No, a "pacemaker" keeps your heart beating. Yes, I saw Monty Python's Life of Brian and it was very funny when the sage said, "Blessed are the cheesemakers," but stop kidding around. Here is an actual graph of Peace Pilgrim's transformation.

http://www.peacepilgrim.org/book/apx2.htm

Proof positive that the world can be a better place.

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

The remarkable thing about Peace Pilgrim is the complete absence of religion as a vehicle. Like Eckhart Tolle, she just found herself "waking up."
As we know, "waking up is hard to do."

Here's an odd assortment of quotations designed to facilitate such an awakening. At the very least, you could catch an horrific headache from it.

http://www.daft.com/~torin/quotes.lst

More on peacemakers later, caritas, mm <*))))><

I read an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount that says that every one of those "blessed" things are blessed (such as the poor in spirit, the meek, etc.) because they are all attributes of people who need a break. That is to say, to be a peacemaker is to be in a very precarious situation. They typically get dumped on from all sides. It's often a thankless job.

Brad,
http://www.peacemakersguide.org/

Here is a sight I have been visiting often. These are the faces of peace. Many of the faces are pages out of the Green Meme Hall of Fame. Would Gandhi's methods work in Iraq. I don't think so. The British
were capable of feeling ashamed. Americans responded to Dr. King and South Africans responded to Tutu.

Jimmy Carter's intentions were good, but he overestimated his chances in that situation,IMO.
When all you have is a hammer, you tend to think everything is all nail. Hope that he saves his hammer for his work with the Habitat for Humanity!

What I learn from this is that although the green meme is a very advanced stage of development, the peace makers of the future may be soldiers, as they have often been in century 20, and that the peacemakers of the future may need to be "cunning as serpents, but gentle as doves."

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

We have persisted in sending Christians over to North Korea. People like Jimmy Carter and Billy Graham have been over there in the 90s. Today they agreed to halt production of nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan

Here is a peace activist from the Catholic Church.
He wants to go around banging on nuclear missiles with a hammer, which I admit is a little crazy, but having the missiles in the first place is kind of crazy too, don't you think?

Here is a sight I have been visiting often. These are the faces of peace. Many of the faces are pages out of the Green Meme Hall of Fame. Would Gandhi's methods work in Iraq. I don't think so. The British
were capable of feeling ashamed. Americans responded to Dr. King and South Africans responded to Tutu.

Interesting site, MM. I suppose any peacemaker, even if imperfect, is a good peacemaker, right? Well, for many people "peace" can only be achieved by, more or less, accepting Marxist principles. That is to say, people have tried to, consciously or unconsciously, to equate peace, not with a state of non-violence, but with a state of politics and economics. Peace then often becomes little more than a disguise.

http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/LifeInTheBlood.htm

You would have to be made of stone to remain untouched by these words. Sometimes you have to rail
against the darkness as a madman and just hope someone might listen!

Here is another crazy lady, Walksfar Woman

http://www.peacemakersguide.or...akers/Jun-Yasuda.htm

http://www.dharmawalk.org/junsan1.htm

This one just melts me down to my toes!

http://www.intouch.org/myintou...Carmichael273673.htm

Here is another crazy lady [Jun Yasuda], Walksfar Woman�

MM, I think by "crazy" you perhaps mean "So far out in front spiritually as to be perceived as �crazy� by most people." But could it also be that she is both out front and behind?

quote:

As for this particular vigil, her reasons are simple: "Why is there a prison here? Five hundred years ago there was none. There were only Native Americans living in peace. They had reverence for each other. Now we fear each other. I am here to help people stop fearing each other, and to trust. We need to change the way we think. Putting people in cages is not a solution."

Who can doubt that we make life more complex than it needs to be? But the fact is, life is complex if only because there are just so many beings and things to factor into the equation. If one carries an idealized fantasy vision in one�s head of the way things used to be, then I have little confidence that a particular person has any better grasp of the present. And this, I think, is what divides peacemakers from more useful peacemakers: Reality and facts can not be ignored if one�s goal is to build a better world.

quote:

My mind goes to the recent World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, where massive nonviolent protests were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Speaking of ignoring reality. Those protests were specifically NOT non-violent. Sure, some of the protesters were principled and peaceful, but the vast majority were anarchists looking to party hearty in their own particular and quite un-peaceful way.

quote:

It�s freezing in the tent, and I�m ready to get back to my car. It�s great to be so high-minded, but I need a cup of coffee. I wonder about Jun. She must be exhausted. Five days in damp tent with no food? And she�s so thin. I ask her if she�s worried about getting sick. "I am not sick," she says. She is almost indignant, I think. "It�s the world that is really sick, you know. There is so much violence, so much fighting, so many people killing each other."

