There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of A. J. Muste. Who was this, you ask? (at least I did.) Ah, the internet is wonderful. A.J. Muste was a peacemaker. He (and sometimes Gandhi) is credited with this:

There is no way to peace -- peace is the way.

That is why I call my blog Let's MAKE peace. Because it's in what we do, in how we face the world and answer its inhabitants. MAKING peace - here are a few ways that come to me

1. Resolve conflicts in your life
2. Give to the needy
3. Use less
4. Smile
5. Speak out for what is right

That is a simple little list. But a good one.

While browsing online to learn about AJ Muste I found another quote I really like:

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

This was from Albert Pike. You can google him for yourself, and then tell me.

The neat thing about Pike's words is that what we do to the world might be good but is certainly also bad, if we are part of the wasteful mainstream American culture.

Thanks again to Cat Lovers Against the Bomb and the fine people at Nebraskans for Peace, which created this nifty calendar.

Peace (resolve conflicts, use less, give to the needy, smile, use less) y'all

Molly

Final 3 steps of personal peacemaking

These came from Lynn Fitz-Hugh's article "21 steps on personal peacemaking" in the August 2008 Friends Journal.

Here are steps 19-21. Bold and quotes are from Lynn Fitz-Hugh.

19. We are responsible at all times for choosing behavior that meets our highest moral/ethical standards.

"to truly live by the Golden Rule, to live in such a way that, if anything true we did was published somewhere for all to see, we would have no embarrassment, guilt, or shame about our action."

Thank thee, Lynn Fitz-Hugh, for this simple and vital point. This speaks to me volumes. This is one of the best steps to teach to children too, as soon as they can comprehend the words, and to teach the gist of it before then.

20. Culture does impact conflict.

"Different cultures have different ways of showing respect, caring, boundaries, etc. The culture we are raised in is invisible to us--it's like air. ....We are all therefore somewhat blind to our own cultural assumptions and usually sadly ignorant of other peoples'. It is helpful to realize this potential and try to figure out if it is part of the conflict--and if so, to try to address it, and use it as an opportunity for learning. "

Fitz-Hugh also notes that second-generation Americans may seem fully assimilated but still have their culture invisibly wrapping around them. This can persist for multiple generations. And it's not a genetic thing, it's cultural.

In 1989 I lived in New Mexico and questioned a local about the pronounciation of Moriarty, a town east of Albuquerque. She pronouced it "mor-e-AR-i-ty. I asked if if wouldn't be "Mor-e-ARE-ty. Her answer, I will never forget: "Well, if you want to sound like a Yankee."

21. When we have made a mistake, it is best to apologize immediately.

amen amen amen amen amen

"..rather than trying to justify, rationalize, diminish, or cover up the mistake we made. We are not bad because we made a mistake. If we live without blaming, others should also be able to accept our mistakes without blaming. If someone else engages in blaming, that is the other person's issue and not something we have to take on ourselves."

I have the knack of this step well in hand and try to teach it to my kid. It is marvelous for defusing, deflating conflict. It's also honest. I usually say, sincerely, "oops, I goofed. I'm sorry."

Try it the very next time you make a mistake. If you are pulled over by a cop for some driving error, add the word "sir" or "ma'am" once or twice too. A friend of mine avers if you get in four "sirs" before he asks for your license, he'll let you off with a warning. And he has lots of experience to back this up.

So if you make a mistake, own it, apologize, and let the universe reach equilibrium again. And follow step 19 and live to your highest standards so your mistakes will be less frequent.

That's all 21 steps. Do you have faves? Steps you have mastered, steps that reflect where you need to work a little harder?

I'm going to walk cheerfully and answer God those I speak to. Have a great day.

Peace,

Molly

Steps 16-18 of the 21 steps of personal peacemaking

I'm back in the groove, and here are the next three steps from Lynn Fitz-Hugh's 21 Steps on Personal Peacemaking, from the August 2008 Friends Journal. Lynn's words are in bold or quotes.

16. When speaking to another person about our upsets, it is best to use "I" statements of our experience and reactions as our own, rather than blaming others or making them responsible for our feelings.

"It is also best to listen carefully and respectfully to the other person's responses and be willing to change our minds if presented with different information."

"I" statements are something like the second commandment of assertiveness training. It's such a simple and strong technique. Besides being assertive, it lessens the other person's defensiveness and is not blaming. Back to that B word again. The B word is bad.

