International Day of Peace and Re-dedication of the Peace Pole

Re-dedication

Rita: We commemorate today International Peace Day. Also called World Peace Day, it is observed each year on September 21, by countries all across the world. Peace Day was established, in 1981 by a unanimous United Nations resolution, as a shared date for renewed commitment to peace above all differences and for contributing to building a culture of peace. We begin our celebration re-dedicating the Peace Pole. In a time of war and destruction, are re- dedication today is sign of our commitment to our Unitarian Universalist values, specifically to the 6th : The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Colleen: As we gather here at the Peace Pole, we are grateful to Janis Alton, Susan Berry, and Gertrud Bieri for information they supplied about this important expression of the values of your congregation. “May Peace Prevail Upon the Earth.” So says the Pole in the 12 most common languages in Mississauga at the time the Pole was acquired. In English, in French, in the Ojibwe language of the Anishinaabe. I acknowledge that I don’t know all the languages printed here. There is a sibling peace pole over at University of Toronto Mississauga with these same words and languages.

Rita: Our Peace Pole is part of an international project. The group “‘May Peace Prevail On Earth International’ [was] founded in Japan over fifty years ago.  Over the decades, Peace Poles [. . .] have been planted by supporters the world over in every region and continent on earth.” The group describes itself this way: “We are the original founders and headquarters of the global Peace Pole Project movement with the mission of spreading the universal message of peace throughout the world.  We are a grass roots movement committed to the awakening of consciousness by planting the message of peace in the hearts and minds of our global family.

Colleen: Peace poles are now the most recognized monument dedicated to peace on earth. They represent the highest aspirations of peace and goodwill inherent in the human heart transcending race, religion and creed. Peace Poles serve as vehicles to carry the message, May Peace Prevail On Earth, out to every corner on earth. They are planted to uplift, empower and elevate the human consciousness to embrace the oneness of our global family.” A worthy effort of which to be a part.

Rita: It’s not clear exactly when the Peace Pole was envisioned and then installed. It was perhaps a congregant named Helen Tucker who began to imagine the project into being. Helen, according to Janis Alton, was a strong disarmament peace leader and anti-nuclear advocate who helped found Canadian Voice of Women for Peace. Susan Berry reports that her mother Carole Berry and another person Joan Elgar ordered the Pole itself. And there may be documentary evidence somewhere around the Congregation, in some folder or file drawer, a photograph, as reported by Susan and Janis and Gertrud Bieri, of Doug Alton and Ed Bieri planting the Pole, after much deliberation about the amount of concrete they’d need to be sure the Pole stayed upright. Looks like they calculated well. Here is a photo of the happy day we can all now celebrate.

Colleen: Regardless of its origins, the UCM Peace Pole is a symbol of our union with others across the world seeking and making peace. Thus, we desire to work not in isolation but as part of a larger collective. Let’s now mark our re-dedication of the Peace Pole and our re- commitment to working for peace by singing together the song printed in your Order of Service. Abigail will lead us singing into the Great Hall.

“Circle Round for Freedom”
Circle ‘round for freedom, circle ‘round for peace,
for all of us imprisoned, circle for release,
circle for the planet, circle for each soul,
for the children of our children, keep the circle whole.

Homily

What is peace? How do we achieve it? As a Unitarian Universalist congregation, we affirm and promote the 6 th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. So we must think that peace is pretty important. Today, we have dedicated our Peace Pole and we re-commit to acts of peace-seeking. But what is peace and how do we achieve it? A colleague once said to me that he thought peace activists were among the most passive aggressive people he knew. They would not throw a punch, but they would cut you to the quick with their words. As a person who grew up watching western shoot ‘em ups and playing war and witnessing fistfights, I remain struck by that colleague’s opinion. Violence takes many forms, not all of them obvious and not all of them direct. Some forms of violence are absences, a withholding rather than an act of aggression. In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in the midst of the incessant bombing of Gaza, in the crisis of attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and the supply-chain attacks on Hezbollah by Israel, in the chaos of two assassination attempts again a candidate in the US presidential race, we live in a time physical as well as psychological violence.

