One of our President's Council members, George by name, stopped in the doorway following a meeting and announced, "I finally got it. Peace is made by multiple small actions happening at the same time. Peace isn't one big thing; it is lots of little things happening in concert.... youth, women, conflict resolution, marches, medicines, dialogues, etc. Peace comes piecemeal."
That is exactly how URI sees it and does it.
Take today: December 13, 2012. I scan my email, and here's what I see. Five new Cooperation Circles. In Malawi: Muslim, Pentecostal, Seventh-Day Adventist and Presbyterian youth training in self-reliant citizenship. In India: working with poor people who are dealing with AIDS, TB and cancer. In Chile: Mapuche indigenous people coming together to heal the Earth. In Israel: teaching modern Arabic to Jewish students and adults to help them appreciate Muslim culture. In Alexandria, Egypt: creating a Youth Media Channel to assist human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression. All small pieces of a large goal of peace.
Today I check out the second report from India written by URI's Executive Director, Charles Gibbs. He speaks of a Swami who wants to fund a meeting space, room and board for 250 people for next year's URI India meeting. He speaks of the Nobel Prize-winning Rabindranath Tagore, whose life was turned around by his father's vision of various religions when his father stood by a tree where people worshiped God as One. Then there was a Cooperation Circle with over 5,000 musicians, a CC which is cross-caste as well as interreligious. And finally in February in the midst of a mass Hindu Pilgrimage, Kumbh Mela, where 130 million people are expected to participate in ritual bathing and discussions of religious doctrine, a URI CC is hosting the first ever Green Interfaith Kumbh Mela, which is dedicated to cleaning the Ganges as part of the larger gathering. Small daily, enduring pieces of peace.
In the news this day are Syria, Palestine, Jerusalem and Uganda. I know that today one of URI's Cooperation Circles in Jordan is distributing clothes, household appliances, blankets and children's toys to refugees from Syria. Today in Pakistan, our URI youth are traveling 80 miles through Taliban strongholds to witness to peace along the Afghan/Iran border. Also in Pakistan, 500 students from the Agricultural University in Rawalpindi, students who are beset by "bias, phobias and fear," are being introduced to URI's Charter and programs in a great assembly. In Jerusalem, our Peacemakers CC has just celebrated "Jerusalem, A Capital of Peace."(Certainly a revolutionary idea at this moment.) And in Northern Uganda, where 12,000 lands cases need to be adjudicated, one of our CCs is launching mediation sessions in the districts of Lamwo, Gulu, Kitgum, Amuru and Nwoya. If "peace" were plural, it would be "peaces."
What is URI like? It is like standing up very close to an impressionist painting. Up close it looks like dabs and blotches and odd configurations. But when you step back, what comes into view might be a beautiful stream or a bridge or flowers. That is what URI is like. To witness one or two colorful strokes of URI hardly paints the picture. But when the entire landscape comes into perspective, a potential masterpiece is being created. Pieces can make a “master peace. “ Or as George said, “Peace comes piecemeal."
