There’s a story about a person who placed a stick on the ground and asked, “How do you make this stick smaller without touching it?” People took some time to think about it, and then one person jumped up, ran outside, came back and placed a bigger stick next to the now, smaller one.
In this time of reckoning, we grapple with the slaughter of innocents on both sides and the horrible reality that the vicious cycle of violence is something we have grown to accept. We can no longer allow the status quo of power and might to be victor. It’s time we lay a bigger stick.
And what can possibly be the bigger stick? It’s surely not more arms and more killing. It can only be through compassion and kindness that the gross wounds of humankind can begin to heal. It can only be with a relentless force of love and peace that we can stop the cycle of pain among the brotherhood of humanity.
It will only be with the keen awareness and understanding that we are here to help one another, not get in each other’s way. This can happen when we receive and rejoice in our diversity and see it as the strength that in fact it is.
Acknowledging that peace is not only possible but that it is also a sacred right. It is something available to us, nestled within us and available to manifest around us. We must dare to allow our greater aspirations not be diminished by what has been. We are no longer asking to “Give Peace a Chance”. We’re demanding it.
Ceasefire Now.
If you have not yet signed onto a petition for a ceasefire in Gaza, do it now. Every voice counts.
Laying a bigger stick is a story I heard from Prem Rawat and it continues to guide me.
let kindness win 