Peace Train - Hop Onboard

More than thirty years ago, Cat Stevens, now Yusef Islam, wrote Peace Train. The video is of his performance at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony. That night Muhammad Yunus was honored for his work to end poverty by providing microloans to individuals and small business owners, giving them the capital needed to change not only their lives but to help entire communities.

Listen closely to the words of the song. “Now I’ve been happy lately, thinking about good things to come…Now I’ve been smiling lately, thinking about the world as one…Now I’ve been crying lately, thinking about the world as it is…Why must we go on hating? Why can’t we live in bliss?”

Why can’t we? Abraham Flexnor, a respected medical educator, once said, “Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for war and civilization. We must make our choice. We cannot have both.”

Read any spiritual writing from any great spiritual mind from Jesus to Muhammad to Buddha to Gandhi to the Dalai Lama and you will find admonitions against war…pleas for and instructions on peaceful coexistence. Yet, we still kill one another as some sort of protracted resolution to conflict or retribution for misdeeds against another. We still beat each other into submission in the name of bringing peace.

Carol Hamel of My View of “It” has sent out the call for bloggers to join The Peace Train. Bloggers have power and should use their unique voices to rise up in unison, speaking out against violence in our world. I’m with her. Are you?

If you’d like to join The Peace Train please post the logo in your sidebar and notify Carol you’re onboard. She’ll include you in a list of links on her blog. Look to my next post for links to this and other organizations promoting peace.

Let’s make this the year peace happens. If it becomes a resolution in my daily life and we ALL strive to live peacefully, I believe things will change for the better. Once we taste the happiness of living as if our neighbors were ourselves, we will no longer tolerate declarations of war handed down from our leaders, killing of innocents or abject poverty among our fellow man. How could I? How could you? Think about it.