Be the Change

This week I have been reading Cultivating Peace by James O'Dea. I highly recommend it. One of its central themes is that freeing the societies we live in is closely interconnected with freeing our own inner lives. Becoming a peacemaker requires as much inner work as skillful work in the world around us.

Last week I also listened to Scilla Elworthy's TED talk, "Fighting with non-violence". She too emphasizes that the change that has to take place has to take place here inside me first. It is my response, my attitude to oppression that I've got control over, that I can do something about. And to do that what I need to develop is self-knowledge.

Third, I explored the Website of Andrew Beath, founder of EarthWays, who states that personal transformation is the first step to global change. Quoting a Kate Wolf song, "We are crying for a vision that all living things can share", he goes on to say that from this inward crying comes personal awareness that gives direction to our desire to take action.

Mahatma Gandhi's admonition to "Be the change you want to see in the world" makes a lot of sense, but it also used to confuse me. I want to see the world become peaceful and I am a peaceful person. So why isn't it working? I'm slowly realizing, however, how quick I am to tell people why they are wrong before I seek to truly understand them. I now see that my ire is often directed toward people, not what I perceive as their flawed thinking. When I give up the need to be right, I find that a true conversation can take place. This seems true on many levels.

Quoting O'Dea, "When we truly engage with each other, a mystery unfolds: we enter a safe ground of being where we can share our differences and come to know each other. So often we live with a fiction of who the other is. When we come to know them in a peacebuilding context, it is not that we have to agree with them but that we can appreciate them for who they are. This alone is what humanizes the world and brings peace."