Today [September 21] is International Peace Day. It is a day of celebration among Friends. But you don’t make peace with friends; you make peace with difficult people, with strange people, with people who you often don’t find yourself agreeing with. You make peace with your enemies.
So what is the opposite of Peace? It is not simply the absence of War. For me, the opposite of Peace is the absence of Imagination.
When we imagine a world - or a country or a school or a playground - where there is Peace, there may be noise and clutter and confusion and surprises. But where there is also Peace, in that place at that time there is also imagination. There are dreams and hopes and maybe other things as well, but there has to be a whole bunch of people who are inspired, who trust their instincts that collectively, solutions can be found; that the impulse to rely on force or even violence is short-term,
frustrating and ultimately damaging for everyone.
So instead, we imagine Peace. We see it, smell it, feel it, hear it and say it. We live it because eventually we can’t imagine any other way. So today and every day we practice peace.