# What Prospects For Peace?

## by Jean Toomer

Peace on earth? The sun will rise this Christmas on the nations still at war. The sun will look down, or the snow will fall on how many ruined towns, homeless people, scarred land, and things unspeakable.

Good will toward men? Considering the odds against it, there will be, as there always is, a surprising amount of good will; but not enough to become an irresistible force calling all men to brotherhood. Perhaps if we listen intently we shall hear the unsung carol.

Many of us, these holidays, will wish we could forget for a while the angry roaring of the outside world and remember only the inside of our homes, the quiet conifer with a symbolic star at the top, and family and friends gathered around. But we will not forget. Our little islands are in the world-island, and the waves pound on each domestic shore. By the very charge in the atmosphere, if not by definite proofs, we will be reminded of our involvement in the troubled destiny of mankind, in the crucial issues of our time. And we will know, as a friend of mine recently remarked, that these issues will not be resolved by the odor of pine and tinkling bells.

Christmas 1943 virtually demands that we renew our

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search for clarity and understanding. What do we mean by
peace? What do people mean when they say they want peace,
and do they mean it? What are the prospects that peace
of any kind will be attained in the not too distant future
by the peoples of this earth?

If I say I am peaceful, I will be understood. A
peaceful state or feeling is a matter of common experience.
But if I say I want peace, you may assume that you know
what I mean; but do you? Indeed there is reason for asking
if I myself know.

I have heard parents say to children who were making
noise and running in and out, "There must be peace in this
house." What did they mean? An absence of racket and com-
motion? I have heard people declare to no one in particular,
"There must be peace in the world." What do they mean? An
absence of large scale armed warfare?

Is peace merely an absence of war? Negative defi-
nitions do not satisfy us. With varying degrees of clarity
we envision a positive condition. What positive condition?
Can people agree as to what this positive condition is?

Do we mean the peace that passeth understanding?
Hardly. I do not envision that exalted state as the goal
I work for day by day. I know of not a single person who
is striving for that peace. The majority of people, we may
be sure, have in mind something far less, a relatively mun-
dane and external condition. Can you conceive of our Con-
gress earnestly aiming for and working out the ways and

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means of attaining the peace that passeth understanding?
This may seem a ridiculous question; but I submit that it
is a graphic indication of how remote our people are, in
this year nineteen hundred and forty-three years after
our Lord, from even considering the only kind of peace
that Christ mentioned as the goal of man.

By peace do we mean real *being* - a superb condition
of inner balance complemented by the ability to function
at maximum capacity? The ancient Greeks, so we are told,
aimed to produce a superior type of man. This was, as we
may say, their national policy; and legislators, no less
than poets and philosophers, were regarded as educators,
as men who by their very office had a most important and
creative part to play in the moulding of a higher human type.
Perhaps the Greeks then, as a people, wanted and
worked for the kind of peace which is interwoven into
creative activity. But no one will even claim that the
American people have any such national policy and aim.
Rather our national policy is bent on the greater production of material goods, and we vaguely expect the development of people as human beings to come about as a by-product of materialistic progress.

Very few western people respond positively to the
eastern salutation, "Peace be with you". We do not warm
to it; it leaves us cold. We neither mean nor want that
kind of peace. But we do respond to greetings such as -
Good Luck, Good Business, Happy Landing - all of which

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have to do with the progress and fruits of a life of
wordly action.

Do we want the kind of peace that exists when
people are deeply quietly in love with one another? Is
this our aim, to attain this tender fullness of experience,
this sense of completeness, this feeling of harmony to-
gether? I am sure that the human beings of the entire
earth would want this kind of peace if they more often
remembered that it is possible, if they experienced it
often enough to renew their knowledge of how wonderful
and desirable it is. But we cannot truthfully say that
people in fact are aiming for it. It would be quite un-
realistic to maintain that the world's individuals, races,
colors, classes, creeds are actively trying to fall in
love with one another.

Do we mean and want the kind of peace that would
surely result were all men to feel good will toward all
men? No. People are pleased to feel ill will for whom-
ever. Each one considers it his inalienable right to
have good will for a few, ill will - or no will - for
the rest. Nor will this fact change merely because air-
planes and radios make the peoples of the world neighbors
in a physical sense. Whence comes the assumption that
merely because people are neighbors they like each other
and live in harmony? As things are now, as often as not
it is just the people next door with whom we are likely

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to quarrel.

I think that an accurate indication of what most people mean by peace is given by the attitude of men in the armed services. Those with whom I have talked have without exception expressed themselves as follows. "There's a job to be done. I am going to do my part. But I'll be mighty glad to get back home." To these men peace means the end of the war and the chance to resume their peace-time activities. They want this war and all war to end. They want to exist in a somewhat orderly and functioning society thanks to which they and others will have worthwhile and satisfying work to do. Peace means to them the chance to live their own lives as they want to live them. To this proposition I think that most Americans and most of the people of the world will agree. They equate peace with "peace-time America", "peace-time Europe", etc. The Emphasis is not placed so much on peace as such, as on the activities that peace-time will allow. War forces them into unwanted activity. Peace would release them from that and make XEXXXIXEX it more possible for them to do what they want to do. In other words, most people regard peace as a means to something else, and this "something else" is the important thing.

Having put our finger on the kind of peace that most people want, the question now is - what are the prospects that this kind of peace will be attained in the not too distant future?

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The present war of course will end. At any rate it will disappear from the surface, probably to go "underground", as the last war did. But we realize now, as we did not realize in 1918, that to end a war is not to end all war. No one today is so naive as to believe that the termination of this war will necessarily bring with it a termination of all warfare. Already we are being warned that still another and more horrible catastrophe is in the making and will burst upon us within the next decade unless wise and resolute measures are taken to remove its causes.

Also we realize today, far more than after the last war, that it is one thing to end a war, but quite another to establish a social order that will really function for all of its members. These several realizations have given rise to thoughts and plannings and actions of like kind. Individuals and organizations are at work as never before to make sure that we do not fail as we did last time, to make sure that we now build the structures of what is generally called a just and durable peace. These are among the hopeful signs of the present situation. Will these signs become large and compelling forces? Will these efforts succeed? The task is herculean.

War, as everyone knows, has had a formidable continuity throughout what we know of man's history. As a ravaging process, it has survived the peoples, the insti-

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tutions, the cultures which it destroyed. This makes it
clear that the causes of war are not in this or that eco-
nomic system, or in this or that national psychology. The
causes of war are deeply embedded in man himself, from
whence they are projected and become incorporated in what-
ever social institutions. To prevent war, we must pri-
marily apply ourselves to these deep causes as they exist
in me, in you, in all the other living individual human
beings. War, which has for so long defeated man, is not
to be easily defeated. These are grim and sobering facts.
They should not, I think, weaken our conviction that war
can be eliminated, rather they should all the more arouse
us to our task; but they should check any over optimistic
belief that there is a relatively quick and easy remedy.

What is called for, as I see it, is neither pessimism nor optimism but an enlightened realism which takes into account both the fact that war is a deep-seated disease of very long standing, and the fact that it is inherently possible for human beings to overcome it. In this way we will not underrate the power of the enemy, nor underrate our own powers.

Is the real root-cause of war known? I doubt it.
I think that it is still to be uncovered. But we do know
many of the contributing causes, among which the following
may be listed: internal conflicts in people; greed; deprivation and frustration; the drive to retaliate and get revenge; emotism and vainglory; economic and financial

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set ups that pit men against one another and divide man-
kind into the few who have and the many who have not; our
rather strange ideas of "honor" and "insult"; false beliefs
and prejudices connected with race, color, nation, class,
creed.

Some of these causes, as we can see, are what may
be called social causes: they are in our institutions, in
the way we manage and mismanage our affairs, in our segre-
gations and exclusions, etc. The task of removing these
social causes is obviously enormous and often heartbreaking.
At the present time, relatively few people are mobilized
for this work. The majority do not yet see that there is
this work to do. They assume that the world can continue
in the future much as it has in the past, yet not run into
another war simply because "the people want peace".

They confidently gaze into their "peace-loving hearts"
and say - All will be well. Millions of people can continue
their ruthless contest for possession of the earth's things;
millions of people can remain deprived of the necessities
of life; millions of people can continue to be denied full
participation in the work and benefits of civilization;
but all will be well with the world because, don't you see,
we want peace.

A world-federation of nations would by no means re-
move all the social causes of war, much less uproot the
primary causes in me and in you and in other individuals.

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But such a federation, were it really to function, would remove some of the social causes and check certain others. Such a federation is absolutely necessary if there is to be even a superficial peace. Yet the opposition to this one project is so powerful that such a federation is still a long way from being an accomplished fact, and there is reason to wonder if it will come to pass in our lifetime.

Suppose, however, that a real League of Nations were to come into being, what could we realistically expect of it? Just what I have said: it would provide the external framework for a temporary "peace-time" world. It would delay another war, but by no means prevent all war. It would not and could not take out of me and you and other living individuals the primary causes of war. This fundamental uprooting is for me and for you to do, by work upon ourselves, each one upon himself. No one else, no group, no nation, no federation of nations can do this work for us. We must do it, or it won't be done. And if it isn't done there will be more war, no matter what the external guards and regulations.

I must work to overcome, in myself, my own false beliefs and prejudices. I must work to overcome my own egotism and vainglory. I must work to overcome whatever in me makes me a willing or unwitting contributor to the ungodly ways of living that pit men against each other, resulting in deprivation, gluttony, frustration, and the

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drive to retaliate. In a word I must clean my own house.
I must do this essential "home work". So must you. So
must everyone. Otherwise our talk of peace is out talk.
War-prevention begins at home.

Here _in me_ are the prime causes of war. Only secondarily, as outgrowths from concrete living human beings, are they out there in systems, institutions, and the like. Here they are in these very definite bodies, minds, in these devils' dens that hide under the human exterior. Here they are in these unruly, aggressive, covetous little selves that Christ advised us to overcome and transcend; in these conflicted and strife-ridden little lives that Christ advised us to lose.

Now who is going to expose and exorcise from him his
devil's den, if not the man himself? Who can possibly get
rid of these little selves and little lives except just
those to whom the little things unfortunately belong? Obviously neither a League of Nations nor a new and more just economic order can take out of us the roots of the trouble that are deep in us; but we can if we will, if we work hard and use the proper means. Some men _have_ done it. Therefore others can.

But this too is a herculean task. We can do it; but
will we? This, to my way of thinking, is the question upon
which the future peace of the world depends. If our home
work is undertaken and pursued there will not be another
war. Indeed we will decisively end all war and insure the

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creation of a society that really functions for all of its members. More, we shall find our own souls and proceed with that rather sidetracked and delayed search for truth, reality, God.

If our home work is not done there will continue to be war after war. Our dream of a truly peace-time world will remain what it is at present, namely a dream, a wish, a hope that will go down in the next reign of destruction, and revive again, and go down again.

Are men willing to work for their own catharis, their own cleansing and purification? Are we willing not ever again to indulge these antagonisms? Are people ready to work to overcome these little selves, instead of abetting them? Are we ready to lose those little lives for the sake of a greater life? Some are. Some human beings have been doing just this work for many years. And these have become, in varying degrees, peaceable people - that is, able to be at peace with themselves and with the world. This is what we need. Peaceable men, peaceable women, peaceable human beings. Then and then only will we have anything that merits being called peace in the world.

As for the majority of people, the outlook is not promising. Christ gave his teachings to the world nineteen centuries ago. Today, most of those who presumably follow him and most of those who do not are as active as ever in trying to advance their little selves. They are stirring up and strengthening their antagonisms. They seem

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not to have even the faintest idea that they do in fact
have home work to do, and that unless they do it they
themselves and every one is in jeopardy.

Now let us see what it all adds up to. Because most
people fail to recognize, much less fully realize, the work
that must be done in the world and upon themselves if the
causes of war are to be eliminated and a serviceable society
come into being, it does not seem likely that either of these
results will be obtained. The prospects for the kind of peace
they want are doubtful to say the least. This is my reluc-
tant conclusion as regards the situation today, Christmas 1943.

Things may change. In the course of this coming year
or the next or the year after something may happen so that
large numbers of the human beings of this earth will really
awaken and take active part in the two works. I believe in
miracles, that is, in the unexpected operation of the un-
predictable spiritual powers of man. The very horrors and
difficulties of the war and the post-war period may be the
outward stimulants of a most miraculous transformation
throughout mankind. There may be a veritable resurrection
and new birth. I devoutly hope so.

I do not think anyone can be expected to actively
undertake the double work I have mentioned simply for the
sake of ending war and living in a peace-time society. I
do not think such an aim and motivation are enough to re-
lease a power commensurate with the task. One may think

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that the aim of ending large scale armed conflicts ought
to arouse every bit of force men have. Perhaps it ought,
but it doesn't. It has not done so heretofore. So far as
I can see, it is not doing so now, nor will it afterwards.
A greater aim is needed, a deeper motivation. War-prevention
and the establishment of a serviceable society must, I think,
be related not merely to the wish to live as one wants to
live, but to the profound religious urges that are natural
to every one.

Our minds and our hearts must see and realize that
war and social anarchy defeat not only personal living but
religious living. Those conditions frustrate not only what
our little selves want but what our inner beings desire.
They compel us to sacrifice the higher for the lower, and
then disrupt even the lower. Therefore we should overcome
them.

The prevention of war is thus seen not as an end,
but as a means to an essentially religious life. The es-
tablishment of a workable society is likewise not an end
but a means to an essentially religious life. Our home work
is not only a necessary way of stopping war but the only way
to Man and God. All of our works will then be understood
and felt as part and parcel of the one great work common
to all. There will be, in consequence, a release and uni-
fication of human effort directed toward one goal, which is God.

A world-state is needed; yes, but what really is called
for is a world-religious-state. Such a state will inevi-
tably come to pass if we do our basic work; if and as the

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inner and outer efforts of men combine to produce an ever
increasing partnership in the life of mankind moving for-
ward in a noble destiny.

Mankind is in truth One Kind. God indwells in all
alike. Either we live up to the reality, or we sink and
destroy each other, as we are doing now, in the denial and
perversion of it.

It is important to remember that Christ said, I have
come not to bring peace but a sword. He did not promise
peace, except to those who had attained conscious union
with God. He did not say go out and make a peaceful world,
as if that were the goal of life. He said God is the Goal.
He directed us to use the sword. This sword, as I under-
stand it, was the instrument - the specific ways and means -
with which we can cut out of ourselves and out of our world
the faulty and diseased parts. We are to use the sword to
clear the way, so that we can find Man in men, and God in Man.
We are to do this work, even as he did his Father's - not
some other that our little minds may think up. We are to
overcome that which overcomes us, and surrender to that which
creates us anew and anew. Not ideas of peace, not dreams of
personal pleasure or success, but this regenerative labor
should be at the very center of our lives.

Is it peaceful work? Will it lead to peace? What
matter? It is creative work. It will lead to God. These
are the important truths. My well-considered judgment is

The people of the world want peace. There is no
doubt of this. Then why do they not have it? How can get
it? Before examining these questions, I think we ought
to ask and answer several others.

What do people mean by peace? What kind of peace
do they want? Obviously not the peace that passeth
understanding. They have never experienced this kind of
peace; most of them do not believe it is possible.
Not Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men. Each one considers
it his inalienable right to have good will for a few
People do want to feel good will toward all men. They
are please to feel ill will for whom they please. Each
one considers it his inalienable right to have good
will for a few, ill will - or no will - for the rest.
what

I think that people mean by peace is this: the
absence of large scale armed conflict, the present of
a somewhat orderly and functioning society in which
they feel assured that, within limits, they can live
as they want to live. This is the kind of peace they
want; and they want it, not as an end but as a means.
A peaceful condition, as they understand it, is necessary
condition thanks to which it is possible for them
to do what they want to do. Their real emphasis is
not on peace as such, but on activity - free activity,
satisfying activity.

Very few western people positively respond to the
Eastern salutation - Peace be with you. This saying
does not warm us; it leaves us cold. We do not want
that kind of peace. But we do respond to salutations

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such as - Good Luck, Good Business, Happy Landing - all
of which have to do with the progress and fruits of
an active life. of a life of action.

It is true of course that if you ask a man who
has recently come from war, or people who have been
surging
thrown about by the passage of armies, Do you want
peace? - the fervent answer will come, Yes! To that
man, to those people, at that time, peace will appear
a
to be deeply and indeed desperately desired end; they
will desire nothing beyond it. But let peace come,
as it did in a measure after the first World War;
place that soldier, those war-torn people in
a somewhat orderly and functioning society, as they
were placed after the last war; and at once they will
want something else. And, to my way of thinking, if
they do not get this all-important "something else",
they will soon grow tired of "peace"; they will soon
become restive and, in this sense, all too ready to
fight each other and again participate in war.

The people of our world want peace, but as a means
to something else. It is of the utmost importance
that we understand and remeber this. Unless we do,
we shall have neither peace nor that something else; we
will have war and war again - and none of the bulwarks
erected against war will do any lasting good. The
bulwarks will be broken down and swept aside by the
outbreak of inward
frustrations and conflicts.

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What is the something else that people want? It is
possible of course to idealize "the people" and attribute to
them all sorts of noble desires and abstract aims
which they do not really have. But it is also possible
to underestimate their desires; and I think that our
civilization has been more at fault in the matter of
underrating than of overrating.

It is not enough that society be somewhat orderly
and functioning. Society must have **meaning**. The general
life of our world must have a meaning above and beyond that
of the mere business of living. Just what this meaning
may be, I shall come to presently. For the moment I
want to point out that people will revolt against
an orderly but mechanized life no less than against
war, anarchy, chaos. This fact tends to be neglected
by all too many of those who are planning for the
peace that they hope will follow this war. For example:

In every department of production - on farms, in
factories, etc. - the steady trend has been towards
an ever increasing mechanization. The human hand does
less and less; machines do more and more. And there is
a proportionate loss of meaning in working, of satisfaction
from working. Individual craftsmen are disappearing.
Family farms are being displaced by factory farms. If
this process goes on apace, our society will cease to
a civilization and will become a huge industry. Every
city, every town, yes even every rural community will

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have to be already a saint even to believe, much less
to practice, that food will be added to him if he
first seeks the kingdom of God. That man will put food
first. Food will be his one and only goal as of that
time. He will fight for it, perhaps to die for it or
be imprisoned.

When prejudices of race, color, nationality,
class, creed, persistently call a man's attention to
himself, how can he work to transcend self? It must
seem to him, on the contrary, that the only thing
to do is to put himself first, assert himself, fight
for himself and his rights. The idea that he can gain
what he wants as a human being by seeking Man in men
and God in Man must seem to him far-fetched, utterly
impractical and deceptive.

These two examples, two of the many that could be
given, will serve to illustrate the innumberable
obstacles and diversions put upon man by his own
world that, combining with the difficulties and
distractions he finds within himself, practically
negate even the belief, much less the practice, of
putting Man and God first.

The condition, in biref, is this: that, because
of outward as well as inward difficulties, most people
are practically *unable* to seek the kingdom of God.
This means that they are *unable* to attain peace, or
any of the other good things in any lasting way. It

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is clear, then, that our very first aim must to
**enable** ourselves and each other. How are we to do this?
In two ways.

We must reduce the number and the force of the
outward obstacles and at the same time increase the
number and the force of **them** outward aids. We can and
need to help each other to do this. Also, we must
reduce the number and the force of inward difficulties
and increase the number and the force of inward
aids. This is chiefly a matter of each individual
**in**
working on himself, but this aim too we can help each
other to some extent.

Now let us see some of the definite ways in
which we can and should reduce the obstructions and
and increase the aids of **us** our outer circumstances. I
would place in this category all of the various
plans and efforts to **bring** about a better world. A
world-federation of nations, the feeding of the world's
peoples, a sound and functioning world-economy, efforts
to prevent another war, work to overcome prejudices
and to meet on the common ground of our common humanity -
all these and many another are in the service of
improving the outward condition of people.

best

At this point we had better ask a question. Are not the
just mentioned
endeavors precisely what I have warned against? Are
they not seeking for **worldly** conditions instead of
the kingdom of God? In striving for them are we not

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putting food first, racial justice first, a leauge of
Man and
Nations first? - and quite forgetting the search for
God? This, I think, is a question that each one who
participates in those works must answer for himself.
How can any one else answer? But I can say this.

In general, people are prone to regard such works
and ends, to put them first. In my opinion, if they
yield to this inclination, then, no matter how sincere
their intentions, their works will fail. On the other
hand, it is quite possible to regard and use those
works _as means_ - as means of enabling people to put
the works
God first and seek Him. It all depends upon _their_
being used as means. Only then will they succeed.

Again and again we must remind ourselves: Full
bellies are not ends, but means to something else.

It is because we have believed that full bellies are
ends that there are so many empty bellies. Nor will
the situation be changed simply _because_ the people
who regard food as an end are generous rather than
greedy, religious rather than predatory. A nun who
regards food as an end will get exactly the same
results as a gourmet.

Physical vigor, money in the bank, social security,
the absence of war, the abolition of _sex_ castes
and all artificial barriers, world-federation - all
these and all the other outward conditions are
means of aiding men to become able to seek ye first

will
the kingdom. Only in this way these outer conditions
ever come prevail and really function. If we aim
for them as ends, we shall miss them. If we seek our
lives we shall lose them. Shall? Are we losing them,
spiritually and physically, by the millions. The
western world of Christians, having consistently
ignored their teacher's words for centuries, having for
this length of time sought their little lives and
their little selves as ends, are now literally
losing them by the millions not only on the battlefields
but everywhere.

Again and again we need remind ourselves: We must
seek the self beyond this little self, the life
above this narrow life, the light above this darkness,
the love above these hates. There is no other way out.
We must seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
not so that these other things will be added unto us,
but for purely for the sake of God - whereon these
other things will be added unto us. The attainment
of other things will come to us as a by-product, so
so to speak, of the great search, the one essential
work.

As those who have tried to do it know only too
well, it is no easy task to remove even a few of
the outward obstacles and to increase even a few of
the outward aids. Take the problem of providing food
for everyone. What a tangled and, in some respects,
insane problem this is. I know something of it

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from the production end - the point of view of the
farmer. Ever since there have been farmers, and our
own enlightened age particularly, the man-made impediments
that suuround the producers of foods are simply
incredible. The wonder is that there is any food
produced at all. Those who are farmers, but who hope
for a peaceful world and enough to eat, had best know
at once that unless "something is done" to free
the farmer from some of his bonds, he won't be at all
peaceful in the world to come, and he may not produce.
From the very soil a restlessness will come, and
perhaps revolt, to upset the plans for "a just and
durable peace".

The farmer looks at his cows. They are peaceful
enough. For himself? I dare say not **farmer** one farmer
in this country experiences peace in himself, except
at very odd moments. As for being able to seek God,
their time and energies are so completely used in
the hardships and work inherent in their occupation,
and any surplus they may have is so completely
drained off in struggles with the never ending problems
foisted upon them by a complicated, cumbersome, and
creaking economic system, that the only chance they
have of even thinking briefly of God is while milking,
or sometimes out in the fields, or sometimes, if they
are not too tired and sleepy, just before they go to
bed, sleep. If this is true of American farmers, what

of European and Asiatic farmers? What of the men over
whose lands and families the war has torn?

As things stand today, the prospects of Peace On
Earth Good Will Toward Men are not bright from the
farmer's point of view. And relative to some, the
farmers are well-off.

I have seen something of the food situation also
from the point of view of those prospective consumers
who are denied and deprived, having at most a little
bread, a little rice, or garbage. There can be no
peace of any kind as long as millions are starving.
These millions are spiritually starving too. Meaning
has gone out of their lives. Frustration and defeat
have entered. They have no purpose for living, but cling
on, animal-like, putting no value on their lives,
or on anyone else's life. Some of them may have become
numbed and, in this snese, have ceased to suffer; but
not one of them has ceased to feel bitterness. In one
and all there is a relatiative anger, a gnawing desire
for blind revenge. Governments and *thekir* police may
succeed for time in keeping these angry men in check,
by suppression, threats and punishments which in the
long run but embitter the wretched people all the more.
Physical starvation and inward frustration are as
deadly as bombs: violent explosions are in them. As
long as the many are in need the few will have, at
best, but a precarious peace.

What Prospects Do You See?

Christ did not intend that Christmas comes but once a year. The qualities which Christmas symbolizes were to be with us the year around and every day. He promised peace. We promise peace to ourselves. Men have had a long time. But too many of his professed followers have leagued with his avowed enemies. Too few are pure and single in his work, which is our own. We hear, but do not believe and practice - Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. How many of those who desire peace profoundly understand that peace itself is one of the things that will be added unto us only if and as we seek and find the kingdom, which is within?

