UUA Presidential Candidate Rev. Peter Morales Talks The Talk About Peace Making, Time Will Tell If He Walks The Walk Of His Peace Making Talk. . .
Over on his Pfarrer Streccius blog Chicago Unitarian*Universalist Bill Baar blogs about receiving a response to his UUA's Peace Making draft and an American "umbrella" against a nuclear-armed Iran post from UUA Presidential Candidate Rev. Peter Morales in a post titled - Rev Peter Morales on Peace Making
Here is what Rev. Peter Morales has to say on the subject of Peace Making aka PeaceMaking. Like Bill Baar I very much agree with what Rev. Morales says in principle. Like Bill Baar I have some concerns with, "The scalability of any statement from the personal to the social." (and vice versa). I too think that more discussion would result in a better understanding of Peace Making than any statement drawn up by a UUA committee. I too offer a big thank you to Rev. Peter Morales for publicly articulating his own personal beliefs and insights about Peace Making. I take note of the fact that Rev. Morales wisely began his public response to Bill Baar by doing some Peace-Making of his own by apologizing to Bill for the delay in his response. Herewith, verbatim, is what possible future UUA President Rev. Peter Morales has to say about Peace Making -
I have not had time to give the statement careful study. I have read through it quickly.
My initial reaction (and it is nothing more than this) is that the statement is not likely to have much effect. I am sympathetic to the general idea of peacemaking as involving levels that go from the personal to the international.
What is missing is a sense of peace as something much more than the absence of violence. In the Hebrew scriptures, the word "shalom" is translated into English as "peace." However, "shalom" has meanings "peace" does not convey. The ancient concept is about wholeness. To wish someone peace is to wish him or her a whole and healthy life. Our statement needs to emphasize this more, I think. We need to see peace as not merely the opposite of violence, but as a condition of human wholeness and prosperity. When there are conditions of exploitation and injustice, there is no peace even though there may be no violence. What is critical here is that peace is something created and sustained by real conditions and by relationships of compassion, equality, and justice. Western Europe is at peace today because it has come a long way in creating the conditions of peace.
I realize that the statement does address this in part, but I think it gives too much emphasis to peace as merely the absence of violence.
Peter Morales
Here is the comment that I submitted in response to these words of Rev. Peter Morales that Bill Baar felt compelled to "memory hole" because he believed that I was "starting a new thread" -
Here is what Rev. Peter Morales has to say on the subject of Peace Making aka PeaceMaking. Like Bill Baar I very much agree with what Rev. Morales says in principle. Like Bill Baar I have some concerns with, "The scalability of any statement from the personal to the social." (and vice versa). I too think that more discussion would result in a better understanding of Peace Making than any statement drawn up by a UUA committee. I too offer a big thank you to Rev. Peter Morales for publicly articulating his own personal beliefs and insights about Peace Making. I take note of the fact that Rev. Morales wisely began his public response to Bill Baar by doing some Peace-Making of his own by apologizing to Bill for the delay in his response. Herewith, verbatim, is what possible future UUA President Rev. Peter Morales has to say about Peace Making -
I have not had time to give the statement careful study. I have read through it quickly.
My initial reaction (and it is nothing more than this) is that the statement is not likely to have much effect. I am sympathetic to the general idea of peacemaking as involving levels that go from the personal to the international.
What is missing is a sense of peace as something much more than the absence of violence. In the Hebrew scriptures, the word "shalom" is translated into English as "peace." However, "shalom" has meanings "peace" does not convey. The ancient concept is about wholeness. To wish someone peace is to wish him or her a whole and healthy life. Our statement needs to emphasize this more, I think. We need to see peace as not merely the opposite of violence, but as a condition of human wholeness and prosperity. When there are conditions of exploitation and injustice, there is no peace even though there may be no violence. What is critical here is that peace is something created and sustained by real conditions and by relationships of compassion, equality, and justice. Western Europe is at peace today because it has come a long way in creating the conditions of peace.
I realize that the statement does address this in part, but I think it gives too much emphasis to peace as merely the absence of violence.
Peter Morales
Here is the comment that I submitted in response to these words of Rev. Peter Morales that Bill Baar felt compelled to "memory hole" because he believed that I was "starting a new thread" -
That is indeed a very good response, albeit not a timely one. I look forward to Rev. Peter Morales finding the time and inclination to responsibly answer some, if not all, of the questions that I asked him months ago on his apparently moribU*Und 'Along The Campaign Trail' blog, some of which I have reproduced on my brand-spanking new The Emerson Avenger For UUA President blog.
It sure would be nice if UUA President Bill Sinkford, UUA Moderator Gini Courter, all UUA Trustees, and every other UUA Board member that I sent this "electronic communication" to over a week ago paid heed to Rev. Peter Morales' words here and responsibly responded to it in a manner that actually honors and upholds U*U principles, instead of flagrantly disregarding them and outright flaunting them as has been their wont so far. . . If these UUA leaders continue to fail or refuse to take responsible steps to clean up the unsightly mess that the UUA abjectly failed to clean up on President Bill Sinkford's watch, either Rev. Peter Morales or Rev. Laurel Hallman is going to have to deal with it when they are elected President of the UUA, unless of course a "Dark Horse" candidate enters the UUA Presidential elections "race" at the last minute and somehow manages to win it, which seems like a highly unlikely scenario to me. I will be running for UUA President Reject myself. :-)