Rev. Janet Stobie
When elite athletes prepare to compete in the Olympics, part of their training is to envision themselves winning. They actually visualize each step, each movement, each feeling, imagining themselves overcoming obstacles and crossing the finish line first. Sports psychologists tell us they are creating more than just the mental expectation of success. They are also reducing their stress, increasing their confidence and building neural pathways that measurably increase their skill execution. What wisdom does this practice have for our lives?
Last week, in an email from Keene United Church, I received a YouTube link for the song “The Future Is Peace” sung by a children’s choir. The song urged us to believe in peace. We need to have hope.
Today, we see and hear our news media focus on powerful countries in our world commit-ting or sponsoring acts of war and aggression. In our conversation, we dwell on our helplessness at famine and hunger in Africa, or “natural” disasters attributable to human action or inaction. How do we have hope today? How can we envision “the Future is peace.”
In just a few days, we will hold Remembrance Day rituals. Their purpose is: first to raise our awareness of the tremendous price in lives paid for the peace we enjoy in Canada today. Additionally, these observances call us to walk a path of peace to ensure we will never have to pay that price again.
In my mind, the first step on the path of peace is to hold in our minds and hearts a vision of a world in which peace and justice reign together. We know the only way that miracle can happen is for each person, from the oldest to the youngest, to walk the road of peace. Sy and Jill Jackson Miller wrote the song we sing, “Let There be Peace on Earth.” Imagine a world in which every-one’s default action with family,friends, and strangers involved :
1. Acceptance rather than judg-ment
2. Kindness rather than efficiency or self-centeredness.
3. Sharing our abundance, not our fear of scarcity or greed for more.
5. Respect for all people, not just those who are the same as us.
9. Humility rather than condescension.
Hold that thought. Picture it in your mind. Feel it. Feel the joy of a world where no one was hungry because we shared of our abundance. Imagine a world in which everyone could be accepted as God’s precious child, not judged deficient because their appearance, mindset, beliefs or whatever, was different than ours.
Hold that picture in your mind at the beginning of everyday. Practice these five steps with every person you meet. Focus uppermost on a vision of a future with the world at peace. Create in yourself the neural pathways, the confidence, the patience that leads to the skills of a peacemaker. Watch the miracle of peace unfold for you. Give God thanks. May it be so.
For more reflections: www.janetstobie.com