THE HOT POTATO
Serving Up a Weekly Helping of
Sustainable & Organic Gardening, Food, Health, and Community
by Adam Brockman & Aireen Joven, September 2007, #30
THIS WEEK’S DISH -
UNTIL EVERYDAY IS A CELEBRATION OF PEACE:
Chicago’s International Day Of Peace
MAKE ART NOT WAR. On September 26, 2005, we marched through Washington D.C. during the international call to end the war and occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home. The man pictured above was rolling his giant Peace sign down the street as he marched. In the background, a young man holds up a sign reading “Make Art, Not War.”
“MAY PEACE BE IN THE WORLD.” This was the final group meditation for peace spoken this past Friday by over two hundred people in celebration of International Peace Day. On September 21st, the city of Chicago hosted its 29th annual Peace Day celebration at Daley Plaza. Declared an official holiday by the United Nations in 1981, Peace Day is celebrated worldwide in over 200 countries. The historic U.N. Peace Day resolution calls for an international day of global ceasefire and nonviolence. All nations and individuals are invited on this day to cease all hostilities and join in a worldwide celebration, reflection, and one minute of silence for inner and world peace. The hope is that more and more people will be inspired to carry the commitment of nonviolence forward into the days beyond, until everyday is a celebration of peace.
Arriving at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago several minutes early, I was greeted by the beautiful, hypnotic sound of bagpipes echoing across the waves of skyscrapers, traffic, and pedestrians. It was an unseasonably warm September day, near ninety degrees, but the shade of the buildings and a cool breeze off the lake produced a comfortable, calm feeling which helped to ease some of the tension and scattered energy of downtown. As I crossed Randolph, I saw two bagpipers, dressed in kilts and full Scottish garb, warming up by one of the Daley Center’s black architectural columns. I entered the plaza to find some seventy or eighty chairs placed in rows in front of a stage, mostly empty, with several more chairs and tables with umbrellas set up towards the center of the plaza and off to the left of the stage. Also near the left of the stage stood dozens of people of diverse colors and nationalities, holding the flags of many different countries. People sat here and there, talking, laughing, or staring quietly into space, while passers-by wandered in and out of the plaza, some stopping to see what was about to take place.
Program in hand, I took a seat and waited for the celebration to begin. Minutes later, Barry Weisberg, Executive Director of Violence Prevention Peace Promotion Strategy (VPPPS), delivered the introduction. VPPPS is a local non-profit organization which addresses the interconnectedness of violence, crime, poverty, and racism, and provides programs for schools and communities linking individual development with community development, while working to replace the values, attitudes, behaviors, institutions, and systems of violence with those of peace. During his introduction, Weisberg pointed out that though there are over 7,000 languages spoken throughout the world today, every language has a word for peace. He pointed out that throughout human history, people all over the world have been unified by their inner and collective journeys for peace. Mr. Weisberg then introduced the representatives of nearly twenty-five Chicago-based consulates of foreign countries who had signed on as sponsors of the Chicago Peace Day celebration.
Next, Weisberg introduced Charles Kim, President of The Peace School, to lead the one minute of silence for world peace. Located at 3121 Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, the Peace School’s mission is “to help individuals practice peace in everyday life by attaining peace in mind, body, and spirit, creating the foundation for a broader peace in our families, schools, communities, nations and the entire planet.” Founded in 1972 by MyungSu Yu Sung Kim, The Peace School offers classes in breathwork, meditation, Peace Exercise yoga, massage, and traditional martial arts, as well as providing education on peace issues. Chicago’s very own Peace School is the originator of International Peace Day, which Chicago has been celebrating for twenty-nine years, three years before the U.N. resolution making it an official holiday.
As a prelude to the minute of silence, observed throughout the world on Peace Day, Kim encouraged participants to fill our minds with bright, loving thoughts and send those thoughts throughout the world. During that minute, amidst the noise and hustle-bustle of downtown, over a hundred people sat in silence, stepping out of the drama for just a moment to exercise a powerful inner awareness and allow the natural wellsprings of peace within to flow unhindered.
After the silence, the air was filled with a beautiful noise: the noise of music. A boisterous operatic group, the Other 3 Tenors took the stage and belted out rich harmonies with powerful crescendos while paying tribute to the late Luciano Pavarotti. In a rare performance, one of the Other 3 Tenors sang a solo in Korean. After a rousing, emotional conclusion, a representative of Governor Rod Blagojevich took the stage to declare Peace Day an official Illinois holiday. He was followed by Gene Lee, Mayor Daley’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who declared Peace Day an official Chicago holiday. After twenty-nine years of unofficial celebration, this year’s 2007 Peace Day marks the now official Peace Day holiday in the state of Illinois.
The climax of the celebration came with the Call To Peace and World Peace Flag Ceremony. The two bagpipers who had served as my introduction to the celebration filled the air with music once again while a girl holding the world peace flag, a flag with a picture of the Earth as seen from space, led the three on a march to the center of the stage. Then Charles Kim and his wife, Jennifer, led the Call to Peace. Traveling from continent to continent, starting with Western Europe, Ms. Kim called out the names of each country, and one by one a person holding that country’s flag stepped forward. Then, everyone at the celebration repeated, “May peace be in…” and the name of that country. After each country in that continent had been named, everyone declared, “May peace be in…” and the name of that continent, such as “May peace be in North America” and “May peace be in the Middle East”, followed by an all-inclusive declaration: “May peace be in the world!”
The final musical performance of the day was given by a Japanese Taiko ensemble. Taiko literally means “drum” in Japanese and is an ancient artform involving one or more drummers and, in this case, a flutist. Wrapping up the celebration, Barry Weisberg closed by thanking everyone for attending and helping to coordinate the day’s events, which obviously involved a great deal of work, especially finding over two hundred people to carry each country’s flag! He urged the attendees to carry forward the message and practice of peace far beyond the day’s events. As I left the celebration, I dreamed of a day when the world would indeed adopt peace and nonviolence as organizing principles, and where someday, everyday would be recognized as a celebration of peace and the power of human love.
Until next week, The Hot Potato is in your hands. Peace be with you, and please pass it on!
–
Peace Train by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)
