Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Charlotte County
"A New
Year's Prayer for Peace"
Rev. Sam Trumbore December 29, 1996
Reading
"We Shall Bring Forth New Life" Sadako Kurihara
In a speech in Washington D.C. at American University, Takashi Hiraoka, Mayor
of Hiroshima, Japan, spoke these words:
Brought back to life as a modern city of 1. 1 million people, Hiroshima hosted
the 12th Asian Games last year in the fall. The Games, in which
6,800 officials and athletes representing 42 countries and regions
participated, was a sports festival, incorporating both the wish for peace and
the excitement of athletic competition.
Cambodia, which was just recently restored to peace after 19 years of
continuous civil war, also participated. Their representatives said that
"we definitely wanted to participate in the Games because they were hosted by
Hiroshima, the symbol of peace. Hiroshima has given us the courage and the hope
to live. "
I was deeply moved by those words. .., I want to aim to be a city that gives
people courage and hope when they hear the word Hiroshima...For Hiroshima to
serve as a symbol of hope for these people, we must rid the Earth of nuclear
weapons. The role of Hiroshima is to continue to ring a bell of warning to the
world about the danger of nuclear weapons - at the same time, I think it is to
give courage and hope to people suffering in the world. It is, after all, the
people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who refused to be defeated by nuclear weapons.
Precisely because we experienced the tragedy of the bombing, we understand the
sanctity of life. This reverence for life was described by the Hiroshima poet
Sadako Kurihara in August 1945.
It was night in the basement of a broken building.
Victims of the
atomic bomb
Crowded into the candleless darkness,
Filling the
room to overflowing ------
The smell of fresh blood, the stench of
death,
The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans ------
When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice.
"Oh! The baby's
coming!" it said.
In the basement turned to living hell
A
young woman had gone into labor!
The others forgot their own pain in
their concern:
What could they do for her, having not even a match
To bring light to the darkness?
Then came another voice: "I am a
midwife.
I can help her with the baby. "
It was a woman who
had been moaning in pain only moments before.
And so, a new life was
born
In the darkness of that living hell.
And so, the midwife
died before the dawn,
Still soaked in the blood of her own wounds,
We shall give forth new life!
We shall bring forth new
life!
Even to our death.
These words were spoken by Pope John Paul in 1981 at the Peace Memorial in
Hiroshima:
War is the work of man. War is destruction of human life. War is death. Nowhere
do these truths impose themselves upon us more forcefully than in this city of
Hiroshima at this Peace Memorial. [The] Two cities will forever have their
names linked together, two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the only
cities in the world that have had the ill fortune to be a reminder that man its
capable of destruction beyond belief. Their names will forever stand out as the
names of the only cities in our time that have been singled out as a warning to
future generations that war can destroy human efforts to build a world of
peace. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
To the creator of nature and man, of truth and beauty I pray: hear my voice,
for I speak for the multitudes in every country and in every period of history
who do not want war and are ready to walk the road of peace. Hear my voice and
grant insight and strength so that we may always respond to hatred with love,
to injustice with total dedication to justice and to need with the sharing to
self, to war with peace. O God, hear my voice and grant unto the world your
everlasting peace.
(Excerpts from "Appeal for Peace" by Pope John Paul II, February 25, 1981)
A New Year's Prayer for Peace
O Thou,
Known by many as God, Allah, Blessed Mother, Divine
Father,
Ram, Shiva, Krishna, Christ, Zarathustra;
Known by others as the
greatest good, the most perfect truth,
spirit of guidance, wisdom, the
collective unconscious
or the ground of being;
Many names pointing to
a vastness beyond ourselves
from which life begins, of which love reveals
and to which we return.
O Thou, blessed spirit of creation,
relationship, and relinquishment,
be with us now as one year ends and
another begins,
open to us what we have not seen or felt before,
and speak to our hearts of peace.
Since my final exit from the womb
delivered into the bright light
illuminating the doctor's hands catching my
head,
I have lived under the apocalyptic inescapable shadow of
war.
All through elementary school, we would ignorantly march out into
the halls
faces against the walls smelling the floor wax,
heads covered
with arms protecting against
an invisible and unexplained danger.
In
middle school I watched the daily casualties
posted on the evening news (for
those who were counting)
and saw the protests by those who didn't wish to be
listed
fighting as an expendable cold warrior in an Asian
jungle.
During the years President Reagan stocked up on guns,
rattled
his nuclear saber,
and looked to the stars for an invincible missile
shield,
I looked out on the San Francisco Bay
as I rode BART to work on
elevated rails
wondering what a 1 mega ton hydrogen bomb would do
if
it slipped through the shield and detonated over Treasure Island.
Would I be
immediately blinded by the flash
if I happened to be looking that
way,?
Would I be vaporized if the train hadn't made it to the tunnel under
the bay?
Would I be incinerated in the firestorm,
be crushed as
the train was blown off the tracks by the fierce winds,
be
irradiated with a lethal dose of alpha particles, gamma and x-rays,
or
worst, survive and suffer the kind of slow agonizing death so many
in
Nagasaki and Hiroshima did?
Until I was 32 or so,
nuclear terror
lurked in the shadows of my hopes and dreams.
threatening to annihilate
everything I value then bury it
under the snows of a nuclear
winter.
O Blessed One,
who brings water to the thirsty, and food to
the hungry,
How grateful are we all that the fear of mutually assured
destruction
fades from our minds as our relations with Russia have
warmed.
The joy of knowing missiles are no longer targeted and ready for
launch,
knowing a mistake or a madman cannot so easily trigger World War
Three.
What ease of mind comes looking into my child's eyes
knowing no
battlefield prepares a place for him
to lie and perhaps never get up.
To
seal the bomb shelter and perhaps never to open it again.
