Join us a few minutes before 10:30 a.m. by clicking on https://bit.ly/3aR2qw5. Meeting ID: 991 4202 7902.
Passcode: 546613. Or call in: 646 876 9923 and enter the Meeting ID 991 4202 7902 when prompted.

Our guest speaker this morning, Paula Green, founded the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, an Amherst-based NGO focused on international conflict transformation, inter-communal dialogue, and reconciliation. She writes:

Here and abroad, we are forever mourning and memorializing the deaths of soldiers. The myth of heroic warfare is long gone and yet we continue to send our youngsters off to battle. It is long past time to turn over a new leaf.

The roots of war vary only slightly over time and culture. Humans everywhere share the same basic needs for physical sustenance, for safety and security, and for affirming love, belonging, and respect. When those needs appear to be slipping away, either in actuality or in our imaginations, fear arises. Fears give way to antagonism and aggression, to hate and blame. The cycle of war begins again.

We in the US must learn from the rest of the world to curb our worst fear-based impulses, lest we further escalate our current divides. Therein lies the path to peace, the true honoring of all whose lives have been sacrificed in that pursuit.