The brutality of war has many faces. When I
first joined the Devon Ambulance service in 1975 I had the honor of carrying veterans
from both World Wars and survivors from other conflicts including Burma, Korea,
Vietnam, Northern Ireland. I have worked with men who fought in N Ireland, the Falkland’s,
Serbia and Iraq. My school friend Philip Stentiford was
killed by a landmine whilst on foot patrol in County Armagh on 21st January 1972
aged 18….. the same age as me and I could not understand why.
After Philip’s funeral I made a
promise to myself that I would never take up arms, but in the event of war I
would drive an ambulance and tend to the wounded from both sides but never fire a gun in anger. In peacetime I drove an
ambulance and tended to the sick and injured or 20 years. I have never fired a
gun.
It was H. G. Wells who published articles
in London newspapers and later published them in book form, who described World War
1 as “The war to end all wars”, but around 9
million combatants and 7 million civilians had their lives taken away from
them. Today the term is used disparagingly because there has not been a decade free
of conflict since WW1.
Twenty years after WW1, the Second World
War (1939 and 1945), directly involved an estimated 100 million people from 30
different countries and claimed an estimated 50 to 85 million fatalities. The
weapons became more powerful, sophisticated and technical, and more people died, culminating in the first use of atomic bombs on August 6th and August 9th 1945. In Hiroshima
and Nagasaki an estimated 150,000 and 246,000 people died from the acute
effects of the atomic bombs within the first four months, (approximately half
this number killed on the first day). And still we do not learn.
War, Terrorism and Conflict continues. In
the intervening years ten’s of thousands of combatants and civilians have had
their lives taken away from them. In recent months conflicts in the Ukraine,
Syria, Gaza/Israel have peppered every news item. Around the world aircraft
have been brought down, ships capsized, and earthquakes, hurricanes and floods
have torn communities apart. Some have lived with conflict for so long they do not know what peace is and for some peace may look as though it has abandoned
humankind.
Peace has not abandoned us, peace is still here, but we may have
to look deeply for it. We have to penetrate the brambles, stinging nettles of anger,
negative thoughts and our judgmental mind to find the beautiful flowers of love, peace
and happiness.
Peace starts with you and me and our
friends, our friends, friend’s and their friends, and their friends, friends
and so on. We each have to sow and nurture the seeds of peace. Peace can grow out of a smile, find peace in our hearts and we can find peace in the world,
cultivate peace and the beautiful flowers of love, compassion and forgiveness
will grow. But the moment we adopt an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
attitude we can never have peace, as long as we have anger in our hearts there
can be no room for stillness, love, peace and compassion.
In November The Stillness Project plans to hold a day long meditation session on the theme of "Finding Peace in a Troubled World", The first of a series of "Peace Meditation sessions" leading up too the 70th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The sessions will be held at the Woodlands Community College, Minstead Avenue, Harefield, Southampton, SO185FW. The Date and finer details are still to be announced.
"Peace In the world starts with peace in our hearts"
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