17. The use of drugs, alcohol, or violence during a conflict, or during the attempt to fix it, will make the conflict worse.

Lynn Fitz-Hugh doesn't elaborate, and neither will I. Except: DUH!

18. People who are very alike often have a great deal of conflict. "...Perhaps we see our worst or most detested trait in the other perosn (but of course it looks much worse on him or her). What is helpful is not to focus on how awful the other person is but to focus back on how we feel about ourselves when we behae that way and begin by working on forgiving ourselves for our own behavior. When we can love ourselves as we are, the other person magically becomes much less annoying and more an object for compassion."

This is a hard step for me. The person I find most like me is my own daughter, whose similarities to me are numerous and somewhat eerie. My challenge is to not project the rest of me onto her, and to respect her for the person she is.

I also love the notion of forgiving myself for my behavior, and love the idea of compassion. What a lovely virtue. I will contemplate (read: google) this today.

Peace y'all

Molly

Steps 13-15 for personal peacemaking

This wonderful article in the August 2008 Friends Journal came from Lynn Fitz-Hugh. By sharing this with you, friend, I reinforce it for myself. Steven Covey called this "third-party teaching," meaning you learn something better if you learn it with the intent of sharing it. So I invite you to read what follows with the intent of sharing it with someone else.

13. When someone else is disappointed or angry with us, this does not mean we are bad or unworthy. "We may have been told this in the past, and therefore this feeling may readily rear its head. It actually just means the other person is having a lot of strong and perhaps complex feelings. It is a good idea to care about others' feelings, but when we start operating/speaking out of guilt or shame, we are now actually having a competing upset that steals the attention from the person who was originally upset. Once two people are upset, the whole thing becomes a much larger mess."

Rarely do I feel bad or unworthy, thanks to God

14. Dragging other people in by trying to convince them of our point of view or trying to get others to choose sides just makes the conflict bigger and worse. "As a result, this causes pain in additional people and is another reason for the person with whom we are in conflict to be angry with us. it is one thing to ask someone to process feelings with us (ideally someone who does not know the person) or to speak without identifying the person. But it is quite another thing to 'compile a case together' or confirm each others's negative feelings."

Wait, wait, don't nations (especially ours) do exactly this with other nations? Hmmm, this warrants some contemplation. Anyone want to help?

15. When we direct all of our actions towards trying to prevent another person from feeling a certain way (angry, hurt, disappointed) we find ourselves caught in co-dependent emotional caretaking. "We need to redirect our attention toward how we are feeling, what our needs are, and how we feel about our own behavior."

Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen

Two more installments, and we'll have all 21 steps presented. I peaked ahead: 17 is a no-brainer, and 21 is a snap for me. Good, that means I can work harder on other steps. Today I think it will be #10, and look for what each person I relate to (in conflict or otherwise) can teach me. And I will share it.

Peace to you. Personally.

Molly

Steps 10-12 for personal peacemaking

Here are steps 10-12 of Lynn Fitz-Hugh's 21 steps on personal peacemaking. These were published in August 2008 in the Friends Journal.

10. Each person has something to teach us. "People do not arrive in our lives by mistake, even when we did not choose them to be in our lives. If we successfully evade one "nuisance," another one with the same traits will show up It is best to learn the lessons about ourselves and life that we are to learn from this person. That we do not like this kind of person is not the lesson. This person is in your life as a teacher..."

I guess this means that the person and the conflict will point to something in ourselves we can improve. This is a lot like looking for the good, or answering that God, in each person.

11. Judging a person or deciding 'who is wrong and who is right' is just another form of blaming. People have differences in opinion, in cultural norms, in styles of doing things, in interpreting information, and in acting in the world There is not a right or a wrong way about this. Our standards are right for each of us because of the life we have lived. That does not make our standards right for someone else who has lived a different life ... When we judge someone else or try to define him or her as wrong based on 'our truth,' we are insisting that our way is the way. Instead of this we must acknowledge and accept the differences. We must figure out how to build bridges across the differences."

oooooh I really like this step. It speaks to me! And that means it will be speaking to others I relate with. Lucky them.

12. People do not cause other people's feelings. "Rather, Person A does something and person B observes that action and then decides what it means to him or her. We all have had experience of starting out feeling one way about something, getting a slightly different perspective, and then having a different feeling about it. Despite the sense we have that our feeling are automatic and unbidden, we actually do choose what we feel. .... Even though we may not welcome it, it is a chance to look at our old feelings, process them, and heal."

