Dear Friends,                               

Greetings of love and peace.

The International Day of Peace 2009 has come and gone. It was observed in creative, soulful, impactful ways by URI Cooperation Circles and countless other individuals and organizations all over the world.

As we celebrate what was, I believe it is essential to remember our call to grow stronger and stronger as peacebuilders every day, in every aspect of our lives.

If you look at some of the great peacebuilders throughout history, whether you turn to the Buddha or Jesus or Mahatma Gandhi or Badshah Khan or Martin Luther King or Mary Robinson or Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi, or countless others of every race, culture and faith, women and men, young and old, you see individuals of incredible strength who choose the life-giving and sometimes life-threatening path of ahimsa.

In some, you see the strength to face physical death in pursuit of a deeper life; in others the strength to face the death of old beliefs or behaviors that no longer serve, the strength to die to what divides and embrace what unites.

You see the strength of spiritual connection to something much larger than an individual human life and indeed much larger than the entire human endeavor – a connection that cultivates inner peace and compels, inspires and nurtures us to act in the world. Strength of principles to choose the path of peacebuilding even when it is difficult and potentially deadly. Strength of ego that allows someone to claim her strength in ways that invite others to do the same. And the remarkable strength to sacrifice self in pursuit of peace for all.

My life is blessed each day by being in community with remarkable, often heroic peacebuilders who are largely invisible to the larger world. I think of Rosalia Gutierrez, a strong woman of the Kolla people in Argentina. Her ancestors were oppressed and tortured to coerce them to abandon their indigenous beliefs, practices and language in order to become “civilized”, Spanish speaking Christians. Awakening to that legacy, it would be easy to be consumed by anger and hatred. Yet Rosalia has managed to transcend the impulse toward anger and hatred and become a powerful peacebuilder seeking to build bridges of enhanced understanding and reconciliation between Indigenous people and followers of mainstream religions.

In doing this, she is opening a pathway to a future where Indigenous children will have reclaimed their heritage and can stand proudly as themselves, accepted and respected, beside their counterparts from diverse religions. Rosalia is defusing the landmines of centuries of oppression and preparing the soil for a new crop of mutual respect and a new community where, for the first time, the voices of Indigenous wisdom are heard, especially in relation to the interconnectedness of all life and caring for the Pachamama – our Mother Earth.

There are so many other peacebuilders I could mention. Our world is filled with incognito peacebuilders. Their stories need to be told because they give hope and inspiration, and challenge us to overcome our fears and build a better future. Depending on who we are, our call to be a peacebuilder may compel us to work for economic peace or environmental peace. It may compel us to mediate in international conflicts or to work constructively to transform domestic violence. It may call us to disciplined prayer or meditation for peace.

Whoever we are, wherever we are, may we live into our unique potential as people of peace, as peacebuilders dedicated to transforming ourselves and our world, so that every day is an international day of peace.

Love, Charles