Believe in Faith and Peace

Working to achieve the peaceful state of being is a goal many will never reach. The reasons why many will not find is peace can be summed up in a simple phrase – lack of faith. I am not talking about a religious component in life. What I am pointing out is the personal commitment to be peaceful. Within that personal commitment we must understand that peace for you may not be peace for another. To truly be peaceful, that reality must be understood. Along with that personal understanding or peace comes the broader realm of living a non-threating life. When it comes to violence, war, weapons and protection from such, peace is often misrepresented. Now, a peaceful person has no need for weapons because there is no need to fear anyone. However there is the reality of insanity of those that do fear and do carry weapons. What does a peaceful person do then? Depending on how much faith you have in yourself will determine if you need a weapon or not. We have recently experienced the passing of Nelson Mandela. This man was once a very violent person. After 27 years in jail he renounced violence as he understood that it accomplished very little. Nelson Mandela believed in peace so much that he no longer had faith in the phrase, peace by any means possible. Peace must be found from within first. From there, the reality of peaceful relations with others is rooted in communication, trust and understanding. For example if you walk up to a bear that has cubs, you should understand and trust that bear will put up a fight. However the bear will most likely seek to scare you first and avoid any physical confrontation. But if the communication is not clear violence will be a result. The same with people. In the realm of interpersonal communication we have many layers. There is the person to person (you and me), group to group (gangs and police) and country to country (allies and enemies). In such matches we have used guns, knives, bombs and chemicals to fight each other. Alfred Nobel created a weapon he thought was powerful enough to end wars. That proved to be wrong. We created nuclear weapons which have done very little to stop war. The piece we often forget is that every war starts and ends with a discussion. With that understanding, the one area we need to improve on is our communication, not methods of killing. We need to focus on relationships guided by kindness rather than fear.