War is Evil

I've been studying non-violence these past months, finding ever more reasons that War is never necessary and Peace is our only Hope.

I felt a strong need to show people the gruesome results of war, especially the results when visited on children...

I found a blog article that made me sick!

I think every feeling, thinking human should expose themselves to the pictures in This Article; especially if you're like me and live in relative isolation from the results of War.

When we don't take actions for Peace we do violence to any spiritual feelings we may have.

Take this action for Peace. Look at these violent images. Let them sink into your soul and propel you to take action against their evilness.

I'll quote one of the Comments to a reprint of the original article:

"GOD ALLMIGHTY … Haitham - I am 36 years in medicine/mostly ICU and I thought there is not much I haven’t seen so far but these pictures made my heart miss several beats! WHAT KIND OF ANIMALS DID THAT?????? I have seriously problems to grasp the incomprehensible …

"And if the previous pictures are not horrid enough, what absolutely got me was the last … a fetus, maybe 4-5 months old … shot! How evil can it get?? How horrid .. I am missing the right words - what a terrible nightmare, what a horror!!"

Did you look at the pictures?

If you didn't I urge you to do it before you read the following list of simple actions you can take to further peace.

Why look at gruesome pictures before reading ways to further peace? Because most of us are far too content in our little worlds of relative calm. The truth is that we are One Human Family! If your biological family were involved you'd do whatever it takes to help.

Well...

This is your Spiritual Family...

64 Simple Actions Anyone Can Take To Further Peace In Our World

1 -- Today, I will reflect on what peace means to me.
2 -- Today, I will look at opportunities to be a peacemaker.
3 -- Today, I will practice nonviolence and respect for Mother Earth by making good use of her resources.
4 -- Today, I will take time to admire and appreciate nature.
5 -- Today, I will plant seeds--plants or constructive ideas.
6 -- Today, I will hold a vision of plenty for all the world's hungry and be open to guidance as to how I can help alleviate some of that hunger.
7 -- Today, I will acknowledge every human being's fundamental right to justice, equity, and equality.
8 -- Today, I will appreciate the earth's bounty and all of those who work to make my food available (i.e., grower, trucker, grocery clerk, cook, waitress, etc.)
9 -- Today, I will work to understand and respect another culture.
10 -- Today, I will oppose injustice, not people.
11 -- Today, I will look beyond stereotypes and prejudices.
12 -- Today, I will choose to be aware of what I talk about and I will refuse to gossip.
13 -- Today, I will live in the present moment and release the past.
14 -- Today, I will silently acknowledge all the leaders throughout the world.
15 -- Today, I will speak with kindness, respect, and patience to every person that I talk with on the telephone.
16 -- Today, I will affirm my value and worth with positive "self talk" and refuse to put myself down.
17 -- Today, I will tell the truth and speak honestly from the heart.
18 -- Today, I will cause a ripple effect of good by an act of kindness toward another.
19 -- Today, I will choose to use my talents to serve others by volunteering a portion of my time.
20 -- Today, I will say a blessing for greater understanding whenever I see evidence of crime, vandalism, or graffiti.
21 -- Today, I will say "No" to ideas or actions that violate me or others.
22 -- Today, I will turn off anything that portrays or supports violence whether on television, in the movies, or on the Internet.
23 -- Today, I will greet this day--everyone and everything--with openness and acceptance as if I were encountering them for the first time.
24 -- Today, I will drive with tolerance and patience.
25 -- Today, I will constructively channel my anger, frustration, or jealousy into healthy physical activities (i.e., doing sit-ups, picking up trash, taking a walk, etc).
26 -- Today, I will take time to appreciate the people who provide me with challenges in my life, especially those who make me angry or frustrated.
27 -- Today, I will talk less and listen more.
28 -- Today, I will notice the peacefulness in the world around me.
29 -- Today, I will recognize that my actions directly affect others.
30 -- Today, I will take time to tell a family member or friend how much they mean to me.
31 -- Today, I will acknowledge and thank someone for acting kindly.
32 -- Today, I will send a kind, anonymous message to someone.
33 -- Today, I will identify something special in everyone I meet.
34 -- Today, I will discuss ideas about nonviolence with a friend to gain new perspectives.
35 -- Today, I will practice praise rather than criticism.
36 -- Today, I will strive to learn from my mistakes.
37 -- Today, I will tell at least one person they are special and important.
38 -- Today, I will hold children tenderly in thought and/or action.
39 -- Today, I will listen without defending and speak without judgment.
40 -- Today, I will help someone in trouble.
41 -- Today, I will listen with an open heart to at least one person.
42 -- Today, I will treat the elderly I encounter with respect and dignity.
43 -- Today, I will treat the children I encounter with respect and care, knowing that I serve as a model to them.
44 -- Today, I will see my co-workers in a new light--with understanding and compassion.
45 -- Today, I will be open to other ways of thinking and acting that are different from my own.
46 -- Today, I will think of at least three alternate ways I can handle a situation when confronted with conflict.
47 -- Today, I will work to help others resolve differences.
48 -- Today, I will express my feeling honestly and nonviolently with respect for myself and others.
49 -- Today, I will sit down with my family for one meal.
50 -- Today, I will set an example of a peacemaker by promoting nonviolent responses.
51 -- Today, I will use no violent language.
52 -- Today, I will pause for reflection.
53 -- Today, I will hold no one hostage to the past, seeing each-as I see myself-as a work in process.
54 -- Today, I will make a conscious effort to smile at someone whom I have held a grudge against in the past.
55 -- Today, I will practice compassion and forgiveness by apologizing to someone whom I have hurt in the past.
56 -- Today, I will reflect on whom I need to forgive and take at least one step in that direction.
57 -- Today, I will forgive myself.
58 -- Today, I will embrace the spiritual belief of my heart in my own personal and reflective way.
59 -- Today, I will enlarge my capacity to embrace differences and appreciate the value of every human being.
60 -- Today, I will be compassionate in my thoughts, words, and actions.
61 -- Today, I will cultivate my moral strength and courage through education and creative nonviolent action.
62 -- Today, I will practice compassion and forgiveness for myself and others.
63 -- Today, I will use my talents to serve others as well as myself.
64 -- Today, I will serve humanity by dedicating myself to a vision greater than myself.

