Peace activist I said, as I concluded my Toastmasters speech at the UN last week. What a contradiction in terms! Peace reeks of passivity, tolerance, understanding.
Who recognizes peace as a dynamic harmony of interaction? Peace is not just the absence of war any more than health is simply the absence of disease.
What is true peace?
What is true peace? Reverend Moon speaks of peace only being possible in unity. Yet what is unity? Unity in uniformity? Do we have to be the same? Do we all need to conform?
Some people think that peace must be boring; that peace is only possible with mutual interests, means and goals. Consensus is mutual agreement, without necessarily sharing all perspectives and the values of our counterpart.
Compromise (according to the Cambridge Dictionary) means an agreement in an argument in which the people involved reduce their demands or change their opinion in order to agree.
What is unity?
So, what is unity? The Oxford Lerner’s Dictionary says Unity is the state of being in agreement and working together; the state of being joined together to form one unit.
I believe that we are entering an incredible time when unimagined miracles can happen, when cosmic energies are being released, when every single one of us has the potential to do so much more than we thought possible. I believe my mentors who tell me that the world needs that one genuine, unique quality of mine. I believe we are all pieces of a giant puzzle that fit together to make a beautiful tapestry. I believe that we are all much more than a mere machine that responds to the stimuli and fuel it is fed to produce a certain result. I believe in you and me.
Year of the Dragon
Since the dawning of this new Age of Aquarius and the Year of the Dragon, I’ve experienced a whirlwind of growth and development in consciousness and an opening of spirit. More than forty years ago, in fact, nearly fifty years ago, when I joined the “Unification Movement”, my colleagues and I were ridiculed, persecuted and oppressed for believing the teachings of the Unification Principles as revealed by Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Today I hear and read of distinguished scientists explaining the basis of frequency and energy medicine which was ridiculed and even forbidden in times and places still known to many.
In this Age of exponential knowledge growth with countless opportunities of pseudo relationships, the personal human factor may easily be overlooked or fall short. With all our opportunities to workout online, to shop at home, to distract to absurdum, it requires a conscious decision to make a real human contribution and invest in live relationships.
World Family
My plea to my colleagues at the UN is to embrace the concept of the world family. We talk about the UN Family when we address the interdisciplinary nature of our SDGs. We know that the SDGs can only be achieved in unity, as we cooperate. I know that my goal to raise five healthy children was only achieved with the cooperation of my husband. My parents were in Australia, where I grew up. I was in Austria, where I lived with my husband.
My mother once told me that her marriage survived because she could not run away. She was thousands of miles away from her parents in Europe, she had two little children, no electricity or running water. Her focus was on making her marriage work. There was no alternative.
Today, there are many people worldwide who do not have options due to circumstances beyond their personal control. Yet, we are a human family.
Love Grows
As the passive love of a child develops into a reciprocal relationship with siblings and peers, it is the mutually exclusive love of a man and a woman, that breeds the unconditional love of parents. This exclusive relationship between a man and a woman is the unity which is the source of life resulting from love and resulting in lineage.
They, man and woman, are totally different and unite to create new life!
Life, love and lineage. Reverend Moon speaks of these three aspects as being critical. Life, love and lineage as primary for the survival of the human race!
World Peace?
What does that have to do with me, you ask?
How easy to distance ourselves from the world situation. I can’t do anything about Russia, North Korea, the Ukraine, Israel or Palestine, so no point in worrying about world peace. And you are right! There is no point in worrying! Because worry is not what will solve the problem.
So where are we going?
I gave my talk at the UN last week on TP UN. I spoke to my former colleagues to impart my vision of how the UN can contribute to world peace. I worked in Nuclear Security for ten years and recognized that I do not have all the answers. Sure, I saw my expert colleagues address insider threat and cyber security of nuclear reactors. Yet I could not help but consider that perhaps sometimes the insider threat is more generated by unmet needs and missing love. My simplistic expression of family love may even be easily misunderstood at first glance.
Digging deeper, however, I know that the whole concept of TRUE PARENTS would greatly benefit the mandate and structure of the UN and indeed all governing systems. When we manage to heal aches and pains of the little children, undernourished and deprived of parental love, when we learn to give and receive, to reciprocate and share unselfishly, when we value the security of a mutually exclusive, safe, bonding relationship and experience the unconditional love of parents, we are no longer a burden to our environment, but a blessing.
One of my colleagues said I am a dreamer. And she advised me to keep dreaming.
What are your dreams?