Send Them Peace

Our World and Its Inhabitants

What an unusual Target here at SendThemPeace.com! Are we ready for it?

Some kind and concerned readers have noticed that a new Target, usually offered every ten days or so, has been missing for a while.

Nevertheless, I hope that even without this prompting, you have continued to participate in The Challenge on a daily basis as we have here and still joining with others throughout our world. You must simply believe that all it takes is your clear intention, shared with others for only 20 minutes per day, to Send Peace into our world. Never abandon that intention.

Certainly of late, shocks to Peace In Our World have been easy to find, and quite easily felt:

Paris shootings and bombings, the airport terminal and metro in Brussels. Others yesterday and today. Lists of people's names have appeared, presumably individuals now randomly targeted for destruction.

It is quite tempting to succumb.

Succumb to what? To the idea that all these manifestations of hatefulness and yes, terror, can only be effectively met with the same. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Giving them what they deserve: Accepting that this is the business of big methods, big governments, big decision-makers. And of course, it is their business, or business pure and simple to notice that word and shed a light upon it. The same quest, like Don Quixote, to bring Peace by waging War, and quickly, before the windmills strike first.

And now once again, and still unfortunately, these "powers" can point to "encouraging results," completely destroyed cities for instance, people drowning in the sea as they flee the madness in these same cities, ... The "powers" can point to all this, the media can follow carefully along, and we can consent to say: "They're doing everything they can. They're doing their best." And some will add: "... And it's working." All the blunders during this "best they can," phase, and all the wounds of all types being created, will be left to history to shine a clarifying light thereupon as well.

So, in this movie setting where real blood flows, in the presence of this grandiose, this visually impressive machine and the swatch of "success" it leaves behind it, does Peace even stand a chance? Are there still too many humans, who are less than human: Who specialize in Man's Inhumanity to Man? Are there still too many who carry the genes of destruction and armageddon? Perhaps their defense should simply be: "I don't know why I do it. I'm just human, I guess. Do animals chop off heads, or just humans? I don't know. I get excited by war and really feel alive." There apparently remain too many such living vestiges of when we slithered out of the water on our bellies, to hope that humanity can outgrow the need to surround neighbors, enslave them, kill them, take what they have, and then move on. If this has always been true since well before Cro Magnon to the present, is their any hope of moving beyond ourselves, of closing the doors once and for all to this movie set that has served so many times before, from before the Philistines to Auschwitz and beyond, even up until today?

Then again, genes like those carried by the cells of Mohandas Gandhi, by Martin Luther King, Jr., and others like them, must certainly be floating around our world somewhere still. At least, one should hope so. But more than hoping, one should each day spread the word, and the actions, and the intention, of Peace and Non-violence. The difference between dreaming and doing it is most significantly, doing it.

What is lacking?

Primarily courage, I think. Not for bearing arms, but for living one's life, dedicated to peaceful coexistence, and the work it requires. It arises in each of us first. Then through courage, we each and together, spread it abroad.

Those who are courageous of course frequently harbor fears. They may be or simply are, frequently faced with fearful things. Fearful oppositions. Fear that the seeds they sow, may never bear fruit. One can experience fear, yet stare it in the face and be courageous. That does take some training.

The one's like Gandhi with "the good genes" never allowed themselves to set aside their courage. They had shortcomings (read his autobiography), but a dedication to the Truth was never called into doubt. Some saw this as arrogance at times. ("Not him again!") Something to be punished with fire hoses or worse.  ("Not them again!") Many saw such an unquenchable devotion as futile stupidity. But once one has been bitten by the Truth bug, then infected by the Courage virus, there may not be an effective treatment that makes such souls simply go away, or disappear without effect; some lasting heritage seems invariably to emerge. And yes, the possibility exists that there will always be Philistines who know only one solution: "Destroy them!"

So now it is time for SendThemPeace.com to evolve just a bit further.

Our Targets selected up to this point have been solitary. Selected one after another. Individual countries, individual topics, such as Violence Against Women, or Children Soldiers, or a focus on a subject, such as Corruption as a major impediment to Peace In Our World.  At times, we shall return to such solitary targets when clarity seems to require it.

While such an approach or methodology may provide "bite size" problem areas to focus on in preparing oneself for The Challenge, some of the preparation for visualizing such a target may in fact have an undesired effect.

Here is one example. Certainly, the effect of poverty to foster violence, making Peace seem unattainable, is almost globally identifiable. In prior STP Overviews of Targets, appeared the following tabular comparison, this one for Somalia with other countries :

GDP per capita in Somalia (current US$) and (year: ) : 542.6 US$/ capita (2014)

(GDP in USA, 2014, for comparison : 54,629.50 US$/ capita).

