Victory in 2007

2007 is close at hand and now is the time when the people in my faith community look at their determinations from the past year and assess how far they have come. Then they write a new list of determinations and put them in a safe place while they are working on them throughout the new year.

Setting goals or making determinations create openings that seem to materialize where none were there before. In setting goals and announcing them to others, we create a sort of verbal contract that we are going to make every effort to achieve success in these aspirations. Somehow, that makes the goals more likely to reach fruition.

So Happy New Year. May every goal, aspiration and determination result in a victorious 2007.

Turning predictions inside out

Create peace and justice from the inside out. Did anyone ever tell you that you wouldn't amount to anything? Are you living out that false prophecy? Did anyone say you are making the wrong choice of career? job move? educational goal? course selection? Did you prove that person right? or wrong?

We allow other people's false views to become our reality. Why?

We must take responsibility for our own outcome, not follow the predictions of others. How do we break through those abusive labels and create healthy labels of our own? By rejecting those false views and creating goals that fulfill our own dreams.

We can write goals for anything we desire, and by taking action, make them come true. But then, only we are responsible for the joyful results that we attain.

I learned that children should be seen and not heard; that ladylike behavior means acting in a non-assertive manner. I had to unlearn those "rules" before I could speak my mind and disagree without being disagreeable. It took lots of practice.

I still feel afraid and consider my words very carefully before I disagree with another person or speak up when I feel that justice is not being served. But when I finally express my views, I know that I am contributing toward a more peaceful world.

Creating peace and justice from the inside out means taking care of our personal peace and justice in order to show proof to others that it can indeed be accomplished.

Making waves

Creating peace and justice occurs at many levels - at home, in my community, in my country and in the world. What a huge task. Where do I start?

At home, see the commonalities in us all. Look at the good. Create an environment of peace and I will see peace all around me. Create an environment of anger and I will see anger all around me. Create an environment of ugliness and I will see ugliness all around me.

My responsibility is to create an environment that reflects back to me feelings of peace, compassion and justice but how do I do that?

I see myself as a wave in the ocean, emerging from the depths, growing larger, bumping into other waves as I gradually reach my peak and then begin to decline. Other waves are growing and declining at their own rate - some faster, some slower. Some larger, some smaller.

The waves and I shape each other and respond to each other in a give-and-take relationship. Our interactions are part of a whole - the ocean - and as we cycle through our existence, we use our power for good.

The law of cause and effect

How can we create more peace and justice?

Just today, as I was riding the bus to work, the driver stopped at a transfer station and even though the bus was early, immediately left the station. A man ran toward the bus waving his arms to signal the driver to stop, but the driver continued around the station. The man crossed the driveway and signaled the driver to stop again, but the bus kept rolling.

We were ten minutes early to our next transfer station and I asked a fellow passenger as we got off the bus why the driver didn't stop. He told me that the driver was just mean and never stopped for anyone. I could understand if the bus was running late, but this bus was not only on time, but early.

So maybe the other passenger was correct. This bus driver was just plain mean. But how about the passenger who missed his bus? He had to wait an hour for the next bus.

I think the bus driver lacked compassion. He had his own agenda and saw this passenger as somehow not fitting into his narrow view of appropriate bus-passenger behavior. He failed to see his role to another human being as being one of service. He saw this passenger as an obstacle interfering with his life.

How often do we look at others in a negative light as obstacles to our happiness rather than possessing all the humanity that we ourselves possess?

We can create more peace and justice by seeing others as capable, intelligent, and lovable; by having compassion for each person's struggle; and seeing them as providing us with opportunities to learn a more peaceful way to live.

Our bus driver lost a golden opportunity to demonstrate compassion to a bus load of passengers. The law of cause and effect is strict. His lesson is yet to be learned.

Create more peace and justice. So many things come to mind that relate to this topic. I just finished reading Desmond Tutu's book, No Future Without Forgiveness and saw how the concept of asking forgiveness reconciled the differences, the anger, the atrocities of South Africans against South Africans creating an impetus towad a peaceful, forgiving society.

What did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission do? They listened. They heard the pain, the sorrow, the guilt and did not pass judgment. That's the first step toward creating more peace and justice. Listening without judging.

We don't listen.

We don't interrupt. We are, in fact, a civilized society.

But we don't listen. We wait until the other person takes a breath, all the while conjuring up our next brilliant, sarcastic reply, then we jump up on our own soapbox, not even considering what the other person said. We may not even be speaking on the same topic. Because we didn't listen.

How does one listen?

By putting aside all thoughts. By focusing on the tone, the body language and the words of the speaker. By looking at another person and seeing perfection, not deficiency. By giving our entire being to the content that is delivered. Not to the flaws in grammar or the nervous twitches. By listening to what is being said.

Just listen. Nod your head a few times. Say, "Um hmmm."

See what returns to you. See what the other person means. See where the discussion goes when you aren't in control of it.