Against the normality of violence, I have dreamed a dream “of kindness and connection that softens and turns us toward each other with tenderness.” Perhaps you have, too. I long every day for a reality where we are not hurting each other all across the scale—in our homes, and communities, and the whole large world. But though I don’t throw punches or draw a weapon, inner peace hasn’t followed my longing. Sweetness and light have not followed, despite meditation and reducing my intake of violent media. Perhaps you have felt something like this, as you said some words in traffic, or under your breath in the supermarket, or shouted at another person. For my part, I think this is not necessarily a failure of character or will. “There is no such thing as a lasting peace, a tranquility that will persist forever, a final resting place for the lion and the lamb.” It is work, ongoing work, not a checklist, one and done. “The work of peacemaking will never be done; that is the curse and the blessing of being human.”

Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us “When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for them is there.” If anger is a form of violence and also a sign of suffering, then it is very wise indeed to recognize the violence and the suffering mutually, to see it both in ourselves and in each other. If we have cultivated compassion for ourselves, we can in turn cultivate compassion for others who are so like ourselves. Rather than be carried off by waves of worry, we might instead start to notice “the here and now.” Spend more time with ourselves, knowing more deeply our loves and longings, connecting with other selves and with nature, connecting with the wonder that is the true reality and mystery of living. This is to live in and through covenant, the call of Unitarian Universalism. The love and light inside each of us sustains us and can be shared with others. Peace in oneself is to offer peace to all others, in this time, our time. Such practice is so important, so important for taking good care of our one precious life and to honor our relationships with each other and with the wider world.

And, yet, such practice is not enough, for we live in the world, and the world is full of woe, and because of our total interdependence, that woe is within us, too. We are not angry, anxious, and ill because we have not meditated sufficiently on our ourselves. We are angry, anxious, and ill because our interdependence is not sufficiently recognized. We are impacted by the harm and oppression and injustice that is perpetrated upon some of us more directly than others but impacting all of us, nonetheless. Unless we see that we internalize the pain of the world, we have little incentive to try to change what must be changed. Peace does not exist on its own, in the desire expressed by our 6 th Principle. Peace goes hand in hand with liberty and justice for all, everywhere, including in ourselves.

And “There we shall find the understanding that the endless labor of life is not about changing the world but about creating ourselves. We cannot make the world peaceful, but neither can the world make us hopeless.” So, let us know peace. Let us teach peace. Let us be peace. Peace is not simply the absence of violence. Peace is a recognition that we have let human differences turn us against each other, and a turn toward each other again. For it is we who are the source of discord, we who are the source of conflict, we who are the source of war and earthly devastation. And it is we, only and always we, who are also capable of creating peace by seeking reconciliation, by seeking atonement for leaving out what is best for all, by seeking forgiveness and making amends. A state of peace is always a working for peace—within ourselves, between each other, amongst our societies, upon this earth our only home.

Our children are watching us. They learn from what we do. May we all do in ways that lead them to seek peace, justice, and equality for themselves and each other all the days of their lives. Look to our young people, our high school and college students striking for climate justice and protesting endless war, calling adults to task for not doing enough to preserve and now save our planet for their future. They are our inspiration. As we teach so must we also learn. Let us love them and support them as they struggle, as we all do, with the work of giving and forgiving, with living gracefully upon the earth.

Calling on a spirit of peace and longing to live peacefully with ourselves and each other, we pray:

May we hold a wider vision of the world;
May we create a broader view of justice;
May we dream dreams of peace
that are not defined by boundaries of geography
or race or religion,
or by the limitations of worldly structures and systems.
May it always be so.

Peace Pole Project Home

https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2017/04/prayer-vision-of-abundant-life.html
https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace