Lesson 14 – Finding/Being Peace,  August, 2008

 

Chalice:  It is essential to know that to be a happy person, a happy family, a happy society, it is very crucial to have a good heart, that is very crucial.  World peace must develop from inner peace.  Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion.

Dalai Lama

 

Check-in:

 

Reading: In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace.  When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities.  Only when this really happens – when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing.

Albert Schwietzer

 

Quotes from the Common Bowl

 

Life Questions:

 

1.      What are some of the ways you personally cultivate peace in your everyday life?

2.     How do you think we learn peace?

3.     Many of the readings and quotes speak to peace beginning in the heart as a prerequisite for greater community peace.  Do you support this?  Is it your experience?

4.     Is our focus on peacemaking different when our country is actively engaged in war, or is it always present for us?

 

Closing ritual: 

We extinguish this flame but not the light of truth

The warmth of community

Or the fire of commitment

These we carry in our hearts until we are together again

 

Check-out

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Quotations for Lesson 14 – Finding/Being Peace

August, 2008

The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities.  Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.

John Foster Dulles

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.

John F. Kennedy

Having wisdom to face the truth will bring us closer to peace.

Melody Beattie

There never was a good war, or a bad peace.

Benjamin Franklin

Peace is not a relationship of nations.  It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul.

Jawaharlal Nehru

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends.  You talk to your enemies.

Moshe Dayan

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power.  Then will our world know the blessings of peace.

William Gladstone

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Isaiah, II:4

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.

Maria Montessori

Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Baruch Spinoza