LTE: Peace In The World Is Possible

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

As Quakers, we believe that peace in the world is possible, as Mary Lord, Quaker, of the American Friends Service Committee, reminds us. “We are called to live into the peaceable kingdom, and in that living discover the joy of a better way of life—in harmony with the Earth and one another. Peacemaking is not only possible but practical every day.” (Friends Journal, 6/1/2007) Peacemaking requires that we acknowledge the background of all participants, actively listen to what has been learned, then consider the elements of agreement. 

 Our peaceful sentiments have been called naïve and even unpatriotic. However, which is the greater naïveté: to believe that the difficult but productive path of using diplomacy and strengthening international law is the path of safety, or to believe that wars and their weapons of mass destruction resolve conflicts and make us safe and secure?

The path of “winning the war,” as though it were a game, is, as history shows, the more naïve perspective.  War brings a horrific cost in human life, in property, in cultural treasures, in the fouling of the earth and killing of its creatures. The aftermath invalidates the notion that wars bring about resolution, as evidenced by continuing warfare in the Middle East, Ukraine, Myanmar, Somalia, and elsewhere. 

Because Quakers believe there is good in everyone — people always have the capacity to be their best selves — we believe it is worth the effort of taking the steps of peacemaking to avoid the horrific costs of war and to provide the hope of establishing a just reality that sows the seeds of peace for future generations.

In Peace,
Carolyn Emerson
Clerk of Conscience Bay Meeting
of the Religious Society of Friends