Pearls and Irritations

When our father was one of those Australian soldiers fleeing the advancing Nazi army in Greece, an aircraft suddenly appeared. He jumped into a ditch on one side of the road. Others of his mates jumped into a ditch on the other side of the road. The guns in the plane killed all those on the other side of the road. Hence, we are here with our children and grandchildren…and others are not here.

A meditation on peacebuilding in 2024.

The Australian Peacebuilding Network has organised an important Roundtable in Parliament House, Canberra this week.

The theme is “Peacebuilding in Australian Foreign Policy”.

An encouragement and focus was given by our Minister for Foreign Affairs at the UN General Assembly last September.

In her speech, Senator Penny Wong said, as resources for our Roundtable convey,that “the modern arms race has forever transformed the scale of great power competition and pushed all of humanity to the brink of Armageddon. Today’s circumstances mean we need to commit anew to building preventative infrastructure to reduce the risk of crisis, conflict, and war by accident…Peacebuilding must rise to this potentially catastrophic challenge..”

One preventative and lifegiving contribution I would like to emphasis is the universal practice of meditation.

Meditation is both very practical and also illuminating.

Obviously for me the illuminating spiritual reality is deeply cherished.

As time goes by, one becomes more grateful for and therefore wants to share the peace of God, so incomprehensibly real and wonderful. ‘The peace of God which passes all understanding.’ Philippians 4:7.

Relatedly therefore, aware of the plight of many, one wants to be a beneficial and a blessed peacebuilder.

Jesus, who gifts us with divine peace, says this clearly to all: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.’ Matthew 5.9.

We can have the gift of peace. We can see the urgency of the task to be better peacebuilders.

And our shared learnings are many.

Including, universally, as regards the importance of meditation.

That is why, where I offer worship at Holy Trinity Port Melbourne, our Sunday Holy Communion Service starts with meditation and music of ‘Solace’ to help calm our hearts.

My meditation practice, for many years, is the Prayer Mantra: ‘Jesus have mercy’.

It is often called the ‘Prayer of the Heart’ because of how, through grace and practice, it does descend from being said in one’s head to being in one’s heart.

It is a matter of grace that I often find my Prayer Mantra praying in me during daily life. This is much as how we sometimes become aware of our breathing.

Wonderful as this is, it complements rather than replaces the necessity of daily practice.

In this the technique is the same as the mantra ‘Maranatha’ which is encouraged by the World Community of Christian Meditation:

As a window into the universal wisdom of this, my earlier meditation teachers from the Vedic tradition in the early 1970’s, gave me the same technique with different mantras.

In the ineffable way of divine grace, those Vedic teachers helped prepare me to meet the Risen Jesus, still bearing the wounds of suffering in His radiant body, full of light.

Whilst all this could be elaborated, my personal experience also conveys why I think Meditation is crucial to Peacebuilding for very practical reasons.

Meditation helps prevent burn out and helps us make better choices in what we think, say and do.

When in Perth early this February, I met someone in a parish who remembered gratefully how I had taught the Jesus Prayer there in 1996. I heard myself saying to her rather bluntly, “without it I would have burnt out years ago!”

Meditation also enhances our self-awareness and helps us make better peacebuilding choices as to what we think about; what we let influence our thinking and then what we say and do.

The destructive consequences of poor choices are vivid every day…Every day…everywhere…Destructive choices are vivid in everything from domestic violence to the potential Armageddon about which our Minister spoke at the UN.

People say and do things that destroy the peace of others. The repetition is so habitual that this folly is considered normal!

Even though we all want our loved ones to be safe in a peaceful place.

This putting at risk what everyone wants for their loved ones is madness!

Especially given that life on this planet is such a wonder.

It is so amazing to be here at all!

At a dinner last weekend, friends were sharing stories from family history. One can trace back to 8th century Norway where a forebear was found as a baby, wrapped in silk and left in an eagle’s nest!

When others of us shared, even back to our grandparents, there were many incidents that were survived. The exercise left us a little speechless. The egg and the sperm that became us might never have happened!

When our father was one of those Australian soldiers fleeing the advancing Nazi army in Greece, an aircraft suddenly appeared. He jumped into a ditch on one side of the road. Others of his mates jumped into a ditch on the other side of the road. The guns in the plane killed all those on the other side of the road.

Hence, we are here with our children and grandchildren…and others are not here.

Our father took this picture of a burial service in Greece, April 1941. He was taking the photo, not being buried. His photos are included in a book, recently published, which tells more of the story.

Last week I was several days in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), meditating and praying for a friend who has had a severe stroke. They are of another faith. Her husband was praying, in his tradition, on one side of the bed. Me on the other side.

Love is the common language.

The tenderness and competency of the doctors and nurses in that ICU was and is truly beautiful.

The resources being provided to give her the best opportunity of healing are considerable and given generously.

We only had to say once to each other how aware we are that this opportunity is not available to other innocent people. Including those in the many war zones, where even the hospitals are bombed!

How will daily life become more peaceful without the practice of better choices as to what we think, say and do?

Insofar as meditation helps enhance the self-awareness that can lead to better choices, it is important in peacebuilding. It facilitates a healthier culture for dialogue. Meditation nurtures a deeper awareness of our universal and common humanity, amidst the many divisive tribalisms.

Accordingly, to conclude, a meditating friend encourages a simple exercise to help both remind us of our purpose and then take our peacebuilding purpose into action.

She offers these two questions:

(1) In this moment, what brings you into peace?

(2) In this moment, how do you share peace?

A lot would change for the better if these questions were front of mind before decisions.

More people meditating can only help with our ‘preventative infrastructure’ for peacebuilding.

It is practical, illuminating…and simple!