What the so called Christian world believes and practices is this - seek ye first all these other things; and the kingdom of God will be added unto you after you have made your second million. Wayward children that we are, even those who are most dedicated to the only way have to struggle continually against the disposition to put other things first. Not for any of us is it easy to gainsay the persuasive voice which insists - I know how or can come to know how to get the things I want; and after I get them I will seek God's realm.

You can't do anything without money. You can't eat. You can't keep a family, You can't pray. God makes neither money nor motor-cars. Obviously we ourselves

2

must make them; and this takes the better part of a man's life. We have to pay bills, even the bills of Santa Claus. Everybody knows you've got to watch your step when money is at stake. As for things - we'll get them, just watch us. Haven't we applied science, and great industries? Won't we have cartels? Can't a vigorous people get with their own brain and brawn - and a modest dash of egotism - whatever they want, delivered to their front door? A few changes may be needed. A new economic system perhaps, or something like that. A bit better and wider education. Then everything will be OK. And when everything is OK we'll then take up that little matter of the search for truth and reality. Then we'll see about making Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Meanwhile, ours is the power, if not always the glory.

Nor or our commitments to our own immature counsels deeply shaken by the repeated failures of mankind as a whole to get these things in any just and lasting measure. Men labor for abundance. They get scarcity. They strive to cooperate. Rivalries, prejudices, hatreds go on apace. They want peace. They get war. These facts of experience, brutal as they often are, are not enough to shake us from our private and collective ways and persuade us that we really ought to try, now and at once, the way of him whom we call our teacher.

3

on the nations still at war. Where the sun does not come
out the snow will fall, in how many places, on ruined
towns, homeless people, scarred land, and things
unspeakable.

Good will toward men? Considering the odds against
it, there will be, as there always is, a surprising
amount of good will; but not enough to become an
irresistible force in the world calling all men to
brotherhood. Even so, perhaps if we listen intently
we shall hear the unsung carol.

Someone has said that the capacity to forget is our
greatest blessing. Perhaps so; or perhaps it is our
greatest curse. Many of us, these holidays, will wish
we could forget for a while the angry roaring of the
outside world and remember only the inside of our homes,
the holly, the candles, the quiet conifer with a
symbolic star at the top, and family and friends
gathered around. But we will not forget. The outside
world is in our houses. Our little islands are in the
world-island, and the waves pound on each domestic
shore. By the very charge in the atmosphere, if not
by definite proofs, we will be reminded of our involve-
ment in the troubled destiny of mankind, in the
crucial issues of our time. And we will know, as a
friend of mine recently remarked, these issues will
not be resolved, our part will not be clear to us, by
the odor of pine and tingling bells. No, Christmas

decorations won't do any more.

Christmas 1943 points at hand at us, commanding that we renew our search for God and, as a means to this end, that we make greater and more sincere effort for clarity and understanding. This article is my attempt at such renewal. The essential matter is to become more thoroughly convinced that the only way is the only way. Of less importance, but of considerable importance, is the task of seeing more clearly what the issues and the prospects are. I want to find out just what I do think about certain aspects of the human situation. I want to ask, and see what answers come to the question: How can the promise of peace, and some other promises too, be fulfilled?

My opening paragraph contains what I am sure is the general answer. Peace and all other good things will come to us just in proportion as we seek Man in men and God in Man. Peace will be ours when and as we transcend self and realize our union with Him. This truth applies to monks in monasteries, civilians in bombed cities, soldiers, millionaires and paupers, people of every color and condition. There is no one to whom it does not apply.

Yes; but apply it - this is the difficulty. This is just the difficulty. The internal psychological obstacles that best this kind of effort are considerable, though surmountable. But add to the internal

5

obstacles the external obstructions and diversions imposed upon people by the human world as it is today, and has been for many a year, and, even granting that people wanted to do it - which is granting quite a bit - how could they?

Monks may be inwardly and outwardly able to do it, if they will. But men in war, civilians in fear of bombs, the hungry and the destitute, the men of empire, those bent and twisted by prejudices? It may x even seem ridiculous to ask such a question, the answer is so obvious. But this is the point: our own realization that the conditions of what we fondly call "our" world render the vast majority of people <u>unable</u> to be essentially religious. They <u>can't</u> follow the only way. They can't make their way out of the horror they are in. And if they can't make their way out, they will necessarily stay in. And if they stay in, then they and the world will remain exactly as it is, unless to get worse. These are the facts and this is the prospect that we must face.

The world will change only as people change. The world will change only as the people who make that world change themselves. Therefore it seems to me that our fundamental task, and our only hope, is to <u>enable</u> people, to make it possible for them to apply to themselves the great and true teachings. By doing this we will not only enable others but ourselves,

6

and I confess that I for one need quite a bit of
enabling. I can write about it ever so much more readily
than I can do it. Indeed it is a fact that words,
written and spoken, take me away from doing it more
often than they lead me to it. Words about the practice
insidiously become, or tend to become, substitutes for
the practice itself. Yes, it is all possible for
words and ideas to pull one away from God as powerfully
as does an empty belly.

Let me restate the condition as I see it. Because
of outward as well as inward lures and obstacles, most
people are practically unable to put God first and
first seek Him, but are compelled to put other things
first, and themselves first, and to seek those things
and the enhancement of that self, not only first but
last. This means that they unable to get out, or in
any prodigious way to change. This means that they unable
to attain, or any of the other values and realities,
in any lasting way. Now you and I are in the same boat
with all the others. What are we going to do about it?

In a general way I seem to see what can be done and
how to do it. First of all I would say that the work
is primarily a work upon oneself. I must work upon myself,
you upon yourself. We have had enough blind leaders of
them the blind. We have had enough of those who would
show others how to do what they themselves are not doing.
This won't do any more. Those of us who may be a bit

7

more advanced in these matters than the mass of human beings must use our advantage still further to advance ourselves with the aim that we ourselves become increasingly pure and single in the life and search - in a word, increasingly able to do the work of Man and Christ and God. We simply must not neglect ourselves and attend only to others.

But neither must we attend only to ourselves and neglect others. A balance is called for. What we may call the inner arm of this balance is the work done upon oneself. What we may call the outer arm of this balance is the work done for others. I can see now that in this article I am going to think mainly about the work of the outer arm, because I am less clear about this work than the other.

I remind myself of the outstanding fact of the people: condition of most: as they are now conditioned, they are unable to work to transcend self and find Him.

I remind myself of the central truth: We must seek and make way toward the self above this self, the life above this narrow life, the light above this darkness, the peace above this strife and conflict. We will never find our real spirit in these little selves, nor our real life in this pit, nor light in this blindness, nor peace in this warfare. We have to overcome, that is, to come over, to rise, to lift, to transcend, or, as Freinds simply say, to open. There

is no other way out. We must seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, not so that these other things will be added unto us, but purely for the sake of God - whereon these other things will be added unto us. In other words, the other things, if they are to come at all, will come as by-products of the great search, of the one essential work.

Now I put together the fact and the truth. And when I do so I see clearly what the aim and work of the outer arm should be, and must be, if that work is to be basic and effective. We must aim to prevent war, for example, not primarily because we dislike war - some people like it, or say they do; but because we want to live in a peaceful world - some want to live in a world of strife; but because war renders its victims unable to put Man and God first. War puts itself first, and compels most people so to regard it. War sets itself up as the end, becomes in effect a false god, and makes most people so treat it and themselves in relate to it. Therefore war must be abolished.

This attitude towards war-prevention lifts the whole issue above the personal, above the private, above the economic and the political, and estates it as a major part of all who would genuinely serve Man and God. War-prevention thus becomes a religious aim and practice, a necessary means to God.

We will be looking to God. We will see war because

9

war

it stands in the way. We will work to remove it because it stands in the way. On these terms I think we shall have some success in preventing war, otherwise not.

To regard war-prevention as an end is as much beside the point as to regard war as an end. Moreover I am convinced that if we regard war-prevention as an end we will never attain it. Rather we will end in the next war if not in this.

To regard a peaceful world as the end is also beside if the real issue. And again I think that we hold worldly peace as an end we will never get it. Instead, there will be war again. Or, to express it realistically, this present war will never really end, but will merely go "underground" for a while, as The Last War Did.

This has been the main trouble with us all along, namely, that we continue to envision worldly ends. The so called evil people envision what to them are "good" worldly ends. The so called good people envision what to them are worldly ends. Both are alike in that they are aiming at things in the world, not at God, not at Man. Therefore the "good" and the "evil" are all too much alike. Both are evil, for the only evil there is, far as so far as men are concerned, is that which takes them away from God. The only way to be good in reality is to aim for The Good. To aim for The Good, and use all else as means to this One True End.

We cannot repeat to ourselves the evident truth

10

projects as
that if we seek our lives and our ends we shall lose
them. Shall lose them? Millions of people today are
losing them - losing life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, losing incomes, home, families, meaning,
purpose for living, losing everything physical and
spiritual - because the western world of professed
Christians has for centuries consistently ignored their
teacher's directions, has for this length of time
as consistently sought their little selves, their little
lives, their little projects, as ends. And we continue
in our own misdirection, we shall continue to get
kind
the same of results, no matter how we rationalize
or idealize our patently ungodly doings.

War is a horribly graphic example of the relentless
truth of Christ's teaching. Wars, invariably, are started
by men seeking their own ends, their self-aggrandizement
and vainglory. Whatever banners they may march under,
their own egos are in front - or, no, preferably behind.
Other men with the same mistaken aims join the war lords.
Still other men are roped in and committed to the same
disasterous pursuit. And armies go down in destruction.
It is no mere figure of speech to call war
evil and ungodly.

Yet I would not place war at the top of the list
of the conditions that disable men in true pursuit of
Man and God. I would place it, perhaps, third. At the

11

top is hunger, physical and spiritual deprivation, psychic frustration. I consider this condition worse than war because it plagues more people more constantly, and utterly incapacitates its victims in every respect. Some men, in war, have been driven to God. No one who is critically malnourished can possibly be even driven to Him. Second from the top I would place the many-sided condition arising from prejudices which fix on color, nationality, class, sex, creed. This condition is worse than war for the same reason that deprivation is: more people are more chronically involved. I may say, by the way, that I make these distinctions for analytical purposes. I believe them to be, in actuality, the several aspects of one and the same condition.

As war is to be prevented chiefly because it renders its victims unable to seek Man and God, so be deprivation and prejudice are to be done away with for the abolition of the same essential reason. This attitude toward deprivation and prejudice lifts these issues above the merely personal or humanitarian level and places them squarely at the door of everyone who knows what he is or should be living for. It relates these conditions to the power, the only power, that can resolve and overcome - and overcome them not for the sake of a better worldly world but for the sake of seeking God and having His kingdom come.

An attitude has emerged, an attitude that I consider

12

to be of the utmost importance. Let me see if I can
express it more concisely and at the same time more
completely. Certain conditions of the human world
divorce men from their souls and prevent them from seeking
God. **For this reason** these conditions must be removed.
Certain other conditions of the human world help link
men to their souls and are favorable to the search for
God. **For this reason** these conditions are to be maintained
and improved. The obstructing conditions are to eliminated
**at whatever cost**. The helpful conditions are to be
maintained and improved **at whatever cost**. Man himself
is at stake. Man is more important than men's fears.
Man is more important than men's money. Man is more
important than "face", or "prestige", or power, or
clan, or nation, or private or collective egotism. And
God is at stake because He has a stake in Man.

I deeply believe that this attitude, if clearly
and firmly held at all times and on all occasions, will
do wonders for us. Without attempting to describe the
wonders, simply let me list four things that I think
this attitude will accomplish. It will dynamically
relate diverse social needs to the basic religious
need common to all - and thus we shall become truly
centered and truly and effectively linked. It will
release the full force of our inner powers and ideals
upon work in the world without our ever losing sight
of what is really First and Last. It will prevent

13

natively religious people, of whom there are incalculable
numbers, from falling into these pitfalls: becoming
encrusted in a church; revolting against religion because
religion itself some of the labeled real religions either
dodge or are out of touch with living issues; regarding
the solution of social problems as an end. Finally,
this attitude will greatly increase our religious
integrity and render us uncompromising.

keep

The matter before me now is to keep this attitude
in mind and look more closely at the already mentioned
conditions: war, deprivation, and prejudice.