I think in a quite intuitive way that people know that something is wrong. Heck, all one has to do is read any morning newspaper to know this. And on this point that the world is "sick" I don�t disagree and I am fully in support of oddball characters sort of reminding us of this fact via their often quite effective "marketing campaigns" which are bolstered by their idiosyncratic methods, whether natural or premeditated. But there is one fundamental problem, and it�s a whopper: If we�re living in a sick world because of misunderstandings, violence, a lack of higher consciousness, etc., then how likely is it that we can dig our way out of this mess if we are in a similar state, if our own biases leave us in a decidedly lower state of consciousness and thereby perhaps promote misunderstandings and do violence to the truth?

I think that some peace activists might be doing some good by sort of counterbalancing with their narrow biases the biases of others. Even if they are often stretching the truth, glossing over more stubborn realities, or simply living in a fantasy world, it can, and I think often does, provide friction with the status quo and that is very often all we need to make us think, to reconsider what we�re doing. And although a better world is often built on nothing more than good dreams and ideas, I think we should be careful not to confuse this better world with the often simplistic and often downright Marxist utopia that is in the heads of many. And although the confluence of opposing forces can help jar us out of some unhealthy ruts, I think more often than not they are just adding to the general noise. They are often simply obscuring the problem, not helping to lighten it and resolve it. They're often simply shoveling more crap on the pile, not making the crap pile smaller.

I agree with your definition of "crazy." could you imigine what a modern shrink might do with Saint Francis of Asissi? The peacemaker can reveal to us a not yet probable standard, but the rest of us have to slog through the mud of generations of gradual change. Are more people reaching sainthood now than before? I don't know, but the information is much less secretive and esoteric than it used to be. Gandhi has been imitated and I see him on T-shirts and coffee mugs!

I had a therapist diagnose me as unrealistic in believing that spirituality was the main thing everyone should be involved with. She was from the wartorn nation of Israel, where to my way of thinking everone better get into spirituality. But don't listen to me, the therapist views me as "unrealistic."

crazylikeafox.com

http://www.desirestreet.org

I found out about this ministry today. These pastors who serve among hurricane Katrina victims
have lived in what used to be the second largest housing project in the nation, and have forsaken their own advancement for the sake of the Kingdom.
They are teaching and demonstrating family values and helping some of these kids get into colleges."No man hath greater love, than he will lay his life down for his freinds."

A new film about Mother Teresa airs next Saturday on TBN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dellinger

I just discovered David Dellinger. He appears to have been an evangelical Christian of high purpose and steadfast character. The problem seems to be that he
made an ideology his first cause rather than faith.
Selling out to the radical left and striking up a correspondence with Ho Chi Minh, who murdered countless Christians in the name of an atheistic ideology, is to me unfathomable. David Hawkins has calibrated pacifism as a philosophy at 180, below the level of integrity.

He was into Gandhi, which is a peace activism from
a much higher vision and purpose and clarity. There is a real peace to be had, and a demonstration of peace rather than a peace demonstration.

This seems about as clear as mud to me. Counterculture icon Jack Kerouac, turned against his
Beat Generation freinds later in life, and favored
military actions in Southeast Asia.

Leo Tolstoy, a major influence on Gandhi, universalist, vegetarian, Christian anarchist and pacifist, was also a tragic figure later in life.

David Hawkins has calibrated the level of consciousness of both Kerouac and Tolstoy at 420.
(The United States of America calibrates at 421).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

Another recent discovery for myself anyway, has been the life of Carherine Doherty. A freind has offered to loan me a copy of the Poustinia, her best known work. He says that he actually met her in Combermere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Doherty

I'm seeking to make this thread about personal transformative experience resulting in transforming
society and culture. How am I doing? <*))))>< mm

Another peacemaker along the same lines as Catherine Doherty and someone I did not know about a couple of years ago, is Dorothy Day, winner of many peace awards and like Catherine Doherty, her cause for cannonization is being considered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day

Last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_ElBaradei

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

"If the world does not change course, we risk self destruction."

I agree in part with AlBaradei, but if spiral dynamics holds true, then he may be saying this from a green meme assumption that all people are equal. While all are equal in the sight of God, all are not experiencing the same level of truth.

If David Hawkins is right, and the U.S.A calibrates at 421, and Iran at 190, or below the basic level of integrity (200), then I would trust
the U.S.A.'s intentions much more than those of Iran. I would rather not have the weapons in the first place, since the U.S.A. is not immune to someone at the level of 190 gaining control over
a weapon someday. In the long run, a long range plan to reduce or eliminate weapons of mass destruction seems the wise course.

peace_through_superior_firepower.com

Yes and as we will hopefully see MM, once you start that new thread on Aurabindo, there are safe, life enhancing ways to create protection, a sort of natural invincibility from the inside out. God created us in his image yes? ..So we are infinitly creative..We just have to learn to tap into the field of all possiblties.

