The pages of Twitter and Facebook have swelled with bile concerning the current Middle East crisis. Twitter especially is a toxic swamp. The grandstanding, often accompanied by ad hominem comments, misses the fact that human beings have, and are, dying horribly. Too many lives – Israeli and Palestinian – have been destroyed already. This alone should render us, stunned and speechless. The same is happening in Ukraine and elsewhere; innocent bloodshed, and for what??
We are now in the third decade of the 21st century and humanity still has not learned that warfare and violence is folly. Our governments perpetuate war and the Arms Trade grows fatter and fatter through war, whilst lives are ripped apart. There is nothing to debate about. There is nothing to argue about. But there is so much to weep about. Those who want to debate online would do well to go and spend a day in Gaza or Yemen and experience the horror and terror of air raids, and then come back to Twitter to describe their thoughts.
Pope Francis said:
“War is the suicide of humanity because it kills the heart and kills love”. He says: “Wars shatter so many lives. I think especially of children robbed of their childhood”.
Thich Nhat Hanh said:
“…To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration and fear that will be passed on for generations to come…”
Thich Nhat Hanh wisely advises
“…If we are at war with our parents, our family, our society, or our church, there is probably a war going on inside us also, so the most basic work for peace is to return to ourselves and create harmony among the elements within us – our feelings, our perceptions, and our mental states…”
This latter point is fundamental. When we work at our own inner peace we change the external world too. War creates a living energy that once created, takes on a life of its own. Our miscreations have volition and power. The psychic energy of hatred and violence does not dissipate.
There are mystic souls on earth who for the sake of others, absorb and mitigate the toxic energy of hatred. Our world would have been destroyed long ago without these souls. But love is an energy too. It doesn’t reside in the left hemisphere of the brain. It emerges from the intelligence of the heart. We can be love creators. We can be emissaries of light. We can get angry, but anger driven by love, not ego.
I found this prayer online. It will be my mantra:
Let peace fill our hearts, our world and our universe. Let us dream together, pray together and work together, To build one world of peace and justice for all