own redemption within. Jesus said to the man lying on his bed for years waiting to be healed: take up your bed and walk. He knew the potential that lay dormant in this person and called it out.

The turn-around we need in our lives, and our relationships, continues when we re-assert that idealism which is founded on the reality that we will reap what we sow in this world. When we sow disunity we will reap alienation. When we sow fear we will reap torment. When we live according to the flesh... that is, when we behave as if everything that feels good is therefore good for us... we will destroy ourselves. When we live according to the Spirit, when we walk away from that self-serving dogma that has us believing that it's all about us, we will reap the abundant life.

Let us be conscientious about the seeds we sow, because they will most certainly have their harvest in our lives. We are constantly being called to engage in an idealism that is fully founded on cornerstones of justice. The balanced scale is a symbol that indicates what must become the new measure of our relationships. This symbol reminds us to live in constant mindfulness of the fact that the justice that we seek must begin with us. The challenge we all face is to do to others as we would have them do to us. The table spread with the "bread of sorrow and the wine of violence", is not the feast our Creator intended. It is definitely not the banquet to which we should be inviting each other.

The media around us are saturated with the tragedies that are the results of our despising the beckoning of Justice and buying into the lies of corrupt influences. When sons and fathers murder each other, they are living out those lies. When we sexually abuse each other we are living out those lies. When we contribute to each other’s demise by peddling poisons for profit through our various enterprises, licit and illicit, we are acting as corruptors of community. When corporations despise their responsibility to be builders of communities, they are sowing the seeds of their own decline. When governments ignore their responsibility to help build a more equitable society, they are fomenting the very insecurity they pay lip service to wanting to protect against. When those charged with protecting and serving our communities become the agents of destructive prejudices, they are creating the conditions for their own obliteration.

We may at times become frustrated by the contradictions all around us, but becoming insensitive to the need for change is not an option. The stability and prosperity we long for will only come through an enduring commitment to Justice. This commitment to Justice is the only sure foundation on which the peaceful communities we long for will be built. The change we long for must begin in each one of us. We... You and I... must do the work necessary to resolve the contradictions within ourselves, and in every single relationship we inhabit. In the end it is an act of futility to expect of others what we ourselves are unwilling to give.