This has to be the craziest (and longest) article title I’ve ever come up with — I admit it! But bear with me.
This is a repeat of a Christmas article we published several years ago. I think it’s perhaps even more appropriate and timely today than it was then.
John Cali
Years ago, Spirit and I wrote a newsletter article called Peace on Earth. In that article, Spirit gave us an interesting, and somewhat different, view of how we can achieve what has clearly been an elusive goal for the human race.
Back in the days when I was a young pilot, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips were at the peak of their popularity. One of Schulz’s main characters was Snoopy, “the funny looking dog with the big black nose.” Snoopy was, and still is, one of my all-time favorite cartoon characters.
As many of you know, he was a beagle who loved to pretend he was a World War One flying ace. He and the Red Baron were sworn enemies.
Snoopy, of course, is a fictional cartoon character. The Red Baron, however, was real. His actual name was Manfred von Richthofen.
The Red Baron was an incredibly talented German fighter pilot during World War One. With 80 “kills” to his credit, he died in a 1918 air battle at the age of 25.
Back in the late 1960s, the Royal Guardsmen were a short-lived singing group. One of their most popular songs was Snoopy’s Christmas.
At the end of the song, Snoopy is caught from behind by the Red Baron on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, on the ground, the allied forces and the Germans were negotiating a Christmas truce. The Red Baron didn’t shoot Snoopy down, but instead forced him to land behind the German lines.
To Snoopy’s great surprise, the Red Baron jumped out of his fighter plane, popped open a bottle of champagne, and offered Snoopy a holiday toast, “Merry Christmas, mein friend!”
Then they both flew off into the darkening skies of Christmas Eve, knowing they would meet again another day.
Here’s Spirit.
Spirit
Don’t you think Christmas truces are a rather strange, and contradictory, idea? Where’s the sense there?
We are not against declaring peace among your fellow humans. And, strangely enough, we are not against declaring war. War is, to many of you, a game. A rather silly game, it seems to us, since almost all of you say you want peace. But you want it on your terms.
You cannot create peace on earth by “fighting for” peace. You cannot create peace on earth by “fighting against” war. You cannot create anything you want — peace on earth, or anything else — when you are coming from a place of resistance. And when you are fighting — for or against — you are resisting the natural flow of well-being that is yours, individually and en masse.
Peace on earth begins with you, each of you individually. You cannot march out there to protest or fight when you are in a place of peace within yourselves. They are opposite vibrations.
When you have found peace in the only place you will ever find it — within your own hearts — then, and only then, will you be in a place of power. A place from which you are empowered to begin creating peace on earth.
One person, centered in her/his own still, quiet place within, is a million times more powerful than all the armies who ever marched across the centuries.
That is how powerful each of you is.
And so if you want to create peace on earth, know you absolutely must create it within yourselves first.
When you reach the point in your growth, as a human race, where your government leaders are truly peaceful — peaceful warriors, you might say — only then will you stand a chance of realizing this seemingly elusive goal of peace among all people on the planet.
Of course, when you reach that point, you won’t need government leaders. You won’t even need governments. And you won’t need boundaries and borders to separate yourselves from each other.
Then you will find true peace on earth.
An impossible dream? You may see it that way. We don’t.
Centuries upon centuries of war across your planet have not brought you peace. There must be a better way. And there is — YOU are the way.
=============================================================
P.S. Spirit and I wish all of you and your loved ones a most blessed and beautiful holiday season. Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! And whether you celebrate Christmas on December 25 or January 7, Merry Christmas! But no matter what you celebrate, or even if you don’t celebrate, have a happy December and January!
This Week’s Newsletter Reflection Questions
Leave a Reply