What a powerful step this truly is. We cannot change other people We can change how we respond to them.

Now an update. Last evening two people I love were having a dispute over what happened. "B" said she had told "A" about something, and "A" was certain she had never heard about it. This went back and forth for a few volleys, then I spoke up and invoked step 1 of the 21 steps of personal peacemaking. I didn't express it quite the way Fitz-Hugh did, but it stopped them and they pointed their discussion forward. Someone else in the room thought my remark was very Zenlike, which I take as a compliment. Anyway, I helped peace and reconciliation a little last evening and am glad about that.

Steps 7-9 for personal peacemaking

These 21 steps are from Lynn Fitz-Hugh, and were published in the August 2008 Friends Journal. Below are steps 7-9.

7. When in a conflict with another person, it is not helpful to keep going over in our mind (or with another person) how bad the other person is, or how bad his or her actions were, how upset he or she makes us, or how much we hate this person.

Angry thoughts are like poison. They harm the thinker. You strengthen what you dwell upon, so if you dwell on the negative, it gets stronger. If you focus on the good, it will be stronger. Which makes more sense? When my daughter was little, and I heard her say she hated something, I always replied "Don't hate, because it makes you feel bad." That's a simple way of conveying step 7. Also don't hate because it does no good. And I mean "good" in all its meanings.

8. What is helpful is to focus on the good points of the person. "If we are not aware of any, try to notice what those might be or what other people like about that person. In a pinch, make up something: 'This person is kind and loving to his or her cat at home.' The idea here is not to lie to ourselves or live in fantasy, but we need to start connecting to the part of that person that we would like to have in our life. No one is without good. The more we focus on what we do not like about a person, the more we experience waht we do not like about him or her."

I should be practicing this step a little more actively. And asking others I love to do so. I tried it during the election. I told my Obama-leaning companions that I thought John McCain had a lot of good points. I named some, and my companions quickly named the bad points. My point, I think, is that by remembering the good in him, I couldn't demonize him or show disrespect.

9. Making fun of the person you are in conflict with, or engaging in sarcasm or ridicule, is poison.

'nuff said.

Go in peace, and practice a step or two today.

Molly

Steps 4-6 of Lynn Fitz-Hugh's 21 steps of personal peacemaking

Today my daughter and her friend had a back-and-forth conversation about two sides of the same reality, and I expressed the gist of step 1 - "Nothing is gained in trying to decide whose version of what happened is true." My daughter asked why I launched into big explanations when she made a comment. I explained she gave an example and I explained a point it illustrates. Inducing--going from specific to general. But I'd better dial it back a few notches so I don't get tuned out.....

Okay, steps 4-6 from Lynn Fitz-Hugh's 21 steps to personal peacemaking.

4. Running away from conflict does not solve it. "The conflict will still be there, but now someone may also feel abandoned or insignificant. Often the resulting lapse of time has allowed bad feelings to fester and false assumptions to be made. It is best to address conflict as soon as one has control over one's emotions and the other person is able to engage."

Molly, does thee hear this? Here is a step I need to work on a lot.

5. When people are very, very upset they get flooded by adrenaline. "This is a biological wiring for 'fight or flight.' We cannot just turn it off. It takes at least 20 miutes with attention off conflict--longer if it is hard to get attention off of it--to get rid of all the adrenaline....It is a bad idea for someone to try to talk, listen, or make decisions while flooded with adrenaline. Rational thinking is impaired and the brain has a difficult time working constructively."

OOOh I just hate it when this happens to me. I do the flight thing and I know it takes far more than 20 minutes to be able to return after I leave. I will try to focus away from the source of upset--probably that will help.


6. Timing of efforts to address a conflict is a two-party affair. "People exist on a broad spectrum from 'eager to address issues' to 'extremely terrified about addressing issues.' It is not fair for the [more] willing party to demand that the other person engage because the first party wants to/needs to, and it is similarly not fair for the more avoidant party to insist that his or her nonengagement policy be accepted by both (or to continue avoiding without addressing when he or she will be willing to engage). "

Hmmm... this speaks to me very clearly. What sayest thou?

These 3 steps speak to me clearly and I know I have some work to do. I hope I need not do it soon (because that would mean a conflict sooner rather than later) but do hope I will have these steps in mind when I need them.

Peace, y'all

Molly