The topic for the morning is peace on earth. I will begin, as I typically do, by explaining how I came to choose this topic. It all began about a month or two ago when I attended one of our Adult Forums, or Fora, before services. Our guest that morning was Professor Robbie Goodrich from NMU and the topic was the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I always mean to attend Adult Fora, but I don’t always get there - I made a special effort (for me that is) to be there that morning, because I just love to hear Robbie Goodrich speak and I always learn something from him, so there I was. As I will explain a little later, his remarks that morning led me to a book that led me to this topic.

 

The topic seemed to fit well with the season of the year we are in as well, and it seems very apt at this juncture in our country’s political life, when so many of us are weary of the current Administration’s war efforts and we are hopeful that the new administration will bring about an end U.S. fighting abroad. And fortuitously, it turns out that today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which began U.S. involvement in WWII. Rarely did this date go unnoticed in the home where I grew up; my dad would always tell the tale of where he was when he heard about the air raids and how he was waiting at the Navy office the next morning when it opened to enlist. I personally believe that things had progressed so far in Europe, and then in the Pacific, by December of 1941, that the United States was correct to enter the war effort. My beliefs in this regard are bolstered by what we learned after the conclusion of that war about the Nazi’s largely successful efforts to murder millions of people on the basis of their Jewish faith and heritage, their Roma heritage, their sexual orientation, and their physical and mental challenges. I cannot see how Hitler could have been stopped by 1941 or thereafter without declaring and winning the war against him. So, to use the WWII example, the inquiry must be what, if anything, could have been done before 1941 to prevent what became the war?

 

Why can’t we have a Department of Peace rather than a Department of Defense, I’ve thought to myself? And I have felt that such thoughts are very modern and original and cutting edge. When patting myself on the back for my innovative concepts, I suddenly remembered a play I saw several years ago that proved that at least some creative ways to forge peace have been around for about as long as wars have. In 411 B.C., Aristophones wrote the play Lysistrata. Four centuries before the beginning of the common era, a play about Peace was being performed. So much for new ideas.

 

If you are not familiar with Lysistrata, let me summarize it for you. It takes place during the Peloponnesian wars between Athens, Sparta and others. The wars have gone on far too long and the women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, are sick and tired of war and death so they try to figure out a way to bring the war that the men are fighting to an end. The women are no longer willing to stand by silently, and are frustrated by being so powerless, while the men continue to wage war.

 

Lysistrata hits on a strategy. She proposes to the women of Athens that they take over the treasury, to deprive the war effort of funds, and that they withhold sex from their men until the war is ended. This idea is met with enthusiasm and rapidly adopted; news of the women’s actions soon spreads to the women of Sparta and the other warring contingents, all of whom join into the action because they too want to see the war come to an end. The solution works. The men no longer can fund their war and they would are not willing to forego sex, preferring sex to war, so they put down their weapons and return to the embrace of their wives. Pretty ingenious solution. Make love, not war. 400 B.C. style.

 

In the midst of Lysistrata, one of the men lectures the women, telling them that they (the women) don’t pay taxes, and thus have no right to bar the men’s access to the treasury where tax money is held. He contends that it is not the women’s money paying for the war, so the women have no right to assert control over the money. In response, one woman says this: How dare you contend that we do not pay for war. We pay every day with the currency that is nearest and dearest to us, the lives of our sons.

 

On the one hand, it is encouraging to know that people have been thinking about peace since at least 400 B.C. On the other hand, it is discouraging that people have been thinking about it for so long, and have yet to bring an end to wars.

 

My own thinking on war and peace is evolving. Not so long ago, I believed or accepted the notion that war is an inevitable component of the human condition. The fact that during recorded history there has never ever been a time when no war was being waged on earth persuaded me to assume that war will always be with us.

 

In the olden days, before I became enlightened, I used to drive by the Post Office on Saturday mornings, and wonder at the willingness of “those people” to stand out front with their pacifist signs. I will frankly tell you that it used to seem to that standing in front of the Marquette, Michigan, Post Office with peace signs was a pretty ineffective a gesture, all things considered. But once I got to know some of those people and came to learn what they are about, people like our own Gail Griffith, and Bob Bournique, and Mae Ceballo, and Carole Bournique, I came to honor and respect their efforts. They take a stand. They do so publicly. They stand witness. They put thoughts of peace on the minds of everyone who sees them every Saturday morning. They have prompted me to ponder these questions more deeply. They remind as that patriotism and pacifism are not mutually inconsistent. I am grateful to you for what you do and I commend you and thank you for your efforts.

 

Those who stand up for peace risk being labeled cowardly. Herman Goering, the infamous Nazi leader, said that all you need to arouse people to war is to denounce pacifists for their lack of patriotism. We saw this strategy repeated by our own leaders in the aftermath of 9/11. For example, anyone who tried to question the contents of the so-called Patriot Act was denounced as unpatriotic, and our legislators cowered in fear of that label, so they lost their voices and abandoned their willingness to question the actions of the administration. We must never again let our country cloak repression in the language of patriotism, and we must continue to speak the truth to power, regardless of the consequences.

 

So what else have we humans been doing about this peace idea in the last several centuries anyway? The book of Isaiah tells us to turn swords into plowshares and to study war no more, but doesn’t provide a great deal of guidance beyond that.