In the present war an unknown number of men are
being driven to God by the very horror, helplessness,
and desperation of the situation. These experiences
are not to be minimized. Something wonderful may come of them
not only for the individuals themselves but for the
future of the people in general. I dare say that more men
gained
have renewed belief in and search for God in the midst
of battle, during these past years, than in churches.
This probability makes one reconsider his conviction
that war is an unmitigated evil. It makes one question
if war may not be more conducive to spiritual awakening
than so called peace-time conditions. It put what usually
passes for "religion" in a harsh but true light.

It is to be pointed out, however, that to be driven
to God by danger and fear is not to seek Him voluntarily

14

throughout life and in the midst of all situations. No, to be driven is not to seek and to search. To be forced to move is not to move oneself. Our task is precisely to move oneself, from within oneself actively to make the many efforts which are briefly signified by the little words "seek", "search". Those driven to God by desperation all too readily lose Him and forget Him when "things get better". New men and new World cannot be built on any such wavering and unsteady foundations.

And yet - just how wavering are the inward movings that are coming to men because of the great stress and strains of the world today? I recently received a letter telling of one instance of something that may be happening everywhere. Hundreds of men and women in the armed services, "a steady stream of them" as the letter expressed it, "are reaching out for something more than their present experience has given them." Having learned of the work of a certain man who in his own life has drawn close to God, they seek this man in person and by mail and by telephone. These men and women may well be among those who will form the nucleus of the spiritual rebirth that some of us expect to come after this war is over. Let us note that these young people are reaching out, not at all because of what the formal creeds have given them, but because of what the formal creeds failed to give,

15

because of the impact on them of the forces at work
in the world at large and brought to bear upon them
by their respective places in the war-situation.

to

In addition to these people who in one way or
another are being quickened by their participation
in something for which we really have no adequate name,
there are instances of men such as Antoine de Saint-
Exupéry. Saint-Exupéry had an extraordinary awakening
to Group, Country, Man, and God while on active combat
duty. His description of this birth as recorded in
his *Flight To Arras* is, to my mind, a record of one
of the profound religious experiences of our time.

No, it won't do dismiss war as though it were
entirely negative and evil from a spiritual point of
view. Some good, yes, some greatness does somehow come
out of it for some men.

However,

Granting all that I have just said, I think there
is no doubt that by and large war is an evil scourge
of mankind. It drives far more men to the devil than
to God - as the records plainly show - and the men so
driven stay with the devil much longer than the men
driven to God stay with God. Indeed all too many men
never thereafter break away from the devil. At the
best, they are and remain broken men. At the worst,
they are the dragon's teeth that sooner or later
spring up.

War plunges far more men into brutality and

16

cruelty than it lifts to kind kindness and good will. It drives a million into darkness for every one that it presses into the light. It fastens men on their bodily fears, hungers, hates, preventing the mind from rising to anything else. It fixes the attention on the little self and compells a man to put himself first, to seek the survival of his self-life. What a premium war places on just the life that Christ said we should lose for the sake of Christ-life. What a penalty war places on the human and the godly. Not to mention the utterly dispuptive and destructive effects of war on everyone and everything in its path. No, there is no doubt that by and large war is foremost among the violent conditions that effectively prevent human beings from effectively seeking Man and God. This is the essential reason why war should have been stopped centuries ago and why we must not allow it to happen again.

It is all very well to say "should". The question is - can we, can we prevent another war? I think we can. But *will* we, will we do what we can? This is another matter. There is a curious and usually tragic discrepancy between what we can do and what we will do. I have no doubt as to our ability; but I would be quite unrealistic not to question our willingness. I do not refer to the willingness of the few. I refer to the willingness of the generality of people who are and will be the

17

deciding factors.

If the mass of people simply won't make war, there won't be war. If they will, there will be war. The war lords undoubtedly are the initiators, but what could they do if people said No and meant No? The war lords have to have armies. These armies, particularly in modern times, are recruited from among the sons, and the fathers too, of the common people. And the common people can be recruited because, among other things, they have been deprived and frustrated in their every day lives, and are full of angry retaliative anger, and so want to fight as a means of revenge and release, and so want to join armies in order to be fed and clothed. Yes, common people want peace; but they also want to fight. Warfare, psychological warfare, is already in them. They haven't been allowed to seek Man and God. They have been held down at an inhuman level. The war lords know and count on and trade on all these facts. The masses of people are the danger - because some of their fellow beings have made them so. The war lords aren't the danger. If people just would fight, if people were able not to fight, the war lords would have to find roles in the movies or enter monasteries.

I have good reason for some pessimism. I think we all have. But I find that I am not a deep-dyed pessimist. I am not at all convinced that the causes of war are so imbedded in our natures and so woven into

18

into our social institutions and systems that they
cannot be eradicated. I know, of course, as everyone
does, that war has had a formidable continuity throughout
what we know of man's history. I know too that many
who want peace have by no means succeeded in making
themselves harmless and peaceable people. Nevertheless
I believe that the causes of war can be eradicated
provided that we apply the proper external and internal
essential measures, always keeping in mind our essential purpose
and aim, that of enabling men to seek Man and God.

Nor am I an easy optimist. I certainly do not
think that any number of hastily constructed "checks"
are, of themselves, going to prevent another war, much
less remove the causes of war. But I do think that
if those who know what is good for mankind can
overcome opposition on the part of narrowly self-
interested people, and set up, say, a genuine federation
of nations and peoples, and so delay the outbreak of
another war, it will be possible then to do something
basic.

By doing something basic I mean lifting the
human masses to a human level. I mean giving the
peoples of the world of whatever race, color, nation,
sex, or creed a real stake in the welfare of the Human
Race. I mean providing the means, material and
spiritual, whereby everyone can enable himself to
overcome his obsession with wordly things, and seek God.

19

I mean making it possible for all to become genuinely religious. I mean making it possible, by favorable inner and outer conditions, for Christians really to be Christians, Buddhists really to be Buddhists. All the real religions, and all the real religious impulses that arise from the nature of people, all have ed essentially the same aim. A world-state is need; yes, what is really called for is but what is needed more is a world-religious-state.

Peace has no meaning as a merely external condition. Peace has to do with our inner experiences and states of being. It exists where there is real meaning in our lives and work. It is absent if meaning is absent. It is ours when we are balanced. It departs when we become unbalanced or conflicted. Peace, as a real experience, is somehow interwoven into our work, if we are really working, into our love, if we are really loving, and into our rest, if we are really resting. And only those can rest who have been really working. Above all, peace has to do with our participating, participating in what is worthwhile and real, participating in a life and reality greater than this little self of ours. Exclude anyone from such participation, and he will not be at peace either with himself or with the world, even though in outward circumstance he were living in paradise. Therefore people must be brought into such participation, and allowed to share in it to the limit of their abilities, otherwise the work

20

for peace will be but a superficial and unreal project,
largely a mere label.

It is wishful thinking to believe that the lower
classes are going to accept and preserve a "peaceful
world" fashioned by the upper class, if the lower classes
are excluded from the real benefits and meanings of
civilization. The Slave psychology is disappearing from
the common man. So is the inferiority complex. The
rulers, then, had best get rid of their "master"
psychology, their superiority complex. Otherwise there
is going to be trouble, no matter what checks and
"safeguards" are put into operation.

Likewise it is wishful thinking to believe that the
colored people will make peace with a "peaceful world"
of the white people, if the colored are consistently
excluded from all but the dirty work of civilization.

Federate the western nations, prevent war in this
part of the world, and war will come from the eastern
world, if that world is insulted and regarded as
"beyond the pale" of the real citizenship in the
World of Nations.

The same would be true were the proletarians the
ruling class excluding all others, or the colored
people the dominant group excluding the whites, or
were the eastern world to exclude the west.

There can be no peace without inclusion. Our
hand - and our bluff too - is being called. Mankind

21

is One Kind. Now we've got to live up to the reality,
or else we shall sink and go down in the denial and
perversion of it.

The work to lift the human masses to the human level
will provide ample and often heartbreaking work for
the outer arm of our balance. Meanwhile, and all the
while, there is much needed work for the inner arm
to do. This too is basic work, work upon oneself. This
too must be done, now, and in the interval between
the end of this war and the all too possible next, if
that next war is to be prevented. Anyone who thinks
that political or economic structures, no matter how
good they are, are going to do his own inner work for
him, is gravely mistaken.

External regulations, such as those that could be
provided by a really functioning real League of
Nations are necessary, but in the long run, or even in
the short run, they won't do much good unless at the
same time that they are functioning we also are
functioning with respect to our basic work upon ourselves,
each one upon himself.

The causes of war are not in those economic or
political abstractions called "the system", "the state",
"society". Nor are they in "the environment". They are
in me, in you, in these concrete human individuals; in
these very definite bodies, minds; in these devil's
dens which hide under the human exterior. The causes

22

of war, and the causes of all else that is evil in our
lives, are in these unruly, aggressive, covetous
little selves that Christ advised us to overcome; in
these conflicted and strife-ridden little lives that
both Christ and Buddha advised us to lose. Now who
else is going to expose and exorcise from him his
devil's den, if not the man himself? Who possibly
can get rid of these little selves and little lives
except just those to whom the little things unfortunately
belong? Clearly only we ourselves can remove from
ourselves the causes of war, hate, privation,
prejudice.

It is quite obvious that neither a League of
Nations nor a new economic order or anything like
that can uproot from me the roots of warfare that
are in me; but I can, if I will, if I work hard and
use the proper means, if I realize that it is up to
me to do it or it won't be done. Men are men. Some
men have done it. Therefore others can.

So the prospect is this: If each one cleans his
own house, there will not be another war. If each
one does not, the devils and the barbarians will break
out again, and disrupt the external checks, and plunge
the world into war again.

War-prevention beings at home. If our "home-work"
is done, the future will be bright. But if it is
neglected most of the time or not done at all, we who

23

have brought children into the world had best begin
training them right now to be hardened soldiers, for
war will their lot even more than it has been ours.

Let us accept the sometimes painful but infinitely
rewarding home-work. Let us understand that home-work
is an essential part of world-work. Let us call to
order those inclined to get out of it. I do my own
home-work none too well, but at least I recognize that in
it is necessary. And so I look askance at people who
espouse a generla and rather vague peace but do little
or nothing to overcome their hates and greeds and
prejudices, or to resolve the conflicts in themselves.
I am skeptical of the good services of those who
profess to want world-peace but continue to make the
vicious sort of trouble in their own homes and communities.
I would be a fool to put trust in those cry Peace, Peace,
but act wolf, wolf.

War-prevention in both branches, that is, work upon
oneself and work for others, is no unrelated activity;
it is part and parcel of the large inclusive of
removing the inner and outer conditions that prevent
us from seeking God; it is part of the work of enabling
ourselves and others to seek Him. As we overcome the
causes of war, so will we be that much more able to
seek the Superior Reality. As we move towards that
pure Light and Power, so will we be all the more empowered
to overcome the causes of war.

24

In fine, as I see it, the overcoming of war is a task for man and God. Man cannot do it by himself alone. God will not do it by Himself alone, at any rate. He has not done so far, and the race of man has been on this planet some millions of years, quite a while at any rate. The truth would seem to be that it is, and therefore be must, a mutual enterprise in a mutual service. No mere humanitarian motives will give us the power and the wisdom with which to exorcise the disease that has stuck to human beings these many centuries. We must call God in. Then He will call us in. There something godly will be done.

The same is true as regards overcoming the chronic deprivations which countless people suffer, and overcoming the organized prejudices and the sporadic brutalities under which we are borne down. I do not think it necessary to look more closely at the conditions arising from deprivation, I mean not in this paper. We have viewed them sufficiently for our present purpose. But I am moved to remark that if we were devils, if the human race were a race of demons and deliberately wanted to keep itself away from God, we could do nothing more effective toward this end than what we have done and still are doing in seeing to it that the majority of human beings are prevented from having what they need in order to live as human beings. If we wanted war with all our might, we could do nothing better to promote it

25

than what we have done and are doing to make vast
numbers of people frustrated and embittered. The most
elementary kind of reasoning should make it clear,
even to the gluttons, that as long as the many are
needy the few will have at best but a precarious peace.