It is no coincident to me that Viagra is so popular these days...We were not created to resort to such impotent measures of defense. God knows we are capable of more and knowledge has been given to us of how to do that..We just have to organize and implement around that knowledge

venilila, Pauline

quote:

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

How about�

�We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some criminals to have grenade launchers, yet morally acceptable for law enforcement to rely on them for security and indeed to continue to refine their capacity and postulate their plans for use.�

Another lefty wins the Nobel Prize, eh? What a surprise.

Brad,

How do you feel about this peacemaker? I just read "The Politics of Jesus Simplified Summary" at the bottom of the page. Got 20 minutes? If not, you might check it out when you have time. He's neoorthodox, liberal and pacifist, but has brain, will share. Might you concede a point or two to an Anabaptist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Yoder

I'll definitely check that out, MM. Thanks. Will report back later.

From an Amazon.com review of the book, The Politics of Jesus:

quote:

No one makes the case for the radical, total non-violence of the Christian message better than John Howard Yoder. Though he wrote many books after this one, this is by far the best place to start. Yoder's familiarity with Scripture is magisterial, and the gentle yet firm way he responds to his Catholic and Reformed critics is convincing and exciting. Most timely of all, he devotes an entire chapter to deconstructing traditional Christian interpretations of Romans 13:1-7, the passages most often cited by just war theorists to defend the use of violence by the state. Anyone who believes it is possible for a Christian to bear arms and follow Christ must respond to Yoder's analysis.

And another:

quote:

In this book, Yoder argues that Jesus was a pacifist, left-wing, social revolutionary. Not a revolutionary with swords but with teachings that go against the socio-economic values of that time. In essence, Christianity is basically about a new socio-political reality that challenges the imperialistic attitudes and practices of oppressive regimes. Christians are revolutionaries that (peacefully) challenge the worldly values and regimes that they are surrounded by. In fact, a personal relationship with God, individual spirituality, and an individual confession of faith are not the core essences of what it means to be a Christian. Furthermore, according to Yoder, cross-bearing is not about following Jesus, obeying his commands, and being a minister of the gospel in the face of spiritual danger but about being a "social non-conformist" (p. 96).

I think, MM, one can see (if there is an Ultimate Moral Code and Ultimate Moral Arbiter) that, as humans, we see unclearly and with limits. Each of us is like one piece of a jigsaw puzzle which has do determine, from the scant evidence of just itself (and perhaps other random pieces it sees lying about), where it belongs in the big picture. And to do so it has to have some kind of an idea of what the picture itself looks like so that it knows where it (as a piece of the puzzle) belongs in that picture. And so I think one can see in all pieces of our earthly puzzle a pointer to, or essence of, the Ultimate, even in radical far-left so-called "peace" advocates, although it does indeed appear that Yoder was a genuine one. I haven't read his book. I don't know, for example, whether he was (mirroring many of today's so-called peace advocates) an apologist for Hitler and a critique of Churchill. But the idea of no violence � absolutely none � and to push for reading into and from the guise of Jesus the peaceful side of him is a must, I think. And if I had to say which was better, the Jesus overturning the tables of the money lenders (and Romans 13:1-7) or Jesus as the absolute peaceful giver of life and love, I will choose the latter without question. The problem complicates itself, of course, because to not oppose people such as Hitler and Sadaam is not to facilitate the giving of life and love. We are put by other people (and often, surely, and of course, by our own short-sightedness, ego, stubbornness, and stupidity) in the position of making some hard moral choices. Even though there are truths to both sides, it seems we always as humans (perhaps because of our need to, and ability to, look for Good Ultimates and utopias) trying to take any ying/yang necessary tension and perfect it by taking one side only, inflating it to the full, and calling it The Perfect Thing if only everyone would just get on board with it. And that never, ever seems to work. Probably can not work, and was not supposed to work in our material world.

Agreed. One of his students, Time magazine's best American theologian in 2001, is a tad bit less into
liberation theology, and on the editorial board of First Things. So far I have read the first 16 links
from Hauerwas'unofficial web site, bigbrother.org. He freely admits to being rather cantankerous.

http://www.bigbrother.net/~mugwump/Hauerwas/

He is a fan of John Paul II and similar in view.

People on the left and right put words in Jesus mouth, which is highly unsanitary. Human beings
are still marveling at Him and He defies political
categorization, yet continues to turn the world upside down!

Something about a five-foot one hundered pound female taking on Darth Vader's storm troopers appeals to me. Enjoyed Boorman's film immensely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter

Ok, maybe these guys are too smart and too idealistic and ahead of their time. Woodrow Wilson was our only PHD college professor president. Let's remember that if Newt Gingrich decides to run.

Ok, Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Libya. When you get up to two Peace Prize Winning leaders
then we will know you are serious about peace.

The Holy Father shows us peace. "Remember that fellow who hung out with those fishermen? I'm filling in for him today." -- mm paraphrase

http://www.theglobeandmail.com...Story/International/