Dear Peace Practitioners,
I don't want this to ever
end. I want us to be close. There is safety in numbers!
Peacekeeper missile, peace
officer, peace treaty, peace teacher...we know the differences now. Peace practitioners...something everyone should be from
youth to old age.
Okay. It is time to imagine
a circle of friends standing around a wishing pool with tiny lanterns glowing in the night. We can
imagine our sisters and brothers in peace. What we have done in this workshop will last a lifetime. Once we cross the line
and become peace advocates, I doubt if we want to go backwards.
You and I and the Executive
Team at the PeaceClinic Institute have bonded for the betterment of humanity. We can show people a better, healthier way to
live in an increasingly violent world. We have gone from inner tranquility to self-defense and disaster
preparedness in just a few weeks. I am so proud of everyone who dared to take the challenge of becoming involved with the
PCI and the Peace Practitioners Certification Program.
Anyone who has checked
in here a couple of times and read some posts and posted at least once will be sent a certificate unless you do not want one
at this time. This experiment has proved to me that we can do this program via the Internet. I thought it would be like herding
cats or something like that. It was not. You have all been very sensitive and responsible, and very very helpful to each other.
I think
any one of you could now hold a workshop of your own!
From time to time,
I will post more content at the Sessions site and here too. Remember the PC's Forum is open to all of us too. Outsiders will
need to identify themselves or they will not receive the Forum passkey. You will all be invited to attend or participate in
future workshops. If you want to hold a local workshop, we will help you if you write to us at the peaceclinic@gmail.com. Write to any of our chapter directors too.
If you have stories, essays,
photos, artwork, poems and just about anything peace related to share, we look forward to getting such things into our future
workshops (all with credits to authors) and possibly into our Peace Book. I will return to work on
that in 2006.
We are now thinking of
publishing sixteen page pamphlets that can latter be grouped into a book format.
I hope you will invite
others in your own towns and friends far away to join the PCI in future workshops. Safety in numbers, right? Just to realize
that the PeaceClinic has grown from an idea and an awkward old website (from notes from a book plan) to a international entity
in just a couple of years with no paid advertising and simply word of mouth carrying our vision far and wide. Is that not
the most amazing thing?!!! Our aim is not to become an empire, but rather to share the wisdom selected from as many
sane resources as we could find. We are always going to remain non-political, non-religious and non-sectarian.
I cannot think of any other organization that can remain so and still grow and share with people on the very serious topic
of peace at heart, community and move beyond territorial borders.
Peace Technology and the
ideas expressed so well by Prof. Fani Das may be the only hope for our planet. His works have left little to chance. He has
thought of every angle and projection of the word, peace. His school in India will become more widely known as the PeaceClinic
is able to promote the core ideas of the technology of peace. I am so very glad that he found us!
I feel a little dizzy
just thinking about what the PCI stands for and about all the beautiful members, volunteers, exec. team members, and friends
we have found in just a couple of years. I think I have wanted to do something like this since I was about ten years old.
I thank each one of you
for being my friend and a friend of peace. You should be very proud to have come together in this first workshop for peace.
I thank all our chapter directors who are volunteers like myself. They have loved me and believed in me, and they have taught
me more than I could ever teach them.
Go now, with a good heart
for your brothers and sisters in peace and find more folks who yearn to become peace teachers too.
Remember one of my favorite
prayers. It saved me from ending it all and it saved me again today at my regular job. I would be a mess without it.