Upcoming Events in the Cambridge Area

For my local (Cambridge, Ontario and area) readers, there are a couple of events happening in the next week you might be interested in.

Thursday, May 3, 2007
7 – 10 pm
Calm & Ground Gathering
Balance Natural Healing Arts, 71 Dickson Street, Cambridge
519-620-0262

Please bring a food offering for potluck and any percussion instrument for drum circle.

Friday, May 4, 2007
7pm
Peace Walk
Waterloo Park

Join the Peace Walk on May 4th Waterloo park -west (enter off Westmount) at 7 pm followed by the viewing of the film, Gandhi (at the Princess Cinema). May 4th. The Humanist Movement is hosting this event. The film will begin at 8 pm for those interested. Regular admission prices apply.

Peace Quote

Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.

César Chávez

Blog Your Blessings Sunday on Life at the Edge

Surfing around the blogs today, I came across this post on a blog titled Life at the Edge. I highly recommend reading it. It's a Taoism chant from the 6th century, and it perfectly and simply captures the philosophy behind PeaceRipples.

I'm Back

I would like to apologize to my readers who may have been wondering where I disappeared to. I know it’s been awhile. Looking back I realize that my last post was 3 days before I ended things with my boyfriend. It was hard to focus on peace while getting daily harassing phone calls and dealing with the aftermath of the breakup. My new apartment that I loved so much and worked so hard to get became a place to be avoided. I’ve moved in with my dear friends Sherry and Charles and I don’t know if I ever want to return to that apartment. And that’s been the least of my worries.

It’s been a particular challenge to figure out how to deal with the situation as a peacemaker. I tried talking nicely to him, I tried being rational, I tried being blunt. Nothing worked. I called the police on him not once but twice – both times he got warnings to back off, while I was advised to change my phone number. (That “solution” wouldn’t have prevented the calls to my work, of course.) In desperation, I asked someone to have a not-too-friendly chat with him. I’m not sure exactly what was said, but it bought me a week with no phone calls, relative bliss.

On the seventh day, the phone calls began again in earnest. They started out nicely enough: “Jen, I love you and I miss you and I want to be friends.” Quickly they turned to threats, from the bizarre, “I’m suing you for mental abuse” to the unnerving, “Eyes are watching you everywhere.” When I got the last bunch of messages off my voice mail, I broke. I called a friend in tears and said I didn’t know what to do anymore. Skipping over the details, he got involved, the police finally charged my ex-boyfriend with harassment and he’s been in jail ever since. Not that that was the end of it – for a couple of days I started getting collect phone calls from the jail. Another afternoon spent dealing with the police, and he lost his phone privileges. I have no idea what to expect when he finally goes to trial. No wonder I have no desire to return home.

It illustrates for me the dilemma faced by all of us who work for peace: what to do when every effort you make towards peace is (or appears) fruitless? How do you protect yourself from those who wish to harm you? I think I’m finally beginning to understand the expression, “the personal is the political.” There can’t be peace on a global, national or any other political scale as long as people are experiencing conflict on the personal level. I already knew this, of course, but now I know it with greater clarity. This is why PeaceRipples is so important to me. I believe that by increasing the amount of peace we each experience in our own lives we increase the amount of peace felt by the whole planet. In this way, we truly can change the world.