 

Contemplating these subjects led me to a book called Peace, a study of peace advocacy, by David Cortright. According to Cortright, the study and advocacy of peace was, prior to the 19^th century, largely a religious matter. Discussions and protests were led primarily by religious leaders. But then, beginning in the mid- 1800's and through the early 20^th century, many non-sectarian national groups in Europe and North America formed peace organizations. In 1899 there was an international conference on peace at the Hague, in the Netherlands, to be followed by another in 1907, attended by representatives of 24 countries. The focus was international, and the belief was developing among the participants that a system of international law was needed to help maintain peace among the nations. It seems to me that as the ability of men to harm one another increased by the development of more and more lethal weapons, and by the use of aircraft and missiles, and as communications improved so that more people could witness the damage done by warfare, opposition to warfare has grown. Democracy and the right to freedom of speech help as well.

 

The adverse reaction to the horrible results of war increased in the wake of the horrors of WWI, where biological and chemical warfare was used and where the number of casualties was enormous. When Robbie Goodrich was here several weeks ago, he told me about a book of original documents concerning the Holocaust, and I followed his suggestion and obtained the book. In it, I made what was, for me, an amazing and unexpected discovery. The Kellogg-Briand Pact. The name was vaguely familiar to me, but I had but I had no idea what it is or was. Do any of you?

 

The Kellogg Briand Pact Read pact was signed by representatives of fifteen governments, including the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, in 1928. This is what these nations agreed to in the verbatim language of the Kellogg Briand Pact:

 

Article I. The [parties] solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.

 

Article II. The [parties] agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.

 

So much for new ideas! I really was astonished to read that a document like this was signed by men in 1928. Though it did not work, it shows that such efforts have not only been advanced by cowards on the fringe, but by leaders of nations. And, though the Pact did not prevent WWII, it laid the foundation for the Nuremberg trials after WWII, in which the leaders of Nazi Germany were charged with having violated the pact, and were tried in an open proceeding for their war crimes. Such a trial was unprecedented in the history of the earth and without the Kellogg Briand Pact, it would have been much more difficult. The Pact provided the basis for the charges of unlawful aggression, which were at the core of the prosecutions.

 

In the 1940's the world also witnessed the culmination of Mahatma Gandhi’s pacifist efforts to defeat colonialism and expel the British from India. Gandhi, like many after him, used nonviolence to overcome injustice. He demonstrated with tangible results that nonviolence is a way that the active many can overcome the ruthless few. Gandhi lived his belief that an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

 

In this country in the 1960's, the antiwar movement was directed at Vietnam. Recall that during Vietnam, the draft was operative, theoretically exposing all young men to the possibility of serving in the military and deployment to Vietnam. At the outset of the Vietnam war, draft deferments were available to those who were enrolled in college, and sometimes even in graduate school. This led to the pursuit of higher education by many young men who might otherwise have quit school after high school. Over time, however, the deferment scheme was properly criticized as favoring the richer who could afford to go on to college, and discriminating against the poorer, by leaving men from the less affluent segments of our society to fight the war. This further resulted in members of racial minorities, who were more often poor, disproportionally serving, being injured, and being killed in that war. Awareness of this reality was one reason, among many others, that the civil rights movement fed naturally into the antiwar movement.

 

Eventually, in about 1969, efforts were made to make the draft more equitable. The college deferment system was modified and the lottery system was adopted. The lottery made the draft proceed according to birthdates, and one’s order of draftability was determined the sequence in which his birthdate was chosen. Everyone of draft age during that time recalls the night the numbers were drawn, and I’ll bet there are some among us who remember where they were that night, who can tell us what their number was, and who can report how high one’s number had to be in order to be safe from being called. (Ask audience)

 

There were some very good things about the lottery system, although it came awfully late in the game of the Vietnam war. Though it only applied to men, and thus was not truly “universal”, it at least meant that all sons were theoretically subject to call. The fact that wealth, education and status were no longer absolute shields from the draft, meant that we all truly had a stake in the war. And having a personal stake in the war, because one’s son, husband, boyfriend, brother, friend, was going to Vietnam, intensified and broadened the opposition to the war.

 

For this reason, I support true Universal Conscription (meaning that if we are to have a military, then men and women of a certain age in our country should all either be required to serve, or at least subject to call). I feel that if the burden and risk of war is born be all segments of society, perhaps we will become more energized about finding peaceful ways to address and settle our differences and to avoid raising arms against one another. We need to work on open and honest communication and expression of differences, coupled with constructive efforts to resolve those differences. Just as my getting to know the Saturday morning post office crowd led to my understanding and admiration for what they do, so can any dialogue help us to see things from the other’s viewpoint. The old adage about walking a mile in another’s moccasins remains current wisdom.

 

Well, as usual, I have picked a very broad topic, and have only scratched the surface. We have much to ponder and much work to do. I am reminded of our peace crane project where, led by Michelle Lexmond, we spent a winter folding cranes, and then hung hundreds, thousands, of them from the trees in Mattson park. We then got together in an interfaith service in the park and at one point all sang and danced together. Someone remarked at the time that if, when we have differences with others, we would just get together and dance for joy, perhaps we would be more creative about findings ways to work out our differences in a peaceful manner.

 

Here’s another idea from Unitarian Universalist minister Robert Fulghum, who wrote All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air ‑ explode softly ‑ and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth ‑ boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either ‑ not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty‑four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.”

 

I like that idea. And we need to keep working on others too because war is only inevitable if we accept the notion that peace is unattainable.