A small group meets regularly in my living room on Wednesdays when we can. It began as a conversation about joining the church, but has long since morphed into Tea-Time with friends.
We talk, we laugh, we share, we pray. . . and sometimes we even study.
Just now, we are diving, all with trepidation, into Joy Mead's Making Peace in Practice and Poetry . . . trepidation because this small book challenges us to make, to be peace, through poetry . . . our own poetry . . . and none of us are poets, or at least so we think.
We begin reading Joy Mead’s own poem, Personal Peacemaking. One line strikes me: “I shall resist violence and destruction creatively by . . .”, which is followed by Mead’s personal list, which takes me by surprise.
I shall resist violence and destruction creatively by:
dancing and laughing,
planting trees and sowing seeds,
making and sharing bread
. . . and ice cream!
As her poetic peace credo continues, I am challenged. How shall I resist violence and destruction in my own life? How shall I take the ideals and principles that take me to Iraq and convert them into an every-day way of being? What is my own peace credo?
With pen to paper, I begin . . . and this is all that it is and all that it is . . . a beginning . . .
I shall resist violence and destruction creatively by:
playing the cello
making a casserole
sharing my chocolate
laughing with my friends
jumping hopscotch
blowing bubbles
sitting underneath every rainbow I see
listening more
talking less
What will be your peace credo? Won’t you share it with the world today?