(Other countries for comparison) :
Burundi : 286/ cap in 2014
Somalia : 543/ cap in 2014
Afghanistan: 634/ cap in 2014
Cambodia : 1,090/ cap in 2014
Myanmar : 1,203/ cap in 2014
Yemen : 1,408/ cap in 2013
Syria: 2,080/ cap in 2007
Bosnia&Hz 4,790/ cap in 2014
Belgium : 47,517/ cap in 2014
U.S.A. : 54,629/ cap in 2014

Target countries, as developed elsewhere here on STP, can also be placed in a tabular summary, ranking them from least to most Corrupt. Here is a link to Transparency.org as a quick reminder of such comparison.

How far should our good intention take us?

If a Target country is abysmally poor, should participants in The Challenge here at STP come to identify with the idea that in that case, The Challenge is simply too great? The same question emerges from a ranking of countries by level of corruption. Should we, during The Challenge, simply steer away from Angola, because it is more corrupt than Burundi? And by the same logic, just forget Somalia, because it's level of corruption (reported as the highest in the world), contributes to (or is the primary determinant of ) Somalia's abject poverty (and lack of Peace)?

One can elect to stay in what some would pursue as more concrete solutions, to specifically defined problems.

For instance: "What is the seat of government with the least corruption in the world?"

Answer : Singapore.

"What is the seat of government where government employees are paid the highest salary?"

Answer : Singapore.

Immediately, one feels a desire to apply something learned and close in on an implementation of such a solution globally: to micromanage.

But rest assured: We are actually pursuing a solution with more power than micromanaging can ever hope to have.

It requires developing and furthering a belief, and a trust in something not only larger, but more effective than each of us can implement alone.

Yet, somewhat paradoxically, for it's successful implementation, it asks for and requires each of us for our small but essential contribution. Starting in Self, and finding Consciousness within and beyond our personal borders and limits.

I'm again reminded of a journalist's exchange with Mother Teresa:

"Sister, you're method for caring for those in need here should be expanded and taken out into the world."

"Oh no! I try my best to treat with compassion each person in need, one at a time."

"But your work here, Sister is a mere drop in the ocean."

"Perhaps. But I can't resist believing that without that drop, the ocean would feel much less filled, complete and content."

What one should try to avoid here is having a sentiment of futility creep in, such as : "This Target country is so corrupt (and poor) that the chance of doing any good here using any means, and including compassionate intention at a distance, ... well, it's just slim, slim or none, and so, ... forget about it." That is human pessimism, an unknown to the bearer of compassionate action.

Briefly, (or already too late for that),

... anything that separates us from another person occupying our planet is counter-productive.

Such separation calls to mind "sympathy," a sentiment of "glad that's not my problem," but that unfortunately is neither empathy, and especially not compassion, the true healing instrument.

So now, we are going to try and back out a distance from all the details that separate, that distinguish, that makes an exile of one Target from another, and each soul today occupying space and time in that Target, somehow excluded from contact with others just like him or her.

Instead, let's see what it feels like to embrace the whole world.

• If you've been practicing with distinct Targets here at SendThemPeace, maybe you're already prepared to move The Challenge up a level.
• One finds, because one intends to, more that is good than bad.
• One finds beauty, because one intends to, throughout our world.
• One finds that for each ending, because one intends it, there is a new beginning.
• One discovers one's self in other individuals, independent of history, morals, language, daily habits, food, dress, customs, education, bank account balance, mistakes and misdeeds, failures and successes, and even life philosophy or personal approach to just getting by. One finds, because one intends to: "Gee, that's me there..."
• One sees Indians looking at Columbus landing on their shores, and Columbus looking back at them, but this time with an important difference. Each finds no important difference in the other and co-exists with respect and admiration, because they intend it that way.
• One discovers, because one intends to, that there is no greater illusion than fear.
• One discovers in oneself, because one intends to, a desire to reach out to a stranger, suddenly no longer a stranger, and ask: "Tell me about yourself, your life, your hopes, and your dreams."
• If one feels lost at first, on embarking on this global journey, just stay with it. Approach it as yet another work in evolution here at STP and in your life.
• See yourself passing over our Blue Marble as though you were in the Space Station, or simply floating aloft if you can swing that, and feel admiration, awe, and a oneness with Peace that you are infused with as you gaze at oceans and land contours, and then send some back down and on its way. On its way to where it is needed. Compassion is a better guide, with better radar for selecting needy problems on earth, than micromanaging.
• You may find your Courage, because you intend it so, permitting you to stay with others in this essential Truth.
• Each day. Twenty minutes. 12 noon Greenwich Mean Time. You'll find your time here.

A 20 minute Guided Exo-Meditation is available by clicking here, to help make the move to this particular practice of a Global Target, as supported as possible.

SendThemPeace. Send us all Peace.

And welcome ...

To Leominster, Massachusetts! You're on our Earth, so we're SendingYouPeace as well! Join in The Challenge. Tell your friends about us.