Just Bein' Peaceful

On Saturday, International Peace Day was celebrated by a small but enthusiastic band of folks at Lighthouse Park in the mid-day.  Maybe 25 or so people, little kids to elderlies, met up, displayed peace flags, sang some peace songs, danced, spoke about their own efforts to contribute to peace all round and peace in their own lives.  Then we all shared an extremely varied lunch and talked to one another about many things, not just peace or the world's lack thereof.

We are mostly all, of course, frustrated about the amount of violence that is ongoing throughout the world, pretty much regardless of whom it is directed toward.  There's a terrible human need to focus on who is to blame?, as if that, once settled, would mean that everything else would then work out just fine.  But that's pretty much a fool's errand outside of a courtroom, where the authorized task is to determine guilt and innocence.  Nevertheless, it is worthwhile, surely, to spend a couple of hours a year, down at the beach on a sunny day reminding ourselves that peace is our aspiration, even if not a realistic goal, in our own lives and in the whole world.  Be of good hope, my grandmother (born in 1898) would say.

Whoever broke the arm off the statue in the Seattle Peace Park surely was not of good hope.  What would bring about such an action...twice?  Some things I will never understand, never even be able to imagine, no matter how hard I try.

Next year, think to come to the Peace Day meeting here in Point Roberts.  It's an honorable event and deserves more attendance if only to remind us on that one day that we can try, once again, to be of good hope.