Soul of Nonviolence - Peacemaking
“Peacemaking, like most beautiful things, begins small. Matthew 18 gives us a clear process for making peace with someone who has hurt or offended us; first we are to talk directly with them, not at them or around them . . . Straight talk is counter-cultural in a world that prefers politeness to honesty.
Peacemaking begins with what we can change—ourselves. But it doesn’t end there. We are to be peacemakers in a world riddled with violence. That means interrupting violence with imagination, in our streets and in our world.”
In this podcast, Veronica discusses a critical element of nonviolence—honesty. Using a quote from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, we can see how avoiding issues in the hopes that the problem will resolve itself often ends up making resolution harder in the long run.
Veronica points out that in the effort to make change, the first thing we need to transform is ourselves. But that is only the first step—from there we can take these skills out into the streets and into the world. To walk the nonviolent path requires consciousness, and a lot of hard work to get there.
Pursuit of the truth and courage required for nonviolence also requires that we resist the pull towards comfort, for ourselves and for others. Digging deep is more important so that we can do the more profound work of not trying to fix things, but to heal instead.