Prejudices, no doubt, are things in themselves,
rather ugly things. Also they are agents. Prejudices
are agents of deprivation. Prejudices are agents
of war. These ugly things keep men down to a bare
subsistence level, divorce them from their souls,
compel the human spirit - if any spirit is left -
to fix on matters neither generally human nor godly.

War sets itself up as the end, and compels its
victims so to regard it. This is exactly what prejudice
does. Prejudice sets "race" up as end, and makes people
falsely worship this false god. Thus we have the
"Aryan race" exalted, and its many devotees. The "
white race". The Japanese "sons of heaven". Now the
"black race" is coming up as a compelling end. Yes,
prejudice, and the reaction against prejudice, lifts
on high every race except the Human Race. It lifts
up every color among men, but not Man himself. It
lifts up divisions and tears down unity. It exalts the
ugly and smears the beautiful. It turns men to their
lowest passions and automatically dismisses good will.
It invites the devil and denies God.

Any and all prejudices do the same thing. Prejudices

26

of class exalt one class above another, put Class as an end, and enforce allignce to this end. Thus, for example, we have the mail class war which, like military war, sets itself up as the end. You will be considered a renefrade if you "go back on your class". You will be considered a traitor or a coward should you, by chance, refuse to do your part in the class war. Man? God? Some men have been driven to God in the midst of military war. I have, to hear of a single person being so driven in the midst of the class war.

Race, Class, Nation, Sex, Creed - all of these are put in bold capitals by the prejudices and antangonisms that fasten on them. Man is forgotten. God might as well not exist.

All of this is warfare, a warfare that in my opinion is worse than military combat. If the conflicts between white and colored, capital and labor, Gentiles and Jews, etc., etc., are not wars, what are they? No, they are not always armed conflicts, but sometimes they are. No, not as many men meet sudden death in these domestic fights as on the battlefronts, but far more men are condemned to a slow death. As for actual hate and the desire to kill and mutilate, mobs are always worse than trained soldiers in disciplined armies.

I am reasonably sure that more evil blood was aroused in the recent Detriot race riot than in the entire

27

campaign to capture Sicily. Besides, the Sicilian campaign is over; the conditions that led to race riot still exists in Detriot and in many other places the country over. Unless this condition is attended to, clashes between groups of different colors and classes will continue to occur not only in this but all in all countries long after the Nazis have been liquidated.

I say it soberly. In my opinion, these several warfares that are going on in our midst are sowing seeds of far more danger to the future peace of the world, and are more damaging to Man, than anything that is happening between the actual armies of the nations on the military battlefronts. I think that if these by now chronic conflicts are not resolved, but are allowed to increase, they will eventuate in large scale armed wars, here and abroad, wars so horrible that the present contest between the nations will seem, by comparison, a game of croquet. Therefore I feel that those who contribute to these conflicts, no matter what side they are on, are contributing to an unspeakable inferno. And I also feel that those who ignore these conflicts, yet hope to see peace in the world and Man and His kindom come to earth, will be rudely shaken from their dreams one of these days, when it is too late.

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It is true of course that for some small number of people some good comes out of prejudices and exclusions, just as some good for some people comes out of war. If a man has strength and understanding enough not to retaliates, if he is large enough not to become embittered, prejudice can act upon him as one of the outward occasions of his inward development, a spur to his own dignity, a challenge to genuine achievement, a guard against arrogance, a call to humility, an unpleasant but nevertheless effective invitation to rise above himself and his surroundings. If in his inward life of mind and spirit there is already some moving toward truth and reality, the very fact that he is barred or restrained from full enjoyment of common pursuits, can move him all the more into the Great Pursuit. Such people have prejudices and exclusions to thank. But there are not many such people, unfortunately.

On the majority, the effects of antagonisms and segregations are obviously damaging. Physical and spiritual growth is stunted. Good will turns sour. Ill will becomes virulent. Men and women, and children too, are blocked and locked in a lower and ugly part of themselves. Narrow self-interest increases both in those who strike and in those who are struck. Egotism becomes inescapable.

Prejudices of one kind or another have made more men cynics, disbelievers in the goodness of man and

29

in the existence of God, than all of the ungodly books put together. Indeed the very men who wrote these ungodly books were driven to do so out of the bitterness engendered by prejudices. Exclusions of one sort or another have made more men criminals than all of the so called temptations. Yet it is no uncommon thing to see presumably religious people railing at the ungodly books, crusading against the temptations and the evils, and all the while indulging their own prejudices, practicing their own exclusions.

I do not want to go into this matter any further except to make note of a psychological angle that has just come to mind my mind more clearly and more simply than ever before. A person subjected to racial or color prejudice inevitably has his attention drawn to his body, to its color. He feels penalized because of what his body is. Thus bodily features assume in his eyes exaggerated proportions and come to seem to him to be the most important things in the world. It is difficult for him to think of himself as a man, or to feel himself a human being among human beings. In short, prejudice tends to render the man body-bound, self-bound.

A self-bound person cannot work to transcend self. He cannot put God first. To him it seems that the only thing to do is to put himself first, assert himself, fight for his rights, or else fold up. The idea that he can attain what he wants as a human being by seeking

30

and only by seeking Man in men and God in Man must seem
him
to far-fetched, utterly impractical and deceptive. So
he does put himself first. So he does assert himself.
Whereon, other people jump on him because he asserts
himself, and this makes him assert himself all the
more. And the more he asserts that little self the
farther he gets from the Man in him. The mor he seeks
that little life, the more he loses that of God in him.
This is what actually happens, but he cannot see it
this way.

Exactly the same thing happens to the man who
subjects another man to prejudice. By prejudice this
man also has his attention drawn to and fixed upon
bodily features. For example, a white man's prejudice
against a black man, calls the white man's attention
to his own white colored body as surely as it calls
the black man's attention to his black colored body.
To the white man also bodily features loom as all-
important. He prides himself on his white body, and
feels priveldged because of it. It is difficult for
him, too, to think of himself as a man, to feel
himself a human being among human beings. To himself,
he is white first, and man only secondarily. To himself,
he is self first, and God only on Sunday when he goes
to church. Moreover, his "God" is some kind of a
White Man. This is what prejudice does to him. It
makes him body-bound and self-bound. So neither can he

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work to transcend self. Neither can he put God first.
He too feels he must put himself first, and assert
is
himself. And this what he does.

And when you have self-assertive white men meeting
self-assertive black men - well, then you have, as we
have, what is called the "race problem", the "color
problem", namely, a morass in which both sides become
fixed on issues and contests which exclude Man and
God, which prevent both parties from seeking the common
high ground. And this is the essential reason why
prejudices must be overcome. Prejudices <u>disable</u> men
as men. Prejudices stand in the way between men and
Mankind, Mankind and God. Therefore they are to be
mastered. And both parties have a stake in this, since
both parties are comprised of human beings. Thus we
come back once again to the central attitude.

As war-prevention is to be regarded as a means
to a greater end, as the abolition of deprivation is
end
to be regarded as a means to a greater, so is the
resolution of race and color problems to be regarded
as a means to a greater end. It won't do to aim and
work for the solution of these problems as an end. No
real headway will be made that way. We will merely bump
against each other all the more. We will merely irritate an
already inflamed condition. We will merely get in more
self-assertiveness on both sides. There will continue
to be two sides.

32

Somehow we must manage at whatever cost to put
Man and God first. By "we" I mean all concerned, what-
ever side they may now happen to be on. To this end,
we must be willing to surrender and overcome - it is
usually called "sacrifice" - these little selves and
these little lives. We must recognize that the conditions
arising from prejudices and exclusions are among the
potent factors preventing all concerned from living
as men and women ought to live. We must work to prevent
them so that they will not continue to prevent us from
seeking and finding Man in men and God in Man. And in
this work the two arms of the balance must operate.
There must be work for others. Also there must be
home-work. Without work oneself the KAMAMAI of prejudice
will no more be uprooted than will the causes of war.

Let's not underestimate the task. The prejudices
and exclusions we have been talking about are as
ly
tenacious planted in man as the causes of war. Super-
ficial measures won't do any good. Mistaken measures
will aggravate the condition. MAXX Well-wishing, though
good, is not enough. Man's power alone is not enough.
This too is a task for man and God. As we overcome
prejudices and anamosities, so will we be that much more
able to seek God. As we move toward Him, so will we
be all the more empowered to overcome antagonisms
and hates.

Now let me draw it all together. What it amounts

33

to is this: that our chief career increasingly becomes
the career of seeking Man and God; that our main
work increasingly becomes this work; that all else
be regarded and used as means thereto; not by
"profession" alone but by profession and practice. This
must be it. This must be what we are living for. We
must have, or come to have, the understanding, the
courage and the faith to live this way singly, with
integrity, having no truck with mammon in any shape or
form. This, and this alone, is the hope of the world.

I have taken many pages to say imperfectly what

Christ said perfectly in one sentence. Yes; but as I
said earlier, one of the most important things is to
convince oneself that the only way _is_ the only way.
I think my pages have accomplished something at any
rate for me in this respect. I am so much more convinced,
because more clear. Besides, I have discovered a few
matters that were not seen before.

In the beginning of this writing I said that
Christ promised peace. Now that I have thought it over
I think he did nothing of the kind, except to those
who have attined conscious union with God - and I take
it that those wonderful beings have the peace that
passeth understanding. What Christ for the rest of us
was this: he gave his work. He laid down the path and
opened the way by which we can seek and find God. He

34

placed in our hands the tools and methods by means of
which we can do this difficult and sacred work. He told
us to work hard and with single purpose. In such work
there is comes about a higher orientation, a balance,
am resurrection of the man, a profound meaning and
satisfaction - and despairs and heartbreaks too - but
very little of what people usually mean by peace. There
is hardship, struggle, suffering, out of which we are
occasionally called up to heaven, only to fall again,
and again to be lifted up. Because of what we are and
are not, this world is a purgatory, not a place of
bliss. It is a workshop, not a realm of peace.

I said we promised ourselves peace. We do nothing
of the sort. We promise ourselves, if we promise our-
selves anything real at all, the opportunity to do the
work of Man and God. We evaluate conditions, if we
truly evaluate them, in the light of whether they help
or hinder our essential undertaking. We ask, if we
are sufficiently firm and strong, for whatever conditions
that will best help us. No one knows enough to be
absolutely sure as to just what conditions are best
for this purpose. It may be that in a peaceful world
we would fall down on the job and go to sleep. We may
need to be stirred up. We may need prods, and whips
occasionally, and adversity of many kinds. We may need,
in a word, creative stress. I think we do. However this
may be, let us hold fast to what we are living for,

# What Prospects For Peace?

by Jean Toomer

Peace on earth? The sun will rise this Christmas on the nations still at war. The sun will look down, or the snow will fall, on how many ruined towns, homeless people, scarred land, and things unspeakable.

Good will toward men? Considering the odds against it, there will be, as there always is, a surprising amount of good will; but not enough to become an irresistible force calling all men to brotherhodd. Perhaps if we listen intently we shall hear the unsung carol.

Christmas 1943 virtually demands that we renew our search for clarity and understanding. What do we mean by

2

peace? What do people in general mean when they say they want peace, and do they mean it? What are the prospects that peace of any kind will be attained in the not too distant future by the peoples of this earth?

If I say I am peaceful, I will be understood. Most everyone has felt peaceful at times. The meaning of a peaceful state or feeling is a matter of common experience. But if I say I want peace, you may assume that you know what I mean; but do you? Indeed there is reason for asking if I myself know.

I have heard parents say to children who were making noise and running in and out, "There must be peace in this house." What did they mean? An absence of racket and commotion? I have heard people declare to no one in particular, "There must be peace in the world." What do they mean? An absence of large scale armed warfare?

Is silence merely an absence of noise? Is peace merely an absence of war? Negative definitions do not satisfy us. With varying degrees of clarity we envision a positive condition. What positive condition? Can the people as a whole, say the people of America, agree as to what this positive condition is? Let us review several kinds of peace and ask which of these the American people may mean and want.

3

goal I work for day by day. I know of not a single person who is striving for that peace. The majority of people, we may be sure, have in mind something far less, a relatively mundane and external condition. The United States Congress, even now, is not altogether willing to commit itself to a world federation of nations and thus secure the kind of peace that such a federation might procure. Can you conceive of our Congress earnestly aiming for and working out the ways and means of attaining the peace that passeth understanding? This may seem a ridiculous question; but I submit that it is a fairly accurate and quite graphic indication of how remote our people are, in this year nineteen hundred and forty-three years after our Lord, from even considering the only kind of peace that Christ mentioned as the goal of man.

