Peace, politicians, and sleeping pills

I attended my very first peace rally on Saturday. The Peace Center of San Jose held an interfaith peace rally in the same park as the other 9/11 memorial on Wednesday. As I was driving over, I pondered what type of thought would foster peace, and came up with the phrase that was quoted by Wayne Dyer of "The Great Way is easy for those who have no preferences" (a statement that makes me wince whenever I think of it). At the very least, the statement got me through a glitch-ridden trip over to the rally with equanimity.

The rally consisted of representatives of different religions or groups coming up and giving a speech or reciting a prayer, singing, or dancing. There were a lot of different groups; the rally wound up being close to three hours long. Some of the presentations that I found the most interesting were from a Sikh group and Baha'i group because I know the least about them. I also was surprised that when the minister of the Unitarian church downtown read a resolution that members of the church wrote after 9/11, it was very similar to something that I wrote after 9/11.

There was a lot of discussion about how we are all one, but I was disappointed that no one addressed how to be a person of peace in the face of provocation. That would seem to be the heart of the matter, and if that isn't the province of religion, what is? What is justice in the face of justifiable outrage? How can we defend ourselves yet still be fair?

Those questions were even farther from the minds of the people at the earlier 9/11 remembrance. ( Read more... )