At the Blessing of the Peacemakers on January 26th we developed a litany based on the alpha mneumonic developed by CCARE’s Dr. James Doty. After each quotation was read, the people responded ” —– is the way to peace,” as in “compassion is the way to peace, ” dignity is the way to peace” . . . Here are the quotes we used:
Compassion
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dignity
Africans have this thing called UBUNTU. It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Equanimity
When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be — I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Forgiveness
Where there is forgiveness, there is God Himself.
From the Sikhism faith tradition
Gratitude
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart
Humility
All men are children of Adam, and Adam was created from soil.
From the faith tradition of Islam
Integrity
Always be who you are, and say what you feel, because people who mind don’t matter, and people who matter don’t mind.
Dr. Seuss
Justice
Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing, and does not give him his wages; who says, ‘I will build myself a great house with spacious upper rooms,’ and cuts out windows for it, paneling it with cedar, and painting it with vermillion. Do you think you are a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the poor and the needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the Lord.
From the prophet Jeremiah and the Jewish faith tradition
Kindness
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
Albert Schweitzer
Love
Hatreds never cease through hatred in this world; through love alone they cease. This is an eternal law.
From the Buddhist faith tradition