By peace do we mean a real being - a superb condition of inner balance complemented by the ability to function at maximum capacity? The ancient Greeks, so we are told, aimed to produce a superior type of man. This was, as we may say, their national policy; and legislators, no less than poets and philosophers, were regarded as educators, as men who by their very office had a most important and creative part to play in the moulding of a higher human type. Perhaps the Greeks then, as a people, wanted and worked for the kind of peace which is interwoven into creative activity. But no one

4

will even claim that the American people have any such
national policy and aim. Rather our national policy is
bent on the greater production of material goods, and
we sort of hope that the development of people as human
beings will come about as a by-product of materialistic
progress. "Prosperity" is put first; men and women
tag along in an inconspicuous second place.

Very few western people respond positively to the
eastern salutation, "Peace be with you". We do not warm
to it; it leaves us cold. We neither mean nor want that
kind of peace. But we do respond to greetings and
"send-offs" such as it - Good Luck, Good Business, Happy
Landing - all of which have to do with the progress and
fruits of a life of worldly action.

Do we want the kind of peace that exists when
people are deeply quietly in love with one another?
Is this our aim, to attain this tender fullness of
experience, this sense of completeness, this feeling
of harmony together? I am sure that the human beings of
the entire earth would want this kind of peace if
they more often remembered it is possible, if they
experienced it often enough to renew their knowledge
of how wonderful and desirable it is. But we cannot
truthfully say that people in fact are aiming for it.
It would be quite unrealistic to mainline that the world's
individuals, races, colors, classes, creeds are actively
trying to fall in love with one another.

5

Do we mean and want the kind of peace that would
surely result were <u>all</u> men to feel good will toward
<u>all</u> men? No. People are pleased to feel ill will for
whom they please. Each one considers it his inalienable
right to have good will for a few, ill will - or no
will - for the rest. Nor will this fact change merely
because airplanes and radios make the peoples of
the world neighbors in a physical sense. Whence comes
the assumption that merely because people are neighbors
they like each other and live in harmony? As things are
now, as often as not it is just the people next door
with whom we may get in fights.<u> with</u>thx

I think that an accurate indication of what the
majority of people mean by peace is given by the
attitude of men in the armed services. Those with whom
I have talked have without exception expressed themselves
as follows. "There's a job to be done. I am going to do
my part. But I'll be mighty glad to get back home." To
these men peace means the end of the war and the chance
to resume their peace-time activities. They want this
war and all war to end. They want to exist in a somewhat
orderly and functioning society thanks to which they
and others will have worthwhile and satisfying work to
do. In a word, peace means to them the chance to live
their own lives as they want to live them. To this
proposition I think that most Americans and most of the

6

people of the world will agree. Most people think of peace as a condition of society, equating peace with "peace-time" America, "peace-time Europe", etc. They want this kind of peace because then, so they hope. they will be able to do what they want to do. The emphasis is not placed so much on peace itself as on the activity that peace will allow. War forces them into unwanted activity. Peace will release them from that and make possible a desirable activity. In other words, most people regard peace as a means to something else, and this "something else" is the important thing.

Having put our finger on the kind of peace that most people want, the question now is - What are the prospects that this kind of peace will be attained in the not too distant future?

The present war of course will end. It may even be that, with respect to the European theatre, we shall be celebrating a new armistice day by next Christmas. At any rate the present war will disappear from the surface, probably to go "underground", as the last war did. But we realize now, as we did not realize 1918, that to end a war is not to end all war. No one today is so naive as to believe that the termination of this war will necessarily bring with it a termination of all warfare. Already we are being warned that still another and more horrible catastrophe is in the making and will brust upon us within the next decade unless wise and

7

Also we realize today, far more than we did after
the last war, that it is one thing to end a war, but
quite another to establish a social order that will
really function for all of its members. These are several
realizations that have been thought and planned
and actions of like kind. Individuals, societies, and
many organizations are at work as never before to make
sure that we do not fail as we did after the last war,
now to make sure that we will build the structures of what is
generally called a just and durable peace. These are
among the hopeful signs of the present situation. Will
these signs become large and compelling forces? Will
these efforts succeed? The task is herculean.

War, as everyone knows, has had a formidable continuity
throughout what we know of man's history. As a
ravaging process, it has survived the peoples, the institutions,
the cultures which it destroyed. This makes it clear that
the causes of war are not in this or that economic
system, or in this or that national psychology. The
causes of war are deeply embedded in man himself, from
whence they are projected and incorporated in what-
ever social institutions. To prevent war, we must
primarily apply ourselves to these deep causes as they
exist in me, in you, in all the other living individual
human beings. But, as war, which has for so long defeated
man, is not going to be easily defeated. These are

8

grim and sobering facts. They should not, I think,
weaken our conviction that war can be eliminated, rather
they should all the more arouse us to our task; but they
should check those who are inclined to be over optimistic
in the belief that there is a relatively quick and easy
way out of the situation.

What is called for, as I see it, is neither pessimism
nor optimism but an enlightened realism which takes into
account both the fact that war is a deep-seated
disease of very long standing, and the fact that it is
inherently possible for human beings to overcome war.
and all the other plagues of the flesh and spirit. In
this way we will not underrate the power of the enemy,
nor underrate our own powers, both these being in may.

Is the real root-cause of war known? I doubt it.
I think that is still to be uncovered. But we do know
the
many of the contributing causes, among which MAXIM
following may be listed:
list-the-fellowing+ internal conflicts in people;
greed; deprivation and frustration; the drive to retaliate
and get revenge; egotism and vainglory; economic and
financial set ups that plunge men into ruthless contests
with one another and divide mankind into the few who
have and the many who have not; our rather strange ideas
of "honor" and "insult"; false beliefs and prejudices
connected with race, color, nation, class, creed.

the primary causes in me and in you and in other
individuals. But such a federation, were it a real one,
were it really to function, would remove some of the
social causes and check certain others. Such a federation
is absolutely necessary if there is to be even a
superficial peace, if another war is even to be delayed.
Yet witness the opposition to this one project. In fact
the opposition is so powerful that such a federation
is still a long way from being an accomplished fact,
and there is reason to wonder if it will come to pass
in our lifetime.

Suppose, however, that a real League of Nations
were to come into being, what can we realistically
except of it? Just what I have said: (it would remove
some of the causes of war, check certain others.) It
would provide the external framework for a "peace-time"
world. It would *delay* another war, but by no means
prevent all war. It would not and could not take out
of me and you and other living individuals the primary
causes of war. This fundamental uprooting is for me
and for you to do, by work upon ourselves, each one
upon himself. No one else, no group, no nation, no
federation of nations can do this work for me, for you.
We must do it, or it won't be done. And if it isn't
done there will be another war, no matter what external
guards and regulations there may be.

11

beliefs and prejudices connected with race, color,
nation, class, creed. I must work to overcome my own
egotism and vainglory. I must work to overcome whatever
in me make me a willing or unwitting contributor
to the ungolay ways of living that pit men against
each other and result in deprivation, gluttony,
frustration, the drive to retaliate, and get revenge.
In a word, I must clean my own house. I must do this
effort
"home work". So must you. So must everyone. Otherwise
our talk of peace is but talk. War-prevention begins at home.

Here in me are the prime causes of war. Only
secondarily, as outgrowths from concerte living human
beings, are they out there in "systems", "institutions",
and the like. Here they are in the very definite
bodies, in these minds, in these devil's dens that
hide under the human exterior. Here they are in these
unruly, aggressive, covetous little selves that Chirst
advised to overcome and transcend; in these conflicted
and strife-ridden little lives that Christ advised
us to lose.

Now who is going to expose and exorcise from
him his devil's den, if not the man himself? Who
possibly can get rid of these little selves and little
lives except just those to whom the little things
unfortunately belong? Clearly only we ourselves can
remove from ourselves the causes of conflicts, hates,
prejudices, etc., which are among the contributing

12

causes of war in the world. Obviously neither a
League of Nations nor a new and more just economic
order or anything like that can take out of us the
roots of the trouble that our deep in us; but we can
if we will, if we work hard and use the proper means.
if we realize that it is up to us to do or it won't be
done. Men are men. Some men have done it. Therefore
others can.

But it won't be quick or easy work. This too is
a herculean undertaking. We can do it; but will we?
This is the question. This, to my way of thinking, is
the question upon which the future peace of the
world depends. We do our home work there will not
be another war. Indeed we will deiseely end all war
and insure the creation of a society that really
functions for all of its members. We will do even more
than this: we shall find our own souls and proceed
on that rather sidetracked and delayed search for
truth, reality, God.

If we do not do our home work there will be another
war, and more wars. Our dream of a truly peace-time
world will remain what it is at present, namely a dream,
a wish, a hope that will go down in the next rein of
destruction, and revive again, and go down again.

Are men willing to work for their own catharais,
their own cleansing and purification? We are willing
not even again to indulge these prejudices, to daily
hate

13

with these internal conflicts and frustrations, this deprivation of physical and spiritual foods? Are people ready to work to overcome these little selves, instead of abetting them? Are we ready to lose these little lives for the sake of a greater life and meaning and beauty? Some are. Some human beings have been so ready and willing, and have been doing just this work for those many years. And these have become, in varying degrees, peaceable people. By peaceable I mean them to be able to be at peace with oneself and with the world. This is what we need. Peaceable men, peaceable women, only peaceable human beings. Then and then will we have anything that merits being called peace in the world.

As for the majority of people, the outlook is not particularly promising. Christ gave his teachings to the world nineteen centuries ago. Today, most of those who presumably follow him and most of those who do not are as active as ever in trying to advance their little selves. Indeed some of them are clinging to their little lives as never-before-they-strengthening their prejudices. They seem not to know, no, not to have any even the faintest idea that do in fact have home work to do, and that unless they do it they themselves and every one is in jeopardy. These people are essential irresponsible.

Now let us see what it all adds up to. It adds up to this: that because the majority of people fail

14

to recognize, much less fully realize, the work that must
be done in the world and upon themselves if the causes
of war are to be eliminated and a serviceable society
come into being, it does not seem likely that some of
either of these results will be obtained. The prospects
for the kind of peace they want are doubtful to say the
least. This is my reluctant conclusion as regards the
situation as it is today, Christmas 1943.

Things may change. In the course of this coming
year or the next or the year after something may happen
so that large numbers of the human beings of this earth
will really awaken and take active part in the two
works. I believe in miracles, that is, in the unexpected
operation of the unpredictable spiritual powers of man.
The very horrors and difficulties of the war and the
post-war period may be the outward stimulants
of a most miraculous transformation throughout mankind.
There may be a veritable resurrection and new birth.
I devoutly hope so,

Now at the close I would like to express briefly
additional attitudes of my own
cerain of my own attitudes that have become clarified
during the course of this writing.

I do not think anyone can be expected to want to
do, much less actively undertake, the two works I have
mentioned simply for the sake of ending war and having
a peace-time society, in which he can live as he wants
to live. I do not think such an aim, such a motivation,

16

end but as a means to an essentially religious life.
Our work in the world is seen not as an end but as a work
means to our own souls. Our home is seen not only as a
necessary way of stopping war but as a necessary way to
Man and God. All of our works will then be understood
and felt as part and parcel of the one great work common
to all men. There will be, in consequence, a release
and unification of human effort directed toward
one goal, which is God.

A world-state is needed; yes, but what really is
called for is a world-religious-state. Such a state
will inevitably come to pass if we do our basic work;
if and as the inner and outer effrots of men combine
to produce an ever increasing partnership in the life
of manking moving forward in a noble destiny.

Mankind is in truth One Kind. One God indwells
in all alike. Either we live up to the reality, or we
will sink and destroy each other, as we are doing now,
in the denial and perversion of it.

It is important to remember that Christ said, I
have come not to bring peace but a sword. He did not
promise peace, except to those who had attained union
with God. He did not say go out and make a peaceful
world, as if that were the goal of life. He said God
is the Goal. He directed us to use the sword. This
sword, I take it, was the instrument - the specific
ways and means - with which we can cut out of ourselves
and out of our world the faulty and diseased parts. He

17

We are to use the sword to clear the way, so that we can find Man in men and God in Man. We are to do this work, even as he did his Father's. We are to do this work, not some other that we in our little minds and little selves may think we ought to do. We are to overcome that which overcomes us, and surrender to that which creates us anew and anew. This work, not the idea of peace, not dreams of personal pleasure, should be at the very center of our lives.