Veterans For Non-Violence

{ image credit }

As a past post indicated, I'm deep into a study of the means and principles of non-violence. I've found a wonderful Serious video game called A Force More Powerful and the Director of the Dayton International Peace Museum and I are planning to take it to local high schools and help the kids learn that non-violence is much more powerful than violence (no matter what the media would have us believe...).

That man on the left is General Douglas MacArthur. I've heard rumors that he was a warmonger and a completely horrible man. In a second, I'll give you some of his words that surely seem to falsify that rumor but first I want to show the path that led to this post.

Not everyone who visits here knows how stories happen and there are, in reality, many ways and means. The particular one for this post was one of the more circuitous: I have an alert with Google to find any news, or blog posts, or other web pages that have the words "spiritual" or "spirituality" in them. Today, as I began to ready myself for blogging, I hadn't had any of the more synchronistic methods occur so I went to my storage for those alerts. I entered the word "war" and the first e-mail that popped up was:

WAR AND SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
By chenquestion
Wow! Just found a terrific quotation from warrior of legendary stature, over at the InsideAwake blog: http://insideawake.blogspot.com/ . Among other goodies.
Chen.quest.ion - http://chenquestion.wordpress.com

That led me to War and Spiritual Progress on another blog called, insideawake (which is pretty cool since "inside" and "awake" together make "idea" pop out!). This blog had a quote from a speech made by MacArthur and the link-out led me to The American Experience section of the PBS site where I found the whole speech and this quote (the emphasised words are my doing...):

"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be 'by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out, this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all the material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh."

Sound like a warmonger to you.........?

Love: A Casualty of War...

A while back, we had a post called, True Love, that gave some insight into the fate of a relationship in a war zone.

This post continues the theme with, When Love Is a Casualty of War.

From the Blog:

"'My Lebanese girlfriend does not want to listen to The Cure’s song “Killing an Arab.'

“'Turn it off,' she demands.

