Wars End

Have you noticed that 'anti-war' movements don't seem to end wars?

Wars end when they exhaust the fuel of stress and anger. Then, after a period of exhaustion, the next one starts. Being 'anti-war' is like being 'anti-night.' It doesn't hasten the dawn. And after the day, another night comes. War is part of our messy, mysterious, absurdly human condition. A Utopian demand for perfect peace makes us all the more frustrated and tense, because it imposes what Should be on what Is. Hence 'anti-war' movements are often full of anger, preaching to their own choir and rejecting friendly dialog with the very people whom they wish to change.

Jesus never says, 'End the war!' He says, 'Love you enemy,' which is profoundly different. Arising in the non-duality of pure Presence, in which there is no future Utopia, the kingdom of Jesus is always here and now. He even praises the centurion, a soldier of the Imperial occupation, because the centurion helps the local Jews build their synagogue. Jesus is not 'anti.' His love, agape, is radical Being without conflict in a world of conflict.

Must war end before there is peace? Must war end in order for love to be? Or might love unfold its healing wings in the midst of conflict? What if I enter the heart of war, the heart of the warrior, and merely love without a demand for Utopia, without a Should?

2 comments:

D'Neuville said...

There is a difference in energy between being "anti-war" and "pro-peace".
Anti-war is pushing against something and is just an escalation of frustration. Attempting to fight against fighting.
Pro-peace lives in acceptance. In loving our "enemy" there is a commitment to hear them, honor their point of view as valid, but not as the "truth". It is acceptance for who they are and a commitment to co-exist, each being heard and seen for who we are.
Each accepting the other. It is not Utopian... It is not airy fairy and all warm and fuzzy. It is gritty work and doesn't occur on it's own. It is in the giving up of our righteousness, giving up our egocentric point of view as the only way to be in the world.
In the context of "pro-peace" there is no place for an enemy to live... only friends yet to be understood.
War is the easy path...
War is born out the the attachment and frustration that the other is not like us, doesn't think like us,yet "should be"... so we think we can beat it out of them, crush it, or kill it because we are unwilling to find a middle ground.
That somehow to accept them invalidates us.
Peace is work... war occurs because we are lazy and not willing to step outside our conceptual comfort zone. We perceive it as more dangerous to our sense of self to accept than to fight. War is born out of weakness not strength.
This applies to the interpersonal dynamic as well as the world stage.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

AKL said...

Who is the one who 'makes' peace? Who is the one who 'works hard' at peace? Peace cannot be 'made'. Peace arises spontaneously, right in the midst of conflict, when this do-er dissolves.

"I have come into this world to see this: the sword drop from men's hands even at the height of their arc of rage, because we have finally realized there is just one flesh we can wound." (Hafiz)