Is it peaceful work? Will it lead to peace? What matter? It is creative work. It will lead to God. This matter is the important matter. My well-considered judgement is that the only vital peace we are likely to experience in this life-time will sometimes accompany and sometimes crown the efforts of this way of living. In fine, it is only if and as we seek first the kingdom that peace will be among the things added unto us, and let's care too much whether it is added or not.

This world is a farm, not a country estate. We are not should be farmers. Farmers of the soul, like farmers of the land, are working people. Both have crops to grow. The farm tree we really want at Christmas time and all the time is that imperishable growth, the tree of God's ever growing life within ourselves and in the earth.

# What Prospects For Peace?

## by Jean Toomer

["- 15 -", "that mix the only vital peace we are likely to experience\nin this life-time will sometimes accompany and sometimes\ncrown the efforts of this way of living. In fine, it is\nonly if and as we first seek the kingdom that peace will\nbe among the things that will be added unto us.", "are saved by thoughts of higher things, or by\nconcepts of them; but these are not the things that are\nreal, and can have with them higher ideas, nor can they\nbe satisfied with them; nor can they be satisfied with\nthings which are not their own; nor can they be satisfied\nwith the things which are, but not of their own; nor can\nthey be satisfied with the things which are not, but\nare not of their own; nor can they be satisfied with\nthe things which are, but not of their own; nor can they\nbe satisfied with the things which are not, but are\nnot of their own; nor can they be satisfied with\nthe things which are, but not of their own; nor can they\nbe satisfied with the things which are not, but are\nnot of their own.", "This is the electric quality of the mind, and it is the\nplan by which of those who are planning for the future,\non the counterpoint, it would appear, that there are\npeople who, without really knowing it, are planning for\nthe future, and that such people can be controlled by\nthe will; for the good life of the future, they do not\nintend to lose, but they intend to gain; they do not\nintend to suffer, but they intend to be happy; they do\nnot intend to be sad, but they intend to be happy; they\nintend to be happy, though sad; they intend to be\nunhappy, though happy; they intend to be happy, though\nunhappy; they intend to be sad, though happy; they\nintend to be sad, though happy; they intend to be\nunhappy, though sad; they intend to be sad, though\nunhappy; they intend to be sad, though happy; they\nintend to be happy, though sad; they intend to be\nunhappy, though sad; they intend to be sad, though\nunhappy; they intend to be sad, though happy; they\nintend to be happy, though sad; they intend to be\nunhappy, though happy; they intend to be sad, though\nunhappy; they intend to be sad, though happy; they\nintend to be happy, though sad; they intend to be\nunhappy, though sad; they intend to be sad, though\nunhappy; they intend to be sad, though happy; they\nintend to be

4

become a factory town - and even for those on top there
will be no way of escaping. This will be what people
will get; but this will not be - want people will want.

At present, there are but individual protests
against this mechanization. The majority, for the moment,
are aswaged by thoughts of higher wages, of what they
can buy with these higher wages. Besides, their spare
energies are preety well involved in the disputes and
struggles of capital and labor. But there may, come a
time when both capital and labor realize that their
contests for power simply bypass the real issues of
living. There is certain to come a time when laborers,
executives, and stockholders alikexxx awake to the
fact that there are "goods" which money cannot buy, that
there are certain Unpurchaseables, these being the
real things of life. What then?

This is the eventuality that is not at all foreseen by many of those who are planning for the peace. On the contrary, it would appear that these good people assume, without really thinking about it, that mechanization can continue piling up as the basis for the "good life" of the future. They seem not at all to realize that if this mechaniazation does roll on as at the present time, one of two things will inevitably happen. Either the peaceful world of the future will be basically meaningless and barren; or else people, driven to revolt against the meanginglessness of it,

5

will break it up. I think it is true to say that there
can be no real peace without real meaning.

Not only must we have a meaning that appeals and applies to the heart
and mind of men, but all the individuals of that society must know and feel that they can participate
in it. All must be included; none must be excluded.
If one man is excluded, he at once becomes a latent
or active rebel, a potential or actual
"disturber of the peace". If any group, racial,
national, or otherwise, is told - No, you can't come
in. No, you can't take part - this group at once becomes
a group bent on disrupting the well laid plans of
men - for the simple and persuasive reason that they
themselves, within themselves, are not at peace.

It is wishful thinking to believe that the "lower
classes" are going to accept and preserve a peaceful
world fashioned by the "upper class", if the lower
class is excluded from the real benefits and meanings
of that world. Likewise it is wishful thinking to
believe that the "colored peoples" will make peace
with a peaceful world made by "white people", if the
colored are consistently segregated. Federate the
western nations, prevent war in this part of the world,
and war will come from the Eastern world, if that world
is excluded. The same would be true were it the other
way around. There can be no peace without inclusion.

Having made these general remarks which say by implication that I consider a world-peace very difficult to attain and not likely to come to pass in the near future, I would like to be frank with you obviously autobiographical.

Naturally I too would like to live in a world from which war was absent. I do not want international war, or civil war, or revolution, or clashed between groups and classes, nor warfare in myself. And I may add at this point that, as I understand it, one of the very best ways for me to help promote world-peace is by myself not contributing to conflict. In other remove or reconcile the warring factions in myself words, by removing or reconciling the warring factions that I will become a peaceful man. This is what we may call a peaceful world in itself. I think in myself I myself become a peaceful man - and I think that we will have a peaceful world only if we have peaceful individuals.

The work for peace is primarily espouse a general and rather abstract peace but do nothing a work upon oneself. I look askance at people who the hates and greeds and conflicts in themselves. cry Peace! Peace! but do nothing abput their own conflicts. about the concerte I am skeptical of the good the services of those

who profess to want A world-peace but continue to make trouble in their own homes and communities. I have no trust whatsoever in those I am quite disillusioned at those who cry Peace! Peace! but act Wolf, Wolf. By this last remark I do not mean Hitler only.

I too would like to live in a more or less ordered and functioning society; and, like others, I would want this as a means to something else. What

7

else? I want **to be**. I want largeness and realness of
**being**. I want to meet with what is real in other men.
I want to make my way toward the God within. I would
like my outer circumstances to be such so that I could
work with others who have similar aims. I want to function
to my maxium capacity. I want to love and worship, and
to find within myself a real rebirth of those feelings,
emotions, and attitudes that are the very essence of
the religious life. I want my work to have meaning for
others, and theirs for me. I would like to see all of
us resurrect, and come into a greater consciousness,
and find Man in men and God in Man. I would like to live
in a society whose atmosphere was favorable toward
these ends. And, should it turn out that a society in
turmoil was more favorable to these ends than a peaceful
prefer
one, I would prefer the turmoil.

not

I have mentioned wanting inner peace. Let me say
this. There have been times, brief periods, when I
experienced that rare state of perfect balance, and
active stillness, of being in touch with a Superior
Reality, of knowing myself connected with something
infinitely greater than myself. At these times I have
experienced what I would call inner peace. Of course
I desire them. Of course I want them to come more often
and last longer. And it would be wonderful always to
edist in such a state. But, in my experience, such
states have invariably come after a spell of struggle,

8

after a period of hard work and intense functioning.
So I know that one has to work for them. One must
work, and work hard, for peace. So I do not ask for
peace. I ask to be permitted by outside circumstances
and to be enabled from within to do that work. I am sure
that if I do my work, peace will come to me as often
as I deserve.)

Is the "something else" I desire different from
the something else that other people desire? I think
not. I think it is the same, the only differences
being two: that of terminology, that of degree of
clarity and articulation. Some see clearly, some see
dimly. Some are all but blind. Of this I am convinced:
as all human want food in such the same way, so all
human minds and spirits have similar needs and seek
similar fulfillments. Some are sure and unswerving
as to what they seek. Others are unsure and liable to
be diverted.

If the world of the future makes it outwardly
possible for people to work for what they really
want; if the future world enables people to have
the sure feeling that they are becoming more able to
obtain the necessary purchaseables and to attain
the essential Unpurchaseables as well; then there will
be in that world as much peace as imperfect human
beings are capable of. If that future world fails
in these basic respects, then it will be no different

The Promise of Peace

Chirst did not intend that Christmas comes but once
a year. The qualities which Christmas symbolizes were
to be with us the year around and every day. He promised
peace. We promise peace to ourselves. Men have had a
long time. But too many of his professed followers have
leagued with his avowed enemies. Too few are pure and
single in his work, which is our own. We hear, but
do not believe nor practice - I seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you. Of those who desire
peace, not one in a million profoundly understands
that peace itself is one of the things that will added
unto us only if and as we seek and find the kingdom.

Wayward children that we are, we (stubbornly and
consistently put other things first, confidently teeming
ourselves that we know or can come to know how to get
them, and that after we get them we will then seek the
godly peace.

Nor is our commitment to our own private
immature counsels deeply shaken by our repeated failures
to obtain those things. We continue to work for peace.

We continue to get war. We labor for abundance. We
get scarcity. We strive for cooperation. Rivalries,
prejudices, hatres go on apace. But these facts of
experience, brutal as they often are, are not enough
to shake us from our ways and persuade us that we really
ought to try us the way of him whom we call our teacher.

2

Peace on earth? The sun will rise this Christmas
on the nations still at war. Where the sun does not come
out the snow will fall, in how many places, on ruined
towns, homeless people, scared earth, and things
unspeakable.

Someone has said that the capacity to forget is our
greatest blessing. Perhaps so; or perhaps it is our
greatest curse. Many of us, these holidays,
will wish we could forget for a while the angry roaring
of the outside world and remember only the inside
of our homes, the candles, the holly, the quiet conifer
with a symbolic star at the top, and family and friends
gathered around. But we will not forget. The outside
world is in our houses. By the very charge in the
atmosphere, if not by definite proofs, we will be
reminded of our involvement in the crucial issues of
our time; and we will know that, as a friend of mine
has said, these issues will not be resolved by the
odor of pine and ingling bells. No, Christmas decorations
won't do any more.

3

search for clarity and understanding. This article is
my attempt at such renewal. I want to make clear to
myself just what I do think as to how the promise of
peace † and some other promises too † can be fulfilled.

My opening paragraph contains what I believe to be
the general answer. Peace and all other good things
to
will come us just in proportion as we seek Man in men
and God in Man. Peace will be ours when and as we
transcend self and realize our union with Him. This
truth applies not only to monks in monasteries but
also and equally to civilians in bombed cities. The
is to relate
matter before me to relation this general answer to
concerte individuals in concerte conditions. The minute
this application is attempted, we see that a situation
has arisen.

Even assuming that some sizeable number of the
world's people wanted to and were willing to try
to transcend self, how could they? The internal
difficulties that beset this kind of effort are
considerable, though not insuperable. But add to the
internal ones the external difficulties imposed upon
people by the human world as it is today, and the
situation may well seem hopeless.

When hunger and starvation powerfully call a
man's attention to his body and to food, he would ‡

4

If we aim for peace, _as_ that is, wordly peace, as an end, we shall miss it. If we aim for an abundance of the things of the earth, we shall not get them. If we seek our lives we shall lose them. Shall? People are losing their lives, physically and spiritually, by the millions. The western world of Christians, having consistently ignored their teacher's words for centuries, having for this length of time sought their little selves and their little lives as ends, are now literally ending by the scores, are now literally losing _all_ their little lives not only on the battle-fronts but everywhere.

Again and again we need remind ourselves: We must seek the self beyond this self, the life above this narrow life, the light above this darkness, _There is no other way out_. We must seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, _not_ so that these other things will be added unto us, but purely for the sake of God - whereon these other things inevitably will be added unto us. The attainment of the other things will come to us as a by-product of the great search, of the one essential work.

This position, however, will leave us high and dry unless we relate it to our actual outer and inner conditions as these conditions are today. This is the matter before me now: to relate the general answer to these concerte human individuals in these concrete situations.

5

A realistic view of the world we live in shows us at once that even were men willing to seek first the kingdom of God, they could not do so: conditions would prevent them. War, social chaos, hunger, the scarcity of food, devitalizing labor, prejudices, and many another inhuman condition of the so-called human world disable the majority of people in this respect, and in other respects as well. Therefore these conditions must be removed or improved, as the case may be. They must be removed or improved *because*, as they now exist, they prevent men from making their way to God. They must be removed or improved *so that* men can make their way to God. In other words, the betterment of world conditions is to be regarded and used *as a means* to God, not as an end in itself. This attitude, if clearly and firmly held, will do three things for us. It will dynamically relate social needs to religious needs. It will prevent religious people from falling into the mistake of regarding *x* as a means of making *y* world-problems as an end. It will release the full force *EX* of our powers upon worldly tasks while at the same time we never lose sight of what is really First and Last. Another result may be mentioned. This attitude will greatly increase our religious integrity and render us uncompromising.

