A PODIUM FOR PEACE

Dedicated to my mother & father on May 9th, 2004.

I often wonder where do I find peace? Where does it reside? Where does peace come from? Where does it go when it goes away? Does it turn into anger or discord? Is there only peace and lack of peace, or are there degrees in between—mostly peaceful, somewhat peaceful? These are all questions I have.

As I write these words down on paper, I am sitting in an orchard beneath some fruit trees in a quiet grove. It is late afternoon. I feel a breeze moving across the orchard. I see it, as if it was some invisible hand, weighing the blades of grass down to the ground and moving the leaves around on the trees. I feel the breeze against my face. It is a peaceful breeze, not a violent warlike wind. The breeze actually seems to push me towards peacefulness, to a place inside me, somewhere in the direction opposite of discord.

I know that peace exists because I feel it now all around me. But I am also aware of wars being fought in other parts of the world. I know that war seems to live in the Middle East. At this time last year I was in Iraq as a photojournalist where I saw the damage war had wrought. I saw hundreds of buildings crumbled by the winds of war. I saw people wounded by battles lying in the hospitals of Baghdad.

As a journalist, I have seen and felt the winds of war. I experienced it as a combat correspondent in Vietnam when I was still a young man. Being there changed my life forever. I have seen the angry face of war in other places too. I saw it through my camera lens on 9/11 from an Army Black Hawk helicopter, a bird with a warlike name made to fly in the winds of war.

Seeing war has been disturbing fact of life for me as it is for anyone who has felt war’s wrath. It has made me both angry and depressed at times, which in turn has made me seek ways to quell these emotions. I found that seeking peace in artificial substances worked only for a short time and dealt only with the symptoms not the root of the problem. Substances create something more like pacification than real peace.

Back at home, some months after returning from Vietnam but still very much in its grip, I parked in front of a market where there was a poster in the window with the picture of a Yogi on it. He had a happy and peaceful look on his face and it turned out, when I went to meet him later, that he truly was both a happy and peaceful man. I followed Maharishi around the world to Europe and to India learning what he taught about peace. The most important thing I learned was to meditate, which brought me real peace and still does—the same sort of peace that comes from being in this orchard.

Just because I meditate doesn’t mean that I’m always peaceful. I am not. I still get angry. I still sometimes grow depressed and I still meet with anger in others and, because of my job, I sometimes run into wars.

But I have learned that peace resides within each of us. This makes me think that the solution to ridding the world of anger must happen one person a time. In order to create a more peaceful planet each of us must be responsible for our own behavior. Each of us must find our own peace. A forest of green trees is made up of individual green trees.

A short time ago while working on a story I attended the logging conference at the Ukiah Fair Grounds where I watched some artisans making sculptures out of Redwood logs. Beside them was a bin filled with large scraps of redwood, free for the taking. I threw two large pieces onto the bed of my pick up truck and brought them home. When I moved them to my backyard, I inadvertently rested one piece crosswise on top of the other. Then, when I saw them the next morning, I knew the Peace Podium had been born. It seemed as if Mother Nature had begun construction, not me. For weeks afterwards, I sanded and varnished, finishing what had been so beautifully begun.

Whenever I have walked through the redwood forest in Montgomery Grove, I have realized that the trees have been around for centuries—some were here when Christ was alive. These ancient living things give you pause. They make the present seem like only a blip on the screen of history. That must be why the Peace Podium is made of redwood—to represent the possibility of peace that lies within the timelessness of nature.

The Peace Podium exists to help create a more peaceful planet. The podium will be a platform from which people can share their hope for peace. People can come, one by one, and speak of their own peace, how they find it and where they find it. Others will hear what they say and will hopefully learn ways to find peace in their own lives.

Each person can share what works for them. In this way each of us can speak of peace and listen peacefully. There just one rule: Those who listen are asked not judge the words of another. Instead, each of us must find acceptance within our own hearts. If we do not agree with what someone says, we just let their words roll off us and be thankful that something works for them. Judging creates discord, so we do not judge. We should remember that no one, ourselves included, is perfect.

The breeze in the orchard blows peacefully. The fruit trees listen silently and bear fruit. In the orchard, all is peaceful. I am experiencing that peace is not an abstract idea but a very real thing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to spread the news that real peace like this exists right now? Why not tell our stories and let them flow like a breeze across the earth?

A bluebird flies around the orchard, as I write. He lands on the fence and, from time to time, pauses to rest in the trees. The bird delivers the message that peace is possible. The bluebird, for me, is a symbol of hope. Right now, I am hopeful that the Earth can be made into a more peaceful place.

Posted by Tony at May 16, 2004 11:27 AM