Inner Peace Activist: What's Your Cause?

Do you read the ezine Greater Good? The issue that arrived in my inbox last week had two titles that intrigued me: “Why is there Peace?” and “You talkin’ to me?” Of course, I eagerly clicked on things till the first article came up. My reading slowed as I understood the topic. Same for the second article. Why? Because they were both about nonviolence. Don’t get me wrong. I can get behind nonviolence as a concept. Nonviolence sure goes a ways toward peace, but I firmly believe that genuine peace is not non- anything! Harvard Psychologist Steven Pinker argues that violence is declining over time. I liked the way he ended his piece, “Instead of asking, ‘Why is there war?’ we might ask, ‘Why is there peace?’ If our behavior has improved so much since the days of the Bible, we must be doing something right. And it would be nice to know what, exactly, it is.” I think I can answer Dr. Pinker. Why is there peace? Because it is the one thing that, despite wildly variant definitions, all sentient beings can agree on wanting. The one thing. Peace. True peace is a state of being, not a non- anything. Sure, it can encompass nonviolence, but true peace isn’t lack of war or lack of violence or lack of anything. True peace is a presence, an energy, a living, breathing entity of its own. Sociologist Randall Collins states in the second article, “Eradicating violence entirely is unrealistic. But violence is not inevitable. When we accept that fact, peace becomes possible.” Is eradicating violence entirely unrealistic? Probably. In fact, think of the United States’ War on Drugs. Eradicating drugs has proven entirely unrealistic. And don’t get me started on terrorism. Since the late 1970s, Nobel Laureate Alva Myrdahl warned us that: “The cult of violence has by now so permeated the relations between human individuals that we are witnessing an increase in everyday violence, violence in the street and in the home. Personal violence is to a large extent a result of the spread of arms.” In The New Yorker, I read that President Barack Obama spoke of this just last week in Prague when he “reaffirmed the obligation of the United States, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (there’s that non- thing again!), to seek, as he put it, ‘the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.’” Still, I know that peace really is possible when we simply accept that peace is possible, when we hold peace—as a pearl of great price—in the palms of our hands, and in our hearts, and we wage peace. We pray for peace for all sacred beings. We dream of peace. We accept peace. We love peace. We breathe peace. We make peace. We are peace. Talking with a friend recently about how I work for peace, these words fell out of my brain into my mouth: “I am an inner peace activist.” She was delighted. I was at peace. Finally, finally, I had the words that explain my work for peace. I’ve been an inner peace activist since I started working with peace in the midst of a domestic violence situation in my own life. What I want for myself, I want for the whole world—no exceptions. I want every single sacred being, of every genus, to have peace. Inner peace. The only way I can see my way clear to creating this is to live this way myself, and to offer it as a way for others to live. So, although I applaud all those who work for nonviolence, it’s not my cause. Nope. I can’t really get behind non- movements. Instead, I tilt myself toward the pro/for movements. My cause is inner peace. What’s yours?nn Be blest, Dr. Susan Corsonn