December Peace Challenge: Party on, Garth!

Please clicky click on the below link for our last peace challenge of the year.

Kozo’s Link

“…this challenge ends an incredible first year of Bloggers for Peace.  After last months challenge of loving thy enemy, I want to give you a party.  So this months challenge is to plan a party that will ripple peace to the world…”  

Kozo Hattori

Also, My friend Kim posted a fabulous post for our Peace challenge, please clicky click the below link to read her amazing writing.

Invitation to the Elite Party

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There are celebrations happening each day with impromptu parties of cheer and joy. Parents, Siblings, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and friends gather for this beautiful event. The unknowing host of the party spreading ripples of peace to the world with his/her first breath and although words are not ready to be verbalized he/she can feel a host of new emotions and bring all who join this celebration of life a continued touch of peace or a newfound reason to believe peace can be discovered within a life just beginning. Usually, these life parties occur in hospitals and is a day of a birth…

Joy

Smiles

Love 

Peace

Every day, with each new life starting keeps our hope eternal for joy givers being born, and our future peacemakers who will indeed, make a good difference.

November Peace Challenge: Love Thy Enemy

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading! 

Kozo’s Link

“This month, I want you to open your arms to your enemies. Think of a person, a place, a nation, a culture, a religion, a gender, or an ideology that you view as an enemy…”  Kozo Hattori

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A sensitive soul, embedded into my character.

or

A free spirited soul, enriching my character. 

Each beat of my heart, painstakingly attempting to mask the magnitude of this imperfection.

or

Each beat of my heart, delivering perfection within imperfection. 

My mind struggling to subdue intense feelings of hatred, born from injustices.

or

My mind accepts replacing hate with love, flowing from goodness within my nature. 

Fact 

Harsh words and insensitive actions, sliced parts of my being into heaping piles of devastation and bred wounded emotions upon a battlefield of hate.

Choice

I open my eyes and focus on genuine love

realizing reactions out of love, is eternal.

∞

The urge to save my sanity, is stronger than a ceaseless journey for vengeance.

The fact is…It’s my choice.

 

August Peace Challenge: One Good Thing About Music

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading!

Kozo’s Link

“For this month’s Peace Challenge I want to invoke the power of music.  Post a song or video of a song that has brought peace to your world. Feel free to explain how this music has created peace.”  Kozo Hattori

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I will turn on this song and sing along with fierce compassion and all of my being–for each lyric is truly liberating and with liberation comes P E A C E !

  “I’m free” by Amber

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXlvTeG8T88

I am a true, true woman
with a clear face and a strong view
You can try me but, I stay in balance
because I have my own crew

I don’t care who likes me or not
I don’t care what you see because I’m free
because I’m free
I just want to be myself
I don’t owe you because I’m free

I am somebody else
so respect me for what I am
nobody should dictate me and my mind
For I know where I stand

I don’t care who likes me or not
I don’t care what you see because I’m free
Because I’m free
I just want to be myself
I don’t owe you because I’m free

Free to live
Free to need
Free to love
Free to bleed
Free to speak
Free to cry
Free to die

I don’t care who likes me or not
I don’t care what you see because I’m free
Because I’m free
I just want to be myself
I don’t owe you because I’m –
Yes believe me for I’m-
Don’t you know because I’m
Free

July Peace Challenge: Peace Begins with a letter

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading!

Kozo’s Link

“For this month’s peace challenge, I encourage you to write a letter for peace and send it out into the Universe. You may not get an answer, but you will make a difference.”  Kozo Hattori

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Dear Aunt Addys,

Happy 59^th Birthday!

I love you and each day that passes, I wish I would have spent more time with you.  If only.

You entered my life when I was two years old so, I have known you always. When you married into my family I was seven and elated!!! 

I wear the necklace, you gave to me this past Christmas, every day.  You told me to read the inscription whenever I need to remember, “All the strength you need, is right there inside you.“

The Rock with the word “Believe” engraved on it, that you gave to me, still sits on my desk at work.

It’s been a few months since your funeral and my heart misses you more than I can express in words and I long for your presence.

The day you died, a friend told me, just like we enjoy beautiful flowers in our gardens, God added a beautiful flower to his Garden, when you joined him.

I miss you and I will forever love you.

Today, on your birthday, something amazing happened.

I received a call from your younger sister and she told me she was cleaning out your house and stumbled across a sealed envelope with my name written across the front side, in your handwriting. On Friday I will pick up the envelope. I’m thinking it may be a birthday card since, my birthday is in November. Whatever it may be, the mere knowledge of its existence finally brings peace to my heart and a new found understanding that everything is, as it should be and with this realization I toss  “if only” to the wind.

Today you would be turning 59 years young.

