A suggestion has come to mind about walking together for world peace. When Australians what to change something, they get together, make their placards about peace, and walk together purposefully. We have done this earlier, with our interfaith and multifaith friendship walks, as Bishop Philip Huggins recalls. Perhaps we could walk again – in these days of a fractured world. A meditative exploration follows … Silent, Meditative Multi Faith Peace Walks?
A PeaceMaking Suggestion: Silent, Meditative Multi Faith Peace Walks together locally during October?
Background
The anniversary approaches of what happened on October 7, 2023, and then – thereafter – tragically, until now.
With folk of many faiths, including an Imam, a Rabbi and myself – all from the ‘Abrahamic Faiths’ – there was a Conversation on Sunday September 15 in which we shared the personal spiritual practices that help us sustain our inner peace when working for peace in our fractured world.
More of this at the conclusion of this Paper, but when panellists were asked what fracturing issue is of most concern, the suffering on and after October 7 in Israel / Gaza was the first matter we mentioned.
Our common yearning is that all people are safe, feel free and are at peace. Hence the distress we have shared, now, for nearly a year.
Our faiths and our friendships give us a bond in sorrow.
We have each offered and continue to offer our prayers and meditations, joined to humanitarian assistance and advocacy. See Imagining World Leaders – The Future we Seek wherein we were asked to Imagine world leaders … sitting together in stillness and silence, meditating, in preparation for deep and healing dialogue towards an enchanting and sustained world peace. We were asked to examine that which holds us together: the current tensions and theatres of conflict on Earth, we need programs that help us better appreciate each other’s story of faith and life. We need to recognise and acknowledge true humanness.
Bishop Huggins goes on to share inter-religious talks of Israeli and Muslims of the Friends of Roots. Many chant ‘from the river to the sea!” And this, where one side alone claims belonging to the land between the river and the sea to a place where it is recognised, not only that both Israelis and Palestinians are deeply connected to the same land, but that the historical borders are the same.
When the Holy Land was once again plunged into violence on October 7th last year, Elijah Interfaith responded with intensified prayers. Our ongoing program, Praying Together in Jerusalem, increased its activity from monthly to weekly gatherings under the subject-line, “Upholding the Dignity of the Human Person.” Friends in the Elijah Interfaith Institute offer the attached gathering of Prayers and Meditations:
In late September there is the 2024 World Week of Prayer for Peace in Palestine and Israel. The World Council of Churches invited people of all faiths and people from all churches all over the world to pray, advocate, and stand in solidarity with people in the Holy Land during the World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel.
This Statement from the National Council of Churches in Australia shows this faithful offering of Prayer, linked to Humanitarian Assistance and Advocacy.
The theme for every day of this week were accompanied by data and testimonies of current realities, bible verses, prayers, and daily reflections, that cover – human loss, injured and disabled, the displaced, Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, women and children under fire, the international community and, lastly, looking forward to the reconstruction needs, challenges and future path for Gaza.
This Australian contribution is part of what is global, through members of the World Council of Churches.
Sometimes, in the demands of these days, our solidarity in compassion may not seem as visible as it could be.
Silent Walking, Meditating for Peace – is a way of visibly reaffirming our solidarity in compassion.
We can rekindle a dream that Australia might offer to the world a model of interfaith harmony on a ‘Continent of Compassion.’
Particularly after the Charter for Compassion’s National Day with this focus :’Australia-a Continent of Compassion’. It is a worthy vision and can yet be our reality.
*As people of faith ,we know we must persist, taking what initiatives seem possible, working together to ensure that the hate and suffering we have seen and are seeing overseas does not infect our interfaith relationships here.
Can we overstate how important this is,including so that our young people have hope for a safe and peaceful future?
Peace Walks together locally during October?
*In this context, in recent days, whilst on a Retreat in the Kimberley, I had time to consider what else could be done as we approached the anniversary of what happened on October 7 and thereafter.
I remembered the Spring Time Peace Walks we initiated through the Jewish Christian Muslim Association (JCMA) in 2015 and wondered whether we could do one of these again, albeit with a prayerful poignancy befitting these circumstances in October 2024. Here are some of the links to that previous initiative.
This idea has been discussed with an Imam and a Rabbi who both knew of the earlier Spring Peace Walks together. It has also been shared with some other Multi-Faith leaders.