It may be well to view the above mentioned considerations somewhat more in detail. First let us look

6

briefly at a few of the innumberable conditions that prevent all too many men from first seeking God.

In the present war there are an unknown number of cases of men driven to God by the very horror, helplessness, and desperation of the situation. These experiences should not be minimized. Something wonderful may come of them. I dare say that more men have found God in the midst of battle, during these past years, than in churches. Nevertheless it is to be pointed out that to be driven to God by danger and fear is not to seek Him voluntarily throughout life and in the midst of all situations. Moreover, those who are driven to God by desperation all too readily lose Him when "things get better".

There are also instances of men, like Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who had an extraordinary awakening to Group, Country, Man, and God while on active combat duty. His description of this birth as recorded in his _Flight To Arras_, is, to my mind, an excellent record of one of the profound religious experiences of our time. It won't do to dismiss war as though it were entirely negative and evil from a spiritual point of view. Some good, yes, some greatness does somehow come of it for some men.

But by and large there is no doubt that war is the evil scurge of mankind. It drives far more men to the devil than to God, and the men so driven stay

7

with the devil longer than man the men driven to God stay with God. It plunges far more men into the depths of brutality than into the center of kindness. It fastens men on their bodily fears and hated and dangers and hungers, preventing the mind from rising to anything else. It fixes the attention on the little self, and compells a man to put himself first, to seek the survival of his self-life. Not to mention the disruption and destruction war causes to everyone and every thing in its path. No, there is no doubt that war is the enemy of Man and God, that is foremost of all of the conditions that prevent human beings from first seeking God. For this reason we should and must prevent war. This, to my mind, is the essential reason why war should have been abolished centuries ago and why we must not allow it to happen again.

Can we abolish war? Yes, I am sure we can. Will we abolish war? This is another matter. It depends, I think, not only on what we do but how we do it. I find I am not a deep-dyed pessimist, convinced that the causes of war are so imbedded in our natures and so woven into our systems and institutions that they cannot be eradicated. I know of course, as everyone does, that war has had a formidable continuity throughout what we know of man's history. I know that many men by no means benighted peoples have regarded the valor of warriors as one of the highest virtues. I know too

8

that many who want peace have not succeeded in making
themselves harmless and peaceful people. Nevertheless
I believe that the causes of war can be eradicated provided
that we apply the proper external and internal measures.

Nor am I an easy optimist. I certainly do not think
that a number of hastily constructed "preventatives"
are, of themselves, going to prevent another war, much
less remove the causes of war. But I do think that
if those who know what is good for mankind can
overpower the host of narrow blind selish interests
and set up a world-federation of nations, and so <u>delay</u>
the outbreak of another war, it will be possible to
do something basic.

If another war is to be prevented, then now, and
in the interval between this war and the next, that
otherwise is sure to come, we must work resolutely
work as we never worked before to uproot from ourselves
and to take out of our institutions whatever is inhuman;
and, from the real foundations, build up men and women
in the spirit of him whose advent we remember and call
at this time of year. This is what I mean by something
basic.

External regulations, such as those that could be
provided by a really functioning League of Nations,
are necessary and will prove invaluable if used as
a means of enabling people to work upon themselves. This
is the basic work - my work myself in relation to myself

9

and to my fellows, your work upon yourself. The causes
of war are in me, in you, in these concrete human
individuals. The causes of war are in this unruly, aggress-ive,
covetous little self that Chirst advised us to overcome;
in this conflicted and strife-ridden little life
that he advised us to lose. Only we ourselves can remove
the causes, each one his own. A League of Nations

roots
Neither a League of Nations nor a new economic order
cannot take the warfare out of me; but I can, if I will,
the proper means, if I
will, if I work hard and use the

roots
I will, if I work hard and use the proper means, if I
realize that it is up to me to do it or it won't be
done. If each one does clean his house, there will not
be another war. If each does not, the barbarians and
the devils in us will again break loose, and disrupt
the external preventatives, and plunge the world into
war again.

--Primary

war again.
War-prevention, in last analysis, begins at home.
the general and rather

I look askance at people who espouse a general and rather
vague peace but do nothing to overcome their own hates
and greeds and prejudices, or to resolve the conflicts
in themselves. I am skeptical of the good services of
those who profess to want a world-peace but continue to
make trouble in their own homes and communities. I would
be a fool to put trust in those who cry Peace, Peace,
but act wolf, wolf.

War-prevention, as thus understood, is no unrelated
work; it is part and parcel of the large inclusive

10

work removing the inner and outer conditions that prevent us from seeking God. As we overcome the causes of war, so will be that much more able to seek God. As we move toward God, so will we be all the more empowered to overcome the causes of war.

The overcoming of war is a job for man and God. Man cannot do by himself alone. God will not do it by at any rate He has not done so far. Himself alone. It is a mutual enterprise in a mutual service. I can tell you this: No mere humanitarian to exorcise the motives will enable us overcome that formidable disease which stuck that has seek-fast-to man these many centuries.

As war prevents men from seeking God, so do prejudices and antagonisms: these keep men from their own souls: to be concerned with these compel the human spirit to things neither human nor godly. Indeed the conditions produced by prejudices and antagonisms having to do with race, color, nationality, class, creed are a kind of warfare. If the conflicts between white people and colored people, capital and labor, etc., are not wars, what are they? No, they are not always armed conflicts, but sometimes they are. No, not as many men meet sudden death in these domestic fights as on the battlefronts, but far more men are condemned to a slow death. As far as actual hate and the desire to mutilate and kill, moBS are always worse than professional armies. More evil blood was aroused in the recent Detroit race riot than in the entire campaign to capture Scisily.

11

In my opinion, these several warfares that are going on in our midst are sowing seeds of far more danger to the future peace of the world than anything that is happening between the armies of the nations on military battlefronts. I think that if these chronic conflicts are not resolved, but are permitted to increase, they will eventuate in large scale armed wars so horrible that the present contest between the nations will seem, by comparison, a small but great war. Therefore I feel that those who contribute to these conflicts, no matter what side they are on, are contributing to an unspeakable inferno. And I also feel that those who ignore these conflicts, yet hope to see peace in the world, will be rudely shaken from their dreamy dreams one of these days, when it is too late.

It is true, of course, that for some small number of people some good has come out of prejudices and exclusions, just as some good for some people has come out of war. In more than one case, prejudice against one man - if he was strong enough not to relish and large enough not to become embittered - has been the outward occasion of his inward development, a spur to his own dignity, a challenge to his own achievement, a guard against arrogance, a call to humility, an

12

unpleasant but nevertheless effective invitation to arise above himself and his surroundings. Some others, just because they have been excluded from many common pursuits, have gradually turned to the great pursuit of seeking Man and God. But there are not many such people.

On most people the effects of prejudices and exclusions have been damaging. Racial prejudices, color prejudices, class prejudices, the exclusion of the lower classes from the full benefits of industry and civilization - all these have fixed men's attentions on their physical conditions, effectively preventing either mental or spiritual freedom.

A hungry man looks to food and to his belly, not to himself as a human being, much less to God. If we were devils, and deliberately wanted to keep ourselves away from God, we could nothing more effective towards this end than what we have done in the matter of seeing to it that the vast majority of people are deprived of most of the elementary necessities of life. If we wanted war, we could nothing better to promote it than what As long as the many are in need, the few will have, at we have done in the matter of having it so that the best, but a precarious peace. majority of people must be frustrated and embittered.

A man subjected to racial or color prejudice has his attention continually drawn to his body, to its color. It is only with great difficulty that he can think of himself as a man, as a human being. It

13

is almsot impossible for him to think of God with
any conviction, unless it be the conviction that there
is no God. Prejudices of one kind or another have
made more men athetists and <u>men</u> scoffers than all the
athetics books put together. And when what are called
"God's Churches" exclude people because of their race
or color, these very churches are acting the part of the
devil in so far as these particular people are concerned.

It is so tragic, so stupid, <u>yet</u> so simple. It is
a matter of elementary psychogly to understand that
if and as prejudices and exclusions persistently call
a man's attention to himself, he cannot possibly
work to transcend self, to put God first. It must seem
to him that the only thing for him to do is to put
himself first, assert himself, fight for himself and
his rights, or else fold up. The idea that he can
gain what he wants as a human being <u>man</u> by seeking, and
only by seeking <u>Man</u> in men and God in <u>Man</u> must seem to
him far-fectedly utterly impractical and deceptive.

Nor is it only the one who feels prejudice directed
against him that becomes, in this way, divorced from
<u>BEING</u> his own soul. The one who directs that prejudice
has exactly the same thing happen to him. A white man's
prejudice against a black man, on grounds of color
or any other <u>in</u> phsuical features in which the two
men differ, calls that white man's attention to his
own white colored body as surely it calls the black

14

man's attention to his black colored body. The white man also becomes body-bound, and thinks of himself, not as a man, but as a white man, *not as a human being*. And, as a white man, he too puts himself first, God last, and feels that he must assert himself against that black man. And so we have what is called the "color problem", namely, a morse in which both sides become fixed on issues and contests which exclude Man, exclude God,

Then what? As with war, as with hunger and deprivation, these many prejudices, exclusions and problems must be overcome *so that* men can find their own souls and seek God. At present these prejudices are among the factors that *prejudices* make us cling to this little self and this little life, that prevent us from surrendering and transcending. They are among the things that prevent us from seeking God. Therefore they must be overcome. The overcoming of them is not to be regarded as an end in itself, but as a means to the greater life, as part and parcel of the one essential work. If we regard the solution of those problems as ends, we will never solve them. On the contrary, they will get worse. Our efforts will but irriate the more an already inflamed condition. But if we realize - and by "we" I mean *everyone* concerned regardless of what side he happens to be on - if we realize that these conflicts must be reconciled or

15

overcome **because** they are preventing all of us from
proper
our life and work, then we shall make headway.

Let's not fool ourselves. The prejudices and exclusions we have been talking about are are tenaciously planted in man as war itself. Were the truth known, the it might well turn out that causes of war, prejudices, exclusions, and deprivation all issue from the same evil root. Dallying won't do any good. Superficial measure won't do any good. Mere well-wishing is not enough. This too is a job for man **and** God. As we overcome the roots of anamosity, so will we be that much more able to seek God. As we move toward God, so will we be all the more empowered to overcome the causes of anamosity. There is no other way.

our
What it all amounts to is this: that chief career
must come to be the career of seeking Man and God,
our main work must come to be this work. Not by
"profession" alone but by practice. This must be it.
This must be what we are living for. And we must have
the understanding, the courage and the faith to life
this way singly, firm in our religious integrity, and
uncompromising with Max Mammon in all shapes and forms.
This, and this alone, is the hope of the world.

In my first paragraph I said that Christ promised
peace. He did nothing of the sort, except to those
who have attained union with God. For the rest of us
he gave his work, he laid down and opened the way by

which we can seek and find God. He put in our hands
the tools and methods with which to do this sacred
work. He told us to work hard and with single purpose.
There is no peace in such work. There is struggle,
hardship, suffering, out of which we are occasionally
called up to heaven. Because of what we are and are
not, this world is a purgatory, not a place of
bliss. It is a workshop, not a realm of peace.
It is a farm,

I said we promised ourselves peace. We do nothing
of the sort. We promise ourselves - if we promise
ourselves anything real at all - the opportunity to
do the work of Man and God. We evaluate conditions -
if we evaluate them at all in terms of the true
standards - in the light of whether they meet help
or hinder our essential undertaking. One one knows
enough to do what external conditions are best for man.
We may be absolutely sure in his judgements. It may
be that a peacful world we would fall down on the job.
We may need prods, and whips occasionally, and adversity
in a word, creative stress.
Of many kinds. I think we do. However this may be,
let us hold fast to what we living for, and live
whichever comes to us.
Accordingly, This is our business - to seek first
the kindgom of God - and not bother too much about
whether the other things are added to us or not.
This is world is a farm,

If I say I am peaceful, most people will understand what I mