By Daniella Walsh
Correspondent
“Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”
So goes a passage in “Imagine,” John Lennon’s 1971 anthem for peace that continues to live on through generations and cultures.
As of the middle of this year, according to internet sources, there are roughly 56 to 59 war zones globally, with the Mideast conflict and the war in Ukraine at the forefront. Regions of Africa and Southern Asia are embroiled in deadly and underreported skirmishes, and areas of Mexico and Haiti are torn by gang violence akin to civil war.
There seems to be no end in sight for the loss of lives, destruction of cultures and eradication of a future for coming generations.
Appalled by the horrors of war, beginning with World War II and the introduction of atomic weapons, members of Concerned Citizens of Laguna Woods Village, the Laguna Woods Community Bridge Builders and the African American Heritage Club have teamed up to pay homage to International Peace Day, a U.N-sanctioned holiday observed annually on Sept. 21.
The Village’s commemoration, set for today, Sept. 18, at 2 p.m. in Clubhouse 1, features speakers who will express their thoughts and feelings on the elusive state of peace through speeches, poetry, art and music in the form of sing-alongs led by resident Sharone Rosen.
“If we are to reclaim peace for this world, it is even more important that a vision of it is nurtured and kept alive in each one of us,” says Judy Northrop, a member of the event’s planning team.
Poet Charles Redner has been participating in Village Peace Day events for 10 years.
“After losing Bobby Kennedy in ’68, I lost hope of ending the war in ‘Nam,” he said. “My hope died until 2008, when poetry found me, and I express hope daily for ending wars with loving words.”
Redner will read three of his poems at this year’s Peace Day event. One of them, titled “For Taylor Mali in the Land of Gandhi World Peace Interrupted,” envisions a world, beginning with the U.S., returning to basic civility. The poem imagines Thanksgiving dinner without arguments, civility in Congress and rap lyrics minus excessive F-bombs and Mississippi Klansmen burning their sheets. The poem moves further, imagining peace in Palestine and bomb makers baking cakes instead of making weaponry.
Some of the event speakers hold that, ultimately, the achievement of peace lies within individuals.
“Peace always begins with us,” said Annie McCary, president of the African American Heritage Club. “We cannot expect the world to be at peace if we are at war within ourselves.”
McCary will read “The Invitation,” a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. She describes it as “a declaration of intent, a map for the longings of the soul and an invitation to live passionately and authentically.”
The poem dismisses prevailing emphases on externals, stressing instead the formative powers of one’s inner being. To wit: “I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.”
Willie Phillips, AAHC’s vice president, was drafted in the armed service but then rejected after a discovery of tuberculosis. However, most of the men in his family served in the military, he said, and one grandchild currently serves. Phillips wrote the poem “A Peace Pie” for the Peace Day event: “A Whole Peace Pie sho would be nice, But I ain’t gon lie, I’d settle for a slice,” he writes.
Sue Dearing, a former president of the Democratic Club, will go back 80 years to the dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima in 1945, with its comparatively small strength of 15 kilotons compared to today’s warheads of 475 kilotons and more.
“Today, not only are the individual weapons more devastating, but we have more of them,” Dearing said. “According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, the U.S. maintains a stockpile of approximately 3,708 warheads.”
Her take on peace? “Peace means accepting what I can’t change, doing everything I can to change what I can’t accept, and living with what I can’t do so that I can continue the struggle another day.”
Husband David Dearing will take a musical approach to peace in his speech, showing us how some of the most illustrious classical music composers sent messages of world peace – J.S. Bach in his B minor Mass/Dona Nobis Pacem, Latin for “grant us peace,” and Franz Joseph Haydn in “Mass in Time of War.”
Contemporary odes to world peace are included: the Beatles’ “Give Peace a Chance” and Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train.”
“War is the ultimate in human stupidity,” David Dearing said. “It is the last resort of misunderstanding, hate and prejudice.”
Laguna Woods City Council member Pearl Lee says she is moved by thoughts on mindfulness, peace and love, written by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. He holds that when a person makes others suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over, she said.
“When I think about what peace means to me personally, I see peace as the absence of war, of violence and of killing,” Lee said. “My own life was shaped by the Korean War, a conflict that shattered my family.”
Lee lost her father to that war, she said, and her mother, an aspiring pianist, was forced to give up her dreams to raise her two young daughters alone.
While the understanding of peace eluded her as a child, Lee later learned that peace is more than the absence of war; it’s the presence of understanding, respect and compassion, she said.
Laguna Woods Mayor Shari Horne will read Kahlil Gibran’s poem “On Giving.”
“I believe that by giving of yourself, as a flower gives its fragrance or a tree its fruit, without wanting credit or even acknowledgment of the gift, is how we can enrich each other’s lives and ourselves,” Horne said. “We give as we live, and by doing that contribute to the whole. I think that is a good basis to start the peace process.”
Concerned Citizens member Marcia Goldstein also speaks of war. Even if, as a child, she did not understand the ramifications of World War II or the Korean War, over time, she said, she has concluded that “we haven’t a clue how to fix ethnic, religious, cultural and territory clashes; they go back centuries. Countries can make treaties and then break them.”
Goldstein is also convinced that climate change and ensuing economic challenges have contributed to global conflicts over territories and resources.
“A more livable planet will make a major contribution to world peace,” she said.
Members of the Laguna Woods Art Association will exhibit works of art centered on world peace.
Robin Meader created a “Peace on Earth” collage depicting what humanity should enjoy in a peaceful world, such as abundant food and water.
Bill Gibson will exhibit a charming portrait of his granddaughter praying (perhaps for peace) set against a background of clouds.
Christina Lesyk’s painting is titled “Peace for Ukraine.”
“I am offering my painting of a child reaching for peace in Ukraine as a reminder to imagine peace for the innocent children and their families,” she said.
Peace Day coordinator Micki Nozaki sums up the idea of the event, saying: “I have a fundamental belief that we all originated from the same place, and because of that, it mystifies me that we don’t act like it. To the contrary, since we have walked this earth, we have been in conflict with each other. And today, when it is even more important to work together, some are content to tear us apart.
“Being an active participant in Peace Day is my way of calling attention to the lyrics of John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’: ‘Nothing to kill or die for … and the world will live as one.”