One Hundred Reasons to Blog4Peace

November 4th is Blog4Peace Day.  I may not have a hundred reasons but here are my thirty reasons to blog for peace.

My dad was one of the most peaceful people I have ever known.

1. We have a responsibility to our children.  The United Nations listed the rights that all children should have.  None of these can be upheld if our children don't live in peace.
2. Our world is greater than just the human race.  When there is no peace we destroy our environment and the environment that supports all other life - plant and animal.
3. The more people who are talking about peace, the more power the words have.
4. When I blog about peace, it reminds me to struggle for peace in every aspect of my life from the smallest interaction to the loudest protest.
5. The simplest idea can become the tidal wave of change tomorrow.
6. I don't want to live in a world in which situations like Darfur are ignored and unknown by most people.
7. I believe that every drop of positive energy that I release into the world dilutes the evil.
8. I believe that all of the money that is spent on war and on the war on drugs could be spent on feeding our hungry, healing our sick, and educating our young.
9. The waves of every gunshot, every bomb explosion, and every war related death washes over us all.  We need to keep ourselves clean of this evil.
10. Just because we have war today, doesn't mean we need to have war tomorrow.  I really believe that the world is becoming a more just place.
11. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix
12. I have learned that I don't want hate or anger in my life, and my life includes all that is in this world.
13. I want to live in a world that someone's colour, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, passport, or any other characteristic that currently separates people no longer means anything and that we can live without labelling one another.
14. I am proud of both my father and my uncle.  They were both in the army in WWII.  My father never got any farther than England.  He spent his time during the war ironing other soldiers' uniforms for a dollar so that on his days on leave he could travel around England and sit in the peaceful English countryside (the parts that were not being bombed) and sketch.  I have on the wall in my dining room, framed pencil sketches of Salisbury Cathedral, Dover, and Abertillary Wales.  My uncle, my father's oldest brother, did get beyond the English shore.  He was with the Allied Forces that landed in Sicily.  My uncle Rex was, however, a medic.  He spent the war keeping people alive.  He was awarded the Military Medal because he kept two severely wounded men alive for three days in a foxhole in spite of the shells that were raining down around them.  I am very proud that neither my father nor my uncle Rex were responsible for adding to the pain and suffering, that in fact my uncle relieved suffering and my father created beautiful things.    
15. I think that by standing up for others' rights I am standing up for my own as well.
16. "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Mother Teresa
17. If I blog or speak out for peace it helps me confront my own fears.
18. John Lennon touched my heart.
19. Writing this reminds me that there are so many things that I can email my MLA or MP about.
20. Whatever we believe about the creator of the universe - God, Higher Power, Big Bang, Mohammed, the Goddess, or whatever else we believe in - He, She, It, deserves our best efforts to protect it.
21. "Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." Buddha
22. Not to be trite, but I really believe that the pen is more powerful than the sword, and that the Internet and social media are even more powerful than the pen.  (think Arab Spring).
23. I think if enough people declare world peace then just maybe it might just happen.
24. To celebrate - not just tolerate - every person in this world.
25. I think that all those who love should have the right to marry and that the shape of their genitalia or their chromosomes should have nothing to do with anything.
26. One day, Nick and Miyuki and I were sitting on the beach at Marina di Ravenna and we were approached by a man selling sunglasses, hats and watches.  I apologized and said we hadn't brought any money to the beach.  Instead of just moving off to the next potential customer, he stopped and sang a Bob Marley song to us.  This was his way to spread peace across the beach even though he wasn't making much money that day.
27. For Nick and Miyuki.
28. Because Neil taught me that it is better to live in peace than it is to insist on being right.
29. "Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding."  Albert Einstein
30. Laughter can lead us to peace.  Which leads me to my final quote - from the late great George Carlin who taught me the seven dirty words you cannot say on television which my friends and I whispered to each other back and forth in French class (my apologies to Mme Petrovich) - "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."  Let's keep it peaceful.

Peace for my darling girl...

...and my sweet husband.