"This is odd. Helen is a huge Cure fan; in fact, I never really listened to The Cure until we started dating. I turn around to face her, my mind racing to produce some witty remark that will make her laugh and defuse the sudden tension, but our eyes meet and I am utterly disarmed. I hear her sigh as she walks away.

"It’s not that Helen doesn’t like this particular song, it’s that she doesn’t like songs about killing Arabs, especially when in real life, our peoples are killing each other day after day. We cannot enjoy the song’s catchy rhythm or ironic lyrics when bombs fall and Katyushas fly. What used to be a harmless song has become an unwanted reminder of the gulf that exists between us.

"Together, Helen and I had tried to create a tidy little universe with a population of two. In this universe, it didn’t matter that I was a Jew and Helen was an Arab. We were beyond the politics.

"On our first date, we set a precedent by skipping out on a proposed tour of the Lincoln memorial, preferring to tour each other’s contours rather than those of a lifeless statue. As the months passed, we discovered that Helen’s attempts to teach me French were as doomed as my own throat-clearing lessons in the correct pronunciation of challah, her favorite new food. We could even laugh at the irony when Helen peeled off my sweater to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with “Don’t Worry America, Israel Is Behind You.”

"Politics slumbered alongside us. Sometimes it spoke in its sleep, sometimes it rolled over, but it did not wake up.

"And then, the war..."

This post is absolutely worth reading to the end; so, here's that link again:

When Love Is a Casualty of War.

The god of War

"The god of War" is the title of this post. I had to write the word "god" with a lower case "g" because it's my firm belief that God wants All of Us to stop making war.

Strange that God is so Forgiving and Merciful.

He's also completely Just:

If we make war, He'll forgive us; but, His Justice gives us massive suffering during and after the war...

How does one explain the Creator of All That Is?

Best way I know of (that won't drive one plum crazy) is to look at what He created (and, even looking at these creations can make one Wonder...)...

Still, these days, we must look Very Deeply into what He's created to see HIM...

The { image credit } is a site with sights you may not want to see, like:
"She Survived Iraq — Then Shot Herself at Home"

Other Spaces you might look into, to give you more to ponder about what God may be up to with us humans, are the related studies listed after this explanation on scienceblogs.com:

"A few recent psychological studies about religious beliefs presented seemingly contradictory results: One found that reading violent biblical passages made readers more aggressive; two others concluded that mentioning "God concepts" made people behave less selfishly. ScienceBloggers dig into the nitty gritty of these experiments, and discuss how the results might apply to phenomena like terrorism."

Here are the study links:

In smite of my own thoughts on religion...

Psychology and Religion

Does Religion Make You Meaner or Nicer? Inquiring Minds, Etc.

Obey God — Kill!

Two Americas: Past, Present and Future

Happy Pondering...

Armageddon and Love

Armageddon: the scene of the final battle between the kings of the Earth at the end of the world.

< This image is from an atheist's view of the "End Times".

When will this final battle take place?

Is it happening now?

Who are the "kings of the Earth"?

What is the actual shape of the "battle"?

Religious interpretation is something only the brave, studious, or pure in heart should attempt...

I certainly won't attempt any serious interpretations, just a few imaginative ideas and a simple commentary.

Can you imagine that "kings" could mean "those in power" or the "source of power"?
If you can, consider the following ideas:

Anyone ever tell you the most predominant form of life on Earth is the lowly germ?

Can you imagine a battle between human kings and germs?

Check out: Pandemic flu may be only two mutations away.

Can you imagine a battle between human kings and Mother Earth herself?

Check out: Blame for global warming placed firmly on humankind.

Seems there are a number of responses to "the end of the world":
~ Fright
~ Flight
~ Paralysis
~ Prayer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things a person might die from:

* Old age
* Disease (normal)
* Disease (terrorist)
* Accident
* Physical attack (personal)
* Physical attack (war, terror, ecological, etc.)
* Psychological attack
* Boredom
* Fill-In-The-Blank

Ralph Waldo Emerson sums up my feeling about death in this world at war:

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Tags: "global warming", armageddon, love, pandemic, terrorists, war