Friday, December 21, 2012

Preparing for Peace: The Peace Pilgrim Project, Part 2

"The medicine this sick world needs so badly is love."Peace Pilgrim

This is the second in a series of posts highlighting aspects of the life and teachings of Peace Pilgrim. For those who aren't familiar with her story, you can check out my previous posts here:

http://garytandy.blogspot.com/2010/05/will-walk-for-peace.html
http://garytandy.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-peace-pilgrim-project-part-1.html

Like other mystics, Mildred Norman's (she later changed her name to Peace Pilgrim) journey began with a vision experienced while she walked in the early morning. She later described it like this:
All of a sudden I felt very uplifted, more uplifted than I had ever been. I remember I knew timelessness and spacelessness and lightness. I did not seem to be walking on the earth. There were no people or even animals around, but every flower, every bush, every tree seemed to wear a halo. There was a light emanation around everything and flecks of gold fell like slanted rain through the air. This experience is sometimes called the illumination period.

The important part of it was the realization of the oneness of all creation. Not only human beings--I knew before that all human beings are one. But now I knew also a oneness with the rest of creation. The creatures that walk the earth and the growing things of the earth. The air, the water, the earth itself. And, most wonderful of all, a oneness with that which permeates all and binds all together and gives life to all. A oneness with that which many would call God.

Peace Pilgrim's vision is beautiful and impressive, but what fascinates me even more than the vision is what she does next. I imagine that if I were the recipient of such a vision, I would want to write about it, speak about it, find some forum to publicize it--immediately. (Perhaps this is why, so far, I've been granted no such visions.) But Peace Pilgrim responded differently. She recognized that good spiritual practice requires study and reflection and processing. Spiritual growth requires intentionality and time. It can't be rushed. Most of all, Peace Pilgrim knew that it requires preparation.

So rather than leaving on her walk for peace immediately, Peace Pilgrim spent 15 years in preparation. 15 years!  In this process of waiting and prayer and contemplation, she discovered four preparations that were required of her.

The first preparation: Adopting a right attitude toward life

Peace Pilgrim describes this preparation:
Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. . . . Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found.

If you could see the whole picture, if you knew the whole story, you would realize that no problem ever comes to you that does not have a purpose in your life, that cannot contribute to your inner growth. . . . If you did not face problems, you would just drift through life. It is through solving problems in accordance with the highest light we have that inner growth is attained.

Now collective problems must be solved by us collectively, and no one finds inner peace who avoids doing his or her share in the solving of collective problems, like world disarmament and world peace. So let us always think about these problems together and talk about them together, and collectively work toward their solutions.
The second preparation: Bringing our lives into harmony with the laws that govern this universe

Peace Pilgrim believed there were fundamental laws in the physical and psychological realms. As we are able to understand and bring our lives into harmony with these laws, our lives will be in harmony. As we disobey these laws, we create difficulties for ourselves. She writes:

I recognized that there are some well-known, little understood, and seldom practiced laws that we must live by if we wish to find peace within or without. Included are the laws that evil can only be overcome by good; that only good means can attain a good end; that those who do unloving things hurt themselves spiritually.

So I got busy on a very interesting project. This was to live all the good things I believed in. . . . If I was doing something that I knew I shouldn't be doing I stopped doing it. . . .And if I was not doing something that I knew I should be doing, I got busy on that. It took the living quite a while to catch up with the believing. . . . As I lived according to the highest light I had, I discovered that other light was given; that I opened myself to receiving more light as I lived the light I had.

I love Peace Pilgrim's distinction here between believing and living, especially her phrase, "It look the living quite a while to catch up with the believing." This phrase might describe the history of Christianity, and it's tempting to apply it as a diagnosis of the anemic condition of much religion today. But perhaps it's more appropriate to apply Peace Pilgrim's formula to me. When I do, I find my own practice lagging far behind my belief. Like the greatest spiritual teachers, Peace Pilgrim's words seem so simple yet so profound.

The third preparation:  Finding our special place in the Life Pattern

Peace Pilgrim believed that "no two people have exactly the same part to play in God's plan" and that the way we discover our part is to look within, seeking guidance from God. We seek this guidance in receptive silence. Peace Pilgrim's method was "to walk amid the beauties of nature" where "wonderful insights" would come to her.

Peace Pilgrim believed you begin to do your part in the Life Pattern by "doing all of the good things you feel motivated toward, even though they are just little good things at first." She describes her own
experience like this:

Every morning I thought of God and thought of things I might do that day to be of service to God's children. I looked at every situation I came into to see if there was anything I could do there to be of service. I did as many good things as I could each day, not forgetting the importance of a pleasant word and a cheery smile. I prayed about things that seemed too big for me to handle--and right prayer motivates to right action.

In the beginning I helped people in simple ways with errands, gardening projects, and by reading to them. I spent some time in the private homes of the elderly and the recuperating ill, assisting them to overcome their various ailments. I worked with troubled teenagers, the psychologically disturbed, and the physically and mentally handicapped.

My lack of expertise was more than offset by the love I extended to others. When love fills your life all limitations are gone. The medicine this sick world needs so badly is love.

I also did some volunteer work for the American Friends Service Committee, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
There's been much conversation in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, shootings about mental illness and troubled teens. I find it interesting that these were two populations Peace Pilgrim sought out in her quest to do good for others and find her place in the Life Pattern. This passage also gives us a truth for all times but one that seems especially appropriate now: "The medicine this sick world needs so badly is love."

The fourth preparation: Simplifying our life

As Peace Pilgrim sought inner peace and began to find her place in the Life Pattern, she discovered another principle that would guide her practice: simplicity. She became convicted that she could "no longer accept more than she needed while others in the world had less than they needed." As a result, she experienced "a wonderful sense of peace and joy, and a conviction that unnecessary possessions are only unnecessary burdens." Peace Pilgrim found a need level that was so low it would seem absurd to most Americans, living on a budget of ten dollars per week, but she acknowledged that those in different situations (those with family and children, for example) would have a higher need level. What was important, she warned, is that "anything beyond physical needs tends to become burdensome."

In the following passage, she writes about how simplicity is not just a principle that applies to individuals but also one that applies to society:

There is a great deal to be said about such harmony, not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society. It's because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony, so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people! This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being. The valid research for the future in on the inner side, on the spiritual side, so that we will be able to bring these two into balance--and so that we will know how to use well the outer well-being we already have.
I don't really know what I can add to those words, so I'll just encourage us to read the words of this wise woman and meditate on them until they become part of our belief system. And then we need to live them until our "living catches up with our believing."

Next time:  the four purifications.

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