ideas

In a continual effort to wage peace i would first like to thank all of you  for reading here and ask you to visit change.org and vote to establish a US Department of Peace.  If we took just 2% of the money that goes to wage our wars we could start germinating more peaceful solutions for our quest to spread freedom and democracy.  If the button doesn't say voted after you clicked keep trying until it does.  You will have to sign in.  Go now and then come back and finish reading this piece. http://www.change.org/ideas/view/establish_a_us_department_of_peace

Karen Armstrong started early adulthood in a Catholic nunnery at the age of eighteen.  She remained there until quitting while in graduate school seven years later.  One of her many books details the difficulties she encountered in trying to establish herself outside the nunnery, another with her failure to fit in while inside the nunnery and the rest deal with her unending passion for creating a venue for human understanding

Although she started out devoting herself to God today we find her devoting herself to helping others understand the commonalities of all religions.  She tries to help us understand that all religions give us tools to use to cope with day to day life.

Her most recent work called the "Case for God" is just one of many that "cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is "to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations." She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from "dedicated intellectual endeavor" and a "compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood."

In 2008 Ms. Armstrong was invited by TED to give an eighteen minute talk that would then later be voted on.  If you have never been to their site it is a wonderland of highly informed speakers on any topic imaginable  http://www.ted.com/ TED invites speakers from around the world to discourse on their passions for change. She, along with two others, won that year, was awarded $100,000 and asked what she wanted to see happen.  Her goal, she stated, was to establish a "Charter for Compassion". 

In November of 2009 the Charter for Compassion was launched.  i've reproduced the Charter here and if so moved after reading it please go to the web site and sign your name. http://charterforcompassion.org/ i read somewhere that it only takes 10,000 people to get the ball rolling and implement new ideas.  The site has over 40,000 signatures from people you will recognize and those you won't.

Charter for Compassion
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Please go to the web site and sign your name.
http://charterforcompassion.org/