Happy Birthday My Aunt Addys!

P.S. Please thank God for letting you be our earth Angel, while you were here with us—God knew we needed you.

P.S.S. Your light shines eternal and I will always feel you.

Love,

Marie

June Peace Challenge: Peace at home

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading!

Kozo’s Link

“This month I challenge you to explore how to have peace in relationships or how to have peace at home.”  Kozo Hattori

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Five things that make a peaceful relationship

1. Communication

2. Forgiveness

3. Understanding

4. Loyalty

5. Respect

 

Four things to become a better partner

1. Have the same sexual appetites.

2. Have a compatible sense of humor

3. If you’re not happy, free yourself and your partner too!

4. Live these vows:

 ∞

“I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to honor and respect you and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.”

A Charlie Chaplin Quote

 

Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with

your naked soul.

– Charlie Chaplin (Actor/Filmmaker)

October Peace Challenge: I Have a Dream

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading! 

Kozo’s Link

“Let’s visualize what a peaceful world will look like. For this month’s peace challenge, I challenge you to publish what your dream of peace looks like…” 

Kozo Hattori

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I observed with unabashed joy as the Red Robin soared through the clear southern sky, floating effortlessly in unison with the gentleness of the wind. I watched the strong and agile wings on this striking bird, swaying back and forth above the earth as all the human inhabitants scurried about tending to their busy lives below, oblivious of its flight. To my delight the bird landed swiftly, perching on top of an auburn branch connected to a huge and beautiful oak tree, mere yards from the park bench where I was sitting. It was a breezy summer day and a glorious way to welcome a much-anticipated Saturday afternoon. I contemplated how Red Robins are eye catching with their vibrant red color and their ability to greet daybreak with a song, unique to their own species. These thoughts brought an instant smile to my lips. I believe when one finds simplistically beautiful traits in nature one can find beauty in all things. The bird suddenly flew away leaving the sound of fluttering branches behind as it ascended, back into the heavens and within that precise moment, I realized one cannot change the way of their nature, just like the Red Robin cannot change the brilliant red color of their bodies or the song they are born to sing.

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Imagine, if our true Peacemakers were allowed free reign and the peace-breakers of the world were stripped of power.

May Peace Challenge: Art Thou Peaceful

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading!

Kozo’s Link

“I believe that art has the ability to transform the soul. If art can change a soul, then it can change the world.  What piece of art makes you a more peaceful person?   Post anything about the intersection of art and peace”  Kozo Hattori

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 We can all start with a blank canvas and endorse peaceful messages.  What would your blank canvas express?

Virtue Of attitude

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow.

The wind cannot overturn a mountain.

Like temptation cannot touch those who are awake, strong and humble.

Fill yourself with desire.

See the false as false

The truth as true

Look into your heart. And follow your nature.

Know these truths

and you will find

peace.

Buddha Philosopher

563-479 B.C.E.

Understanding

Dedicated to: Claudia

April Peace Challenge: Giveaway!

Please clicky click on the below link to join this fabulous peace spreading!

Kozo’s Link

“…this month’s peace challenge will focus on children.  Post anything about the intersection of children and peace.”  Kozo Hattori

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Serenity

This peace challenge has brought back tender memories and a new found understanding of why I am, who I am.

When I was a child in the 1970’s, my Mom created various pieces of art. The craft was called tri-chem paints and she would (color in) pictures and/or words on fabric and frame these little pictures then, hang them up in my bedroom or around the house. These creations were beautiful to my young imagination.

Here is one of the few I still have.

There was a particular picture/poem, displayed in the house for years but, has been lost to us for almost 20 + years.  I googled some of the words my Mom and I could remember and found the poem tonight!  Along with finding this treasure, I also discovered the words that helped me discern the concepts of life, as a young child.

P.S. Thank you Kozo, for another awesome peace challenge which, for me, equates to understanding my peace.

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

Dorothy Law Nolte

If a child lives with criticism,
he learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility,
he learns to fight.

If a child lives with fear,
he learns to be apprehensive.

If a child lives with pity,
he learns to feel sorry for himself.

If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.

If a child lives with jealousy,
he learns what envy is.

If a child lives with shame,
he learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns to be confident.

If a child lives with tolerance,
he learns to be patient.

If a child lives with praise,
he learns to be appreciative.

If a child lives with acceptance,
he learns to love.

If a child lives with approval,
he learns to like himself.

If a child lives with recognition,
he learns that it is good to have a goal.

If a child lives with sharing,
he learns about generosity.

If a child lives with honesty and fairness,
he learns what truth and justice are.

If a child lives with security,
he learns to have faith in himself and in those about him.

If a child lives with friendliness,
he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live.

If you live with serenity,
your child will live with peace of mind.

♥