John Dear - Living Peace

Disarming the Heart

Our God Is Nonviolent

Seeds of Nonviolence

The God of Peace

The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience

Peace Behind Bars

The Sound of Listening

Jesus the Rebel

EDITED BY JOHN DEAR

The Road to Peace:
Writings on Peace and Justice by Henri Nouwen

And the Risen Bread:
Selected Poems of Daniel Berrigan, 19571997

Apostle of Peace:
Essays in Honor of Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

The Vision of Peace: Faith and Hope in Northern Ireland:
The Writings of Mairead Corrigan Maguire

Its a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon:
The Writings of Richard McSorley, S.J.

Christ Is with the Poor:
Stories and Sayings of Horace McKenna, S.J.

A N I MAGE B OOK
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Random House, Inc.

IMAGE, DOUBLEDAY , and the portrayal of a deer drinking from a stream are registered trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Living Peace was originally published in hardcover by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2001. This Image Books edition published by special arrangement with Doubleday.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday hardcover edition as follows:

Dear, John, 1959
Living peace / John Dear.
p. cm.
1. PeaceReligious aspectsCatholic ChurchMeditations. 2. Spiritual lifeCatholic ChurchMeditations. 3. Christian lifeCatholic authors. 4. Christian lifeMeditations. I. Title.

BX1795.P43 D43 2001
261.873dc21 00-048390

eISBN: 978-0-307-56369-9

Copyright 2001 by John Dear, S.J.
All Rights Reserved

v3.1

For Richard Deats and Jim Lawson

Friends and Peacemakers

I wish to thank Trace Murphy for suggesting this book
and making it possible, and Lynn Fredriksson
for editing the manuscript.

E very morning, I take time to sit in the silence of the present moment, in the peace of God. I breathe in the spirit of peace. I return to the deep inner peace which is the heart of the spiritual life. I imagine sitting beside God. I listen for Gods word of peace, that invitation to share in a life of love.

In that intimate, sacred peace, I rediscover myself. In that moment, I reclaim my identity as a child of God.

For the rest of my day, I try to live in a spirit of peace. Though I get caught up in my hectic routine, I return to that centered space whenever I can, and close the day in that same spirit. Over time, my life is slowly transformed.

The spirit of peace has led me from my childhood roots in North Carolina and Washington, D.C., to the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, to become a Catholic priest, to soup kitchens, shelters, war zones, and jail cells around the country and the world, and to direct the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the largest, oldest interfaith peace organization in the United States.

Since 1915, FOR has promoted justice and disarmament throughout the world by advocating nonviolence as the only sure way to peace. FOR invites people of every religion, race, class, and culture to live the life, walk the road, and seek the God of peace. Its members range from students to grandmothers to Nobel Peace laureates to religious leadersfrom Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Helen Prejean.

In my office, large photos of these great witnesses adorn the walls. Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton keep vigilant watch over me, urging me to persevere in the life of peace. They surround me like the communion of saints made visible.

Sitting in the present moment, breathing in the spirit of peace, looking at these messengers, I take up again the mission of peace and nonviolence in a world of war and violence. I feel ready to radiate the spirit of peace everywhere.

Perhaps more than anything, our world needs peace. We all need it, within our own broken hearts and broken families, in our bloody city streets and corrupt government offices, and in war zones and refugee camps.

On all sides, we are surrounded by violence; there are now over thirty-five wars being waged in the world. The slow violence of poverty and hunger kills over 40,000 people, mostly children, each day. Misery and destitution claim over two billion people throughout the developing world. Racism, sexism, discrimination, hate crimes, homelessness, unemployment, inadequate healthcare; the ongoing destruction of the environment; torture, executions, and other human rights abuses; in particular, the death of over one million Iraqis, mostly children under the age of five, from the United States/United Nations economic sanctions enforced since 1990; and on top of all of this, the ongoing threat of over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the U.S., oppress us all with the threat of violence and death.

In such a world, my friends and I cling to a vision of nonviolence. In the spirit of interfaith prayer, we proclaim the possibility of a new world without war or violence, what Martin Luther King, Jr., called the beloved community, or what Jesus called the reign of God at hand.

But as the great pioneers knew, we must seek peace at every level of life, beginning within ourselves. Their example summons us to turn to God, allowing God to disarm our own hearts so that we can become instruments of Gods disarming love in the world. They have called us to become the peace we seek.

If we simply live in the spirit of peace, we contribute to the peace of the entire world. This is an ancient spiritual truth. If we want to participate in this transformation, we have to begin right now, this very moment, to root out the violence within us, to forgive those who have hurt us, to let go of bitterness and resentment, to reconcile with one another, and open a way for the spirit of God to move freely among us. We need to take a deep breath, turn our hearts in prayer, and receive Gods gift of peace that we can then share with all of humanity and creation itself.

Even as we enter that life, we are transformed; we discover a wholeness, a joy, a presence not of this world. If we pursue the depths of peace throughout our lives, we can change the world and become, like Gandhi, Dr. King, and Dorothy Day, witnesses to a better world.

Nothing could be more exciting, more challenging, or more meaningful than such a life.

And so, I offer these reflections and lessons from my own journey. They come in three parts: to help others pursue the depths and heights and fullness of peace in their own lives.

May they help us all move closer toward that glorious day when we stand together face to face with the God of peace.

J OHN D EAR , S.J.

New York, New York

I.
The Depths of Peace:
The Inner Journey

Our true life lies at a great depth within us.
TAGORE

Acquire inner peace and a multitude around you will find their salvation.
ST. SERAPHIN

I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him or her, and if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent