Dreamer

Dreamer

On Posted on by Dreamer to B4Peace, Good Will, I have an idea ..., PAX Nation, The Change List, The Mission, Thoughtful Words

Peace Child #B4Peace

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”10/12″][vc_custom_heading source=”post_title” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]As I mentioned in the last post, life, and my own plans have require that this project fend for itself for a while. Who knows, maybe that is just what it needs. Yet in the way of the universe, it becomes apparent to me that I need to make at least one more post before I start the next part of my journey. Around the same time I came up with this crazy project, the idea of Bloggers for Peace also began taking hold, effectively starting an online community much like I am HOPING to create with PAX Nation (and doing a much better job at it). One of the ideas that keep Bloggers for Peace going is a Monthly Peace Challenge that inspires people to share their thoughts on common, peace related themes. While I have often tried to use the ideas offered in the Challenge, sadly I have not done it as regularly or formally as I could. But this month’s challenge caught my eyes, not the least because it completely resonated with my pending plans. The theme for this month is Peace Child.

Many of us who seek to change the course of the future will throw around phrases such as “children are the future”.  And most will agree to this concept on some level. Yet it recently dawned on me that as much as many of us hold value in this idea, few of us actually PRACTICE the concept. Ideologies that are not actually LIVED are doomed to failure. Words can only go so far … that is why sometimes change seems to take so long. We are so busy TALKING about it that we never actually manage to DO it.

Children are born with out prejudices. They are born with open minds. They know nothing of hatred and the fear of ideas. They start seeking to fulfill basic needs … hunger, sleep, comfort. As they get more accustomed to the world, the needs expand. They begin to seek experience … to learn about the world around them. Yet still they will have no concept of hatred. And what fear they will experience will be the visceral kind. Something shocks them. Something hurts them. But they will not fear something simply because it is different, for EVERYTHING is different to them. They start really knowing nothing of emotions at all, their reactions are basic … primal. They are clean and fresh and … Peace Incarnate.

And then those with “experience” get involved.

A child only hates that which they are taught to hate. A child only fears what they are taught to fear. A child knows nothing of politics, religion, economics, race, sexuality, geography, or anything else of an ever-growing list of things that divide us as humans. They will know anger, frustration, and maybe even selfishness, but those will only become their defining characteristics again based on how they are taught. Children ARE peace … until we chase the peace out of them. Many call children our future, but treat them as little versions of themselves. The past focused will do their best to train their children to look backwards, which is a very tricky way to move forward. Maybe, just maybe, if we stopped trying to shape our children like clay, and instead let them flourish as the living breathing NEW creatures they are, we would actually make forward progress again. The Peace Child is not made by molding them into a mini-me. How does training a child into behaving in ways that have PROVEN to be the antithesis of peace give promise of a different future?

I think we have it backwards. We are so intent on creating children as visions of what WE want that we neglect to recognize how much they can teach US. We unwisely assume that naiveté and innocence are undesirable traits, and do our best to erase it from our children, and call this becoming an adult. Yet ironically, it seems to me that young children who have not had the benefit of being trained in violence, hatred and fear tend to work their problems out when there is a disagreement among them … at least if the adults who “know better” don’t  get involved. I think we have this whole “teaching” thing completely backwards.

We really do NOT have to look far to learn how to play well together again. Just watch our children, and recognize that they ARE the future, unless WE change them into the past. All children are born to peace. It is so-called “growing up” that hides the Peace Child within us all. Want to find the path to peace? Try looking deep with in, to the child that was. The answer is already there … if we only remember how to find it again. We must learn how to embrace our inner Peace Child once again.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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