Ireland – Engaging Peace

Stone memorial to civilians killed in war. Courtesy of the Peace Abbey.

by Kathie MM

In a chart in a recent post entitled 100 Living Peace and Justice Leaders, the characteristics attributed to peace and justice leaders and models included:

nonviolence,

inspiration,

tolerating struggle,

empathy & compassion,

integrity,

courage,

and a purpose-driven life.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, 2018, I want to honor one man who exemplifies all those characteristics: Lewis Randa, founder of the Life Experience School and the Peace Abbey

Here are brief examples of each of those characteristics in Lewis’s life:

Nonviolence: Lewis explains, “Martin Luther King said, ‘If you haven’t found something worth dying for you’re not fit to live.’ Nonviolence is something I’d be willing to die for. I don’t torture myself over whether I’ve done a good job or bad job.” (verdict:superb job)

Inspiration: From the founding of The Life Experience School for special needs children and young adults in 1972 (his alternative service as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War) to his current nonviolent resistance to any governmental move to use nuclear weapons against North Korea, Lewis has inspired multitudes.

Tolerating struggle: The nonviolent civil resistance in which Lewis has engaged his entire life has consistently demanded tolerating struggle; add to that his engagement in the stone walk— the project involving hauling a one-ton granite stone memorializing civilians 500 miles in the US, many miles in Ireland, and then later, under the able leadership of Dot Walsh, substantial distances in Japan and Korea.

Empathy & compassion: Because of empathy and compassion for all living creatures, Lewis is a vegetarian—as is the rest of his family — and a proponent of animal rights (You just have to read Emily the cow’s story!)

Courage: Being a conscientious objector in wartime, promoting conscientious objection to war, advocating for interfaith harmony in a nation that is increasingly intolerant of non-Christian faiths, and his willingness to speak out for peace and peacemakers to a government embroiled in violence testifies to his courage.

To learn more about a purpose-driven life, just watch this inspiring video, and add meaning to your own life by joining Lewis’s peace-seeking letter-writing campaign to Chairman Kim Jung-un.

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome guest author Alan O’Hare, who reflects on the role of stories in building community and peace. Alan is a storyteller, psychologist, and university educator.]

On the journey in search of peace and non-violence, we meet many guides. At the heart of each encounter is a story expressed through rich and colorful language.

Listening to each others’ stories provides an opportunity to gain new information, insight, and skills to build peace together. Keys to that dialogue can include:

Moving beyond prejudices, attitudes, or values that create barriers to hearing the other person’s story
Learning what has led the other to this place, thus discovering a way to address each person’s differences
Engaging with each other in a way that can promote peace within ourselves and between us.

Psychologists and other mental health professionals bring an invaluable gift to this dialogue–the ability and experience needed to listen, honor, and create connections among stories to build a sense of community.

Over the past several years, I have been fortunate to be in dialogue with many people whose lives are reflections of this perspective, and to co-create with them multi-arts performances that celebrate their life stories. The path that led me to this work began as a community psychologist and has gradually evolved back to my ancestral Celtic roots as a seanchie, a weaver and itinerant storyteller.

It was the seanchie who roamed among the villages of the Irish countryside 2500 years ago, gathering the threads of people’s stories and weaving them into a tapestry celebrating their lives.

This heritage is mirrored throughout the world in our diverse cultural roots. We are all inheritors of these traditions, and we are all called to express and witness stories of peace throughout the world. Please send us YOUR story.

Alan O’Hare, founder and artistic director of Life Story Theatre, can be reached at bridges95@aol.com

[An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Psychologists for Social Responsibility conference in the summer of 2010, and published in the journal Peace Psychology.]