I had a conversation with a dear friend yesterday, who’s been writing about just war, detailing the horribly many years we’ve used this to just-ify war…

Then I went off to hear an expert on the Middle East talk about endless war. It was terrifying and so achingly sad.

When asked what might end this conflict, he said the only thing he could imagine was a trickle of civilians saying they had had enough. Those civilians would have to meet across the boundaries and turn their trickle into a flooding demand for Peace.

It sounds excruciatingly naive, doesn’t it? Particularly as you begin to understand how other governments and too many corporate entities profit from the people’s pain; how many fan the flames of hatred to increase their bottom line and then, here’s the word again with still no justice about it, just-ify their actions. My gut instinct is to curse the bastards… but that actually doesn’t bring Peace either.

And so I encourage us to become the trickle. To decide that Peace actually matters enough to us that we will turn our faces in that direction. To forgive our neighbors as ourselves to paraphrase the Golden Rule. To love them. And ourselves.

To become come trickle that becomes the flood for Peace. Because anything else isn’t acceptable in the heart of the Divine or in our hearts. Let us do what is just and become Peacemakers. Let us do it in the name of all who have died in the maw of war and in those who live.