O light of my
conscience
guiding me away from that which harms and toward that which
helps,
The end of the cold war has released our minds from
annihilation
and allows us to focus on other serious challenges we face
today:
The restructuring of the world economy which exports unskilled
jobs,
a growing underclass without hope of economic advancement,
the
destruction of drugs and the injustice in the war on drugs,
focusing on
ozone depletion, carbon dioxide induced global warming,
invasions of exotic
species, the decrease in biodiversity,
the increase of toxic and mutagenic
substances in our food and water,
the thinning of the top soil and shrinking
fresh water supplies,
all capped by an increasing population aggravating
them all.
These problems can seem as threatening to our well being as
war,
but these threats pale before a full exchange of thousands of
missiles
which could end the lives of just about all species
leaving the
world for bacteria and cockroaches to inherit.
We may ease our minds
about peace in the world right now
because of the signs of the new world
order being created.
Our minds are eased by signs of increasing
interdependence
probably the most important being the globalization of
trade,
the intermixing of world markets and securities
networking them
into a sensitive web which responds to movements
and changes anywhere in the
world.
Exports of missiles, tanks and guns which encourage violence and
death
are being swamped by exports of agricultural and consumer
goods
which can only be bought if the people prosper rather than
fight.
People at war don't buy many Cadillacs, video games for their
kids,
and salon shampoos.
If Japan's economy isn't strong, they don't buy
US Bonds.
If European businesses do poorly, American investors now
suffer.
The more connected we are the more we depend on each other.
These
many overlapping interests are encouraging nations
to talk rather than
fight,
to use peaceful means to resolve conflict,
to work multilaterally
rather than unilaterally
to pursue common interests.
Communications
technology
increasingly links our home and office to the world.
Little
children learn about the humanity of children
who wear different
clothes,
eat different foods,
have different customs and speak another
language;
Dolphins, whales, manatees, elephants, and cougars
recruit
television producers to alert us to their plight.
Trees can lobby us to
plant them promising us a better life;
Freedom fighters hiding in the
jungles of Mexico,
in the mountains of Chechnya,
in the forests of
Zaire
can make their case to the world
and expose the crimes against
them.
There is much good news in the struggle for peace.
O holy
spirit
of peace making and reconciliation,
much as I see the forces at
work to bring and keep the peace,
so also I see the iron fist of injustice
at work around the world.
Communications technology
can also be used
to spread prejudice and hatred.
Dictators can manipulate minds by
controlling the media's message
stirring up racism and intolerance.
A
diet of murder, mayhem, malnutrition on the evening news
can lead to
compassion fatigue and to a siege mentality
which desensitizes and creates
armor over the heart.
Workers suffer as their wages decline
in the race
for the bottom of the world labor market
as those with the lowest standard
of living get the jobs.
As technology concentrates power in fewer and
fewer hands,
the poor and the oppressed are pushed farther to the
margins
sowing seeds of terrorism.
O invincible
one
fearless of all enemies and conqueror of all evil,
We tremble before
the hidden force of terrorism
slinking unseen in the shadows,
sharp
dagger in hand, ready to strike vengeance.
Party goers, and Airline
passengers can quickly become hostages,
subway trains, gas
chambers,
cars, bomb craters,
high rise skyscrapers, blazing
infernos.
Whether we live in gated communities or avoid trouble
spots,
whether we give to charities, are kind to strangers,
even loving
neighbors and practicing peace
can't magically protect us from random acts
of violence.
O merciful one
seer of the divinity of each of us
whether sinner or saint,
we know that without justice, there can be no
lasting peace.
Oppression poisons the soil of prosperity
sowing briars
and thistles someday to destroy the harvest
and harden the hearts of the
people.
No government can serve long without the support of its
people.
O oracle
all seeing and all knowing fount of wisdom,
I
feel helpless before the injustice in the world,
as fathers and mothers,
brothers and sisters,
are jailed without trial for crimes they did not
commit.
I'm angry at how the United States vectors power in my name
to support repressive governments to enslave their people
for national
interests, strategic military bases,
oil, precious metals, and cheap
labor.
I'm confused as to how to best use my power
to affect the
policies of other nations.
I fear for future generations who must figure out
what to do with nuclear waste, toxic pollutants, degraded land
and depleted reservoirs.
I don't even know whether to believe in
progress or abandon it.
O source of wisdom and understanding
Show us
what we can do in our lives to become peace and justice makers.
Show us the
connections
between our efforts for peace and peace in the world.
Help me
grow in appreciation of peace, justice and freedom.
Help me find ways in my
daily life:
to practice peace when my emotions say fight;
to forgive when
my mind wants to pass judgment;
to accept difference when my habit is to
exclude;
to live these values and enact them in my relationships
adding
one more voice to the chorus of peace.
Aware of the many times I have
fallen short of these aspirations,
saddened by the times I've pulled my hand
back rather than reaching out,
discouraged by my attachments to my wrong
views and opinions,
I reach to what is beyond myself for the strength
and support
to rise above my limitations and serve the greater good of
all.
I have great confidence that there are forces at work which I do not
control
which support the work of peace and justice making.
As I take one
step forward,
may peace and justice in the world be advanced by
ten.
O spirit of love
energy of transformation and passion of
creativity,
I welcome you into my heart as this year ends and a new one
begins.
As each of us becomes who we are and grows into who we can
be,
May the joy and peace we find
contribute to the joy and peace of the
world
one by
one laying the groundwork for a more peaceful world
where
justice increasingly reigns
where the lion and the lamb may lay down
together,
where ecosystems are protected and grow in diversity,
and thy
gracious spirit can awaken us all,
naturally, organically, evolving out of
our very being,
into that which is eternal and unchanging in time and
space
granting us the eternal peace which passes all understanding.
Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.