I just wanted to thank you for this beautiful thought and powerful intention of peaceful action. I wanted to share with you a moment of concurrent thought that occurred between a group of friends and I. We had all been asked to make a wish at the end of a party, as the torches where being extinguished, and after the final flame had died under the force of our breath one of my friends exclaimed that he had wished for world peace. In the moments that followed the was reveled that we had all collectively wished for the same thing with the same intention that you mention in your piece. We all realize that war is not the answer, that love and kindness will conquer all. The only way I can see to overcome the people who orchestrated this terrible act is to prove to their masses, their true power base, that we are kind and generous people and not the "great white devils" that their leaders portray us to be. Bomb them with food and medicine. 20 billion dollars of aid to the poor starving people of Afganistan, Iran, Irac, and all of the other sanctioned masses (that we have injured in our governments attempt to undermine their governments power) would do more to further the cause of peace than any act of aggression could possibly achieve. I think that we should perpetrate a wave of generosity the like of which has never been seen before! True, proud americans would rather rather give help to people than kill them. Aloha from Maui, Hawaii, Mykal Aloha: What do you want for your country? Who are we as a nation? My friend Chris provides a pre-scription, a philosophical frame upon which to begin any national strategic actions. Chris is a national speaker and an acclaimed writer. Please post widely. peace. robk Scroll down to begin reading.... Dear All -- and I mean All -- Most of you know I rarely send mass e-mails, and never before one of this scope. Others have however encouraged me to get this piece out into the world and I therefore take the liberty. Elizabeth has already sent it to some folks on her list. I apologize for any duplications. Thanks for listening. Best, Christopher --- WHAT I WANT FOR AMERICA This is what I want for my country in the aftermath of terrorism. I want us to think about what we want to create, rather than what -- or whom -- we want to destroy. I want us to focus with greater intensity than ever before in the life of this nation on our collective vision of peace rather than on waging war. I want us to focus on peace as if our lives and the lives of those we love depended on it, because they may. I want us to focus on creation because it is a primary activity of love in the world while destruction is the routine activity of hate. Peace, rightly understood as an active and not a passive state, is the manifestation of love -- not love as mere sentiment, but love as a state of being. War, whether waged in the heat of anger or the cold calculation of "strategic thinking," is the effective manifestation of hatred. I want us to think about justice rather than revenge, retaliation, or retribution. Justice is slow, deliberate, patient, and long-term. Revenge is too often swift, and its fruits correspondingly short-lived. There is no future in it and there is no vision behind it. Revenge, retaliation and retribution all ignore the Third Law of Terrorists in Motion: for every violent action, there is an equal and opposing reaction of equal or greater violence. I want us to think about patriotism as a function of love for one another and for our national ideals, rather than as a sentimental, short-term bonding in reaction to an assault from "outside." There is no "outside." There is one world and we are a part of it. The patriotism of the heart excludes no one. Instead it celebrates communities of the spirit, communities that define themselves by shared interests and a shared vision, yet honoring all that is good and true in the visions of others. I want us to think about the process at Nuremberg instead of the vengeful holocausts of Dresden -- or worse, Hiroshima -- and about the peace established at the end of World War II, not the humiliating, illusive treaty devised in the aptly-named Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in 1919. To convict and justly sentence your enemy through due process, and to exhibit him to the world as the object of utter condemnation, is to invest in the sane future state of humanity. But to make your enemy so faceless and inhuman that you can attempt to annihilate him, wholesale -- and along with him, the innocent among whom he resides -- is to corrode and degrade your own humanity. And if you succeed in defeating him, to humiliate him deliberately is to invite the cancer he represents to reappear and to metastasize: the Second World War arose directly out of the humiliation of Germany after the First. To leave in your wake a culture that produces a Hitler is hardly progress. I want us to think about engaging the very nations that now provide a haven for terrorism as primary allies in rooting it out. I want us to think about ways _other than the threat of destruction_ by which we may persuade them that their own best interest lies in international justice, not international chaos. I want us to think like visionaries -- not like fanatics or Crusaders. I want us to ponder what we can offer Afghanistan or Syria or Libya or the Sudan, or any other deliberate or incidental host to terrorism, that is of such value they will bargain with us to receive it in exchange for yielding up the international murderers and criminals they now harbor. I want Americans to turn first, not last or as an afterthought, to any of their neighborhood or their acquaintance who are of the Muslim faith, and offer them friendship. I want us to give them the absolute reassurance that they will not be blamed for the actions of those who would pervert the words of Mohammed, turning them to ends that directly violate the intent of the prophet and the will of Allah. And finally and most radically of all I want us not merely to pray for the souls of the thousands of victims of the terrorism -- who are surely, surely today received and embraced by the agency of a loving God -- but to pray as well for the souls of the perpetrators, living or dead. I want us to do this because those souls need Light as greatly as any in the entire universe of souls. I want us to do this precisely because it is the one action in which we finally, completely distinguish ourselves from the adversary. I want America to demonstrate to the world that greatness is a matter of transcending everything to do with hate. I want us to rise to a level of greatness we do not even expect of ourselves. I want the world to see all this. I want the world to rise and meet us, and I want us -- all -- to go forward on that plane to which, by such thoughts and actions as these, America in its heart of hearts has always yearned to ascend. Copyright � 2001 by Christopher Childs Christopher Childs is the author of _The Spirit's Terrain: Creativity, Activism, and Transformation_ (Beacon Press, Boston; 1998); he is a writer, activist, photographer and actor, and is the former National Speaker for Greenpeace in the United States. He may be reached by e-mail at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> . This essay is for the private use and distribution of recipients and may not be reproduced in whole or in part for profit without the express written consent of the author.
