“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” These inspired words from Catholic social activist Dorothy Day are as resonant today as they were in 1952, when her storied autobiography was first published. We have all now experienced the long loneliness of isolation and uncertainty, and we have felt the instinctive pull back into the open arms of our global community. It’s at this intersection of community and collaboration, of partnership and possibility, that real lasting change is made. Because the high hurdles posed by climate change, regional conflict, and inequality are the end-results of a different kind of collaboration; a network of decisions and enforcement have brought us here, and it will take an equally concerted effort to see ourselves through to a more just, peaceful world. The Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh has written extensively about the importance of community in helping to meet the demands of our day: "We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace in the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you cannot serve your wife or husband or child or parents - how are you going to serve society? If you cannot make your own child happy, how do you expect to be able to make anyone else happy? If all our friends in the peace movement or of service communities of any kind do not love and help each other, whom can we love and help?" This passage provides an instructive primer in our ongoing effort to build a more collaborative community. By scaling the immediate needs of service down to our closest relations - be it spouse, our parents or children - Hanh has presented an effective, attainable place to begin the work. The same collaborative effort and energy that builds a stronger family unit can also be put to the wider community. Family can often present a safer space to fumble as we develop better listening and team skills, before extending to the wider community. The global challenges we face today are indeed massive, but they also present new exciting opportunities for cooperative action. Now is the time to nurture new relationships and learn from the unique skills and experience of our peers.
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In honour of International Peace Day, we are delighted to share the work of Yannis Ritsos - arguably the most prolific and celebrate poets of modern Greece. Ritsos published more than 115 volumes of poetry, translation, dramatic work and essays in his lifetime and leaves behind an indelible print on the canon of contemporary literature. Peace by Yannis Ritsos The dreams of a child are peace The dreams of a mother are peace The words of love under the trees are peace The father who returns at dusk with a wide smile in his eyes with a basket in his hands full of fruit and the drops of sweat on his brow which are like drops on a jug as it cools its water on the windowsill, are peace When wounds heal on the world’s face and in the pits dug by shellfire we have planted trees and in hearts scorched by conflagration hope sprouts its first buds and the dead can turn over on their side and sleep without complaining knowing their blood was not spilled in vain, this is peace. Peace is the odour of food at evening When an automobile stopping in the street does not mean fear When a knock on the door means a friend And the opening of a window every hour means sky Feasting our eyes with the distant bells of its colours, this is peace. Peace is a glass of warm milk and a book before the awakening child When wheat stalks lean toward one another saying: the light, the light And the horizon’s wreath over-brims with light, This is peace. When jails have been made over into libraries, When a song ascends from threshold to threshold in the night When the spring moon emerges from a cloud Like the worker who comes out of the neighbourhood barber shop Freshly shaven on a weekend, This is peace. When a day gone by is not a day lost But a root that raises the leaves of joy in the night And is a day won and a just sleep, When you feel again the sun hurriedly tying its reins To pursue and chase sorrow out of the corners of time, This is peace. Peace is the stacks of sun-rays on the fields of summer, It is the alphabet book of kindness on the knees of dawn. When you say: my brother — when we say: tomorrow we shall build, When we build and sing, This is peace. When death takes up but little room in the heart And chimneys point with firm fingers at happiness When the large carnation of sunset can be smelled equally by poet and proletariat, this is peace. Peace is the clenched fist of men it is warm bread on the world’s table it is a mother’s smile. Only this. Peace is nothing else And that ploughs that cut deep furrows in all earth Write one name only: Peace. Nothing else. Peace. On the backbone of my verses The train advancing toward the future Laden with wheat and roses Is peace. My brothers all the world with all its dreams breathes deeply in peace. Give us your hands, brothers, This is peace. First published in his collection Vigilance: 1938-1953, “Peace” perfectly embodies the spirit of the day. In it, Ritsos is able to frame those moments of inner peace against the broad backdrop of the world in all its dreams. It is equally inspired and revitalising, an encouraging reminder of our responsibility to protect and provide for those in need. Ritsos is not opining from a place of hopeful oblivion, especially as we consider the state of the world in 1953, during which “Peace” was written. The poem makes no overt mention of the two World Wars that precede it, or to the devastation they left behind. He is not reflecting back into the past, but rather looking to a future that is “laden with wheat and roses”. May his poem be the spark from which you step out on September 21st and on through the weeks and months to come. Sean Morrissey The recent U.N. Climate Report, and the ever-present challenges of the pandemic, paint a challenging portrait of our modern world; and while there may be little debate about how we arrived at this point, the more pressing question is undoubtedly one of where do we go from here? It feels, and has indeed for some time, that we’ve reached a genuine crossroads in the story. The proposed reforms and actions of the present will have immeasurable consequences on the future of existence and the kind of world we intend to leave behind for generations to come. What guidance or wisdom can we glean from this moment, and to whom should leave it? Again we reach for Nazim Hikmet and this excerpt from “Last Letter to my Son”, a poet for whom the call to love and compassion was as vital to life as the air we breathe. Your mother And I said good-bye one morning, thinking we'd meet again, but we couldn't. She's the kindest and the smartest of mothers - may she live to be a hundred! I don't fear death. Still, It's no fun to startle in the middle of work sometimes Or count the days before falling asleep alone. You can never have enough of the world, Memet, never enough... Don't live in the world as if you were renting or here for only the summer, but act as if it was your father's house... Believe in seeds, earth, and the sea, but people above all. Love clouds, machines, and books, but people above all. Grieve For the withering branch, the dying star, and the hurt animal, But feel for people above all. Rejoice in all the earth's blessings -- Darkness and light, the four seasons, but people above all. Written during a period of exile from his native and beloved Turkey, Hikmet’s living wisdom serves as a letter to us all, and speaks to our own personal relationships with the natural world, but also with people most importantly. “Last Letter to my Son” speaks to the generational passing of time, and the responsibility we have to ensure a more tenable future for all mankind.
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