*For various reasons it does not seem possible to have a Peace Walk on the same route on Sunday October 6 2024. Perhaps this may be possible during the Week of Prayer for World Peace, around United Nations Day, 24 October.
This year is the 50th Anniversary of this beautiful initiative.
Aware of the tensions, can we imagine and initiate local Peace Walks in meditative silence where, at each location, we offer and listen to each other’s Prayers for Peace?
There are examples of this. Here, Plum Village – the village founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh offers a shared journey of Silent Walking – Meditation for Peace:
There are interfaith resources too. In the UK, the Quakers organised Peace is Every Step: Silent Walking Meditation for Peace Multi-faith Event.
Fifty years ago, leaders from various faiths joined together and wrote: “In the turmoil of a world increasingly dominated by violence and characterised by bewilderment and confusion created by the apparent impotence of man to alleviate suffering caused by injustice except by more recourse to violence, it seems to us that an unprecedented spiritual initiative is urgently required. We therefore wish to commend the idea of the World Week of Prayer for Peace.” In the five decades since, the interfaith Week of Prayer for World Peace has taken place each October. Bringing together people from all faith communities and none, it has given a chance to learn and share.
The words they went on to write could have been written today, “The situation is urgent. Violent conflict within nations and the ever-present threat of war between nations or races pose unprecedented dangers. The delicately interwoven structures of modern society and the contraction of the world by speedy communications have made every part of the globe immediately vulnerable to the effects of any outbreak of violent conflict. But these same factors also offer an unprecedented opportunity to create a quickened sense of brotherhood. Therein lies the overwhelming need for a Week of Prayer for World Peace.”
In this 50th anniversary year, you are invited to use the prayers/thoughts in this resource. As George Macleod (founder of the Iona Community), wrote: “Where people are praying for peace the cause of peace is strengthened by their very act of prayer, for they are themselves becoming immersed in the spirit of peace.”
Sustaining Peace in a Fractured World
A personal note on what helps me sustain peacemaking in our fractured world.
In conclusion, as regards personal spiritual practice, the one learning I yearn to see better appreciated relates to a seemingly simple matter.
To be truly free and a maker of peace we must choose the thoughts that will shape peaceful words and actions.
Thoughts can come from many places ~
- our imagination
- our memories
- what we read
- conversations we may have overheard…
Being aware of our thoughts is one thing. Being also aware of what might be influencing our thoughts is another.
But choosing which thoughts will become our words and actions requires a sustained intentionality.
My learning is of how mantric meditation helps. For me, especially, ‘Jesus have mercy’.
Breathing in, saying under one’s breath, Jesus…
Breathing out, saying, have mercy…
It’s mystical and practical.
More about the mystical another time, but the practicality is that the mantra gives us somewhere to go when we have awareness of thoughts we do not want to continue; thoughts that should not shape our subsequent words and actions.
This awareness can so quickly be lost. We may find ourselves saying and doing things we thereafter regret.
There’s no point saying, “I do not know what I was thinking!” We do know what we are thinking but do we have the capacity, the developed intentionality, to stop before that thinking takes us into words and actions we then regret? If not, we are not free.
Being free and peaceful is quite a journey!
But what if people appear to have no regret about words and actions which, as we have seen, destroy other people’s peace, freedom…loved ones…homes…communities?
That there can be an apparent lack of regret is a deep sorrow. That this destruction can be rationalised only proves that the human capacity to rationalise any behaviour is utterly bottomless.
Wisdom gives us a simple test. If our first reaction on hearing of someone else’s suffering is some form of delight, we should go immediately on a silent retreat to purify our hearts.
That is, if our deepest truth, beyond mere rhetoric, is to be people of peace and freedom.
Imagine the beauty if we always made the choice to offer words and actions aiming to heal, never to harm.
These were not the choices made in the lead up to, on and after October 7.
I pray there is soon an end to this terrible suffering. I pray there is the beginning of some negotiations towards a safer future. I pray the huge work of rebuilding can soon begin. I pray there can be the healing of memories, including for the children.
Meanwhile, what we can all do to influence the atmosphere is to freely choose peace in all our thoughts, words and actions. Including,perhaps,on Multi Faith Peace Walks during October. Hoping it is helpful, I offer this suggestion.
BISHOP PHILIP HUGGINS
Friday, September 20, 2024.
Bishop Philip Huggins is a bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Patron of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, and member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Interfaith Liaison Committee. He is also a member of the National Executive of Religions for Peace Australia.
