Haven of Peace

I saw a stealth bomber today. Or maybe it was a stealth fighter, which I am told, is littler. It made almost no sound as it coasted just above the roof of the apartment buildings across the street from the labyrinth garden where I was walking.

At first, I thought it was a toy, not an uncommon occurrence for the Galveston seashore, but there was no kite string, and no kid following along with a remote control. The dull black plane banked into a turn, so that I could see its jaggedy triangle-shaped wings, and then leveled out as it flew away over the bay.

I stood very still watching it go, and wondering what it might have been doing there in the first place. International relations being what they are, one never knows what one might see overhead on a given day. Since passenger planes had been used as weapons of war against American civilians in 2001, machines from the air have carried a special message of foreboding: violent attacks can happen anywhere or anytime. I wondered if this plane was cruising the Texas resort town for our protection or was merely passing-over on its way to the Middle East, to join in the current military offensive; what President Bush euphemistically calls “the War on Terror”.

When I returned inside The William Temple Episcopal Center to continue meditating with my new friends from the Zen Island (Buddhist) Fellowship, the thought came to me that somewhere in the world there must be other people sitting and praying as quietly and patiently as we, somewhere where life outside the church or synagogue or mosque or Zen-do was much more perilous than here. Did it then seem silly to be ‘wasting time’ sitting in silent prayer when we could otherwise get up and do something more pro-active about the violence that plagues the world instead? A vision of bombs falling all around the Zen-do arose, and I realized that in such a case, our response should be, as the ZIF motto goes, to do our best - to sit still with our best effort at making peace begin right here and right now.

The bombs that our military forces are dropping in Iraq, so far have led to more and more bombs, most of them made up of individual people’s bodies (driving automobiles). An individual clearly can make a difference to a cause. In the Zen-do, each individual meditator’s quiet presence gives support and encouragement to each other meditator. It is this same spirit which suffuses a Christian meditation group. By becoming peace in our own bodies, we create a perhaps small but real haven of peace around us, and an example that others in the world might follow.

Silent prayer and meditation do not belong exclusively to any one religious group or faction, though people sometimes make the mistake of thinking so. Every major tradition has access to the practice. All that is required is a true desire to lay down the pretenses of our daily lives and sit together in silence. All that is required is to make our best effort. It can be easy and difficult at the same time. But it can also be miraculously fulfilling to find oneself existing beyond one’s usual concerns of the day and time, one’s concerns about differences between people, and any quest for endless advantage; to find oneself being real in the company of friends.

What better energy can we offer the world?

Peace.

[Editor's Note: Leslie is a weekly meditation group leader in Houston, Texas. We invite you to submit an article to the Peace and Justice Web Page Editor here.)

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