EDITORIAL PEACE MONTH

White Ribbon, Volume 20, Issue 4, 1 May 1948, Page 1

EDITORIAL PEACE MONTH

In many societies and organisations at the present time, one note is being sounded with an insistence that cannot be ignored even by the most indifferent member. That is, the need for the cultivation of the spirit of Peace. After three years of so-called Peace, it is almost like a cry of despair that is heard through the dark, in the night of storm and peril. The skies that seemed so blue, and the air, so warm, have become clouded and chill with waiting for the true dawn of Peace. The human heart looks with dismay on the scenes of strife, disorder, turmoil, aud fierce race antagonism happening in so many parts of the world, and cries out in agony for some certain hope of rest from it all. Problems that defy the diplomacy and wisdom of great statesmen to solve, prejudices the power of which is beyond comprehension, political creeds wherein seem to lie the potentialities for the wreckage of human aspiration and hope for the development of life on higher planes of intellectual and spiritual being, baffle and distress the yearning spirits of those who pray still: “Give Peace in our time, 0 Lord.” What is the answer? It is not for us to decide the great issues confronting the world. Helpless and bewildered, we are like the leaves of autumn, blown from side to side, up and down, afraid of the future and without certainty in the present. The trouble is real. It will not be ignored. What can we do about it ? • There is one sphere in which we are all able to exercise some control. We can actually do something materially to help in the bringing of order out of chaos. We must first realise that Thoughts are Things. Also, that all the great happenings in the world begin with them. They are the source from which spring all good and bad influences. Nothing really happens by accident. Accident may crystallise ideas, fears,

suspicions, and equally, beneficent impulse and generous intention, into action; but accident does not produce these beginnings of action. They are the result of mental attitude, and have their origin in the thinking habits of individuals. Does it matter how WE think? If we turn away in cold superiority from the wife of the Jewish alien who has gone into business in our streets; if we say, "I don’t believe in sending food to German children even if they arc receiving about half of what the English children are having, because of the harm their fathers and people have done”; if we cannot realise, in short, that every thought of enmity is a direct menace to the peace of the w’orld; then we need to revise our ideas. Every woman longs for world peace. There is no need to say why. But does every woman do her share in bringing it in? Does she KNOW enough? Does she THINK enough? It is her duty to know and to think intelligently. In a little pamphlet w’ritten by Beatrice Ashton for the National Council of Churches, the following paragraph appears:— “One well-informed woman, aware of wdiat is going on in the world holds propaganda, idle misinformation and uncritical acceptance in check. Her children reflect what is said and what is aired reasonably in the home, and they in turn have a certain check on their school community. The first step in educating for peace is then in our own selves, in our reading and listening and thinking.” And there is the beginning of what every woman can do. If w r e, just we ourselves, could only feel in our hearts that everything we think COUNTS, world peace would become a more possible thing. If we can think habitually the thoughts of peace with those around us, with tin* circumstances of our own lives, with the people who are not of our wav of thinking, then we have “peace within,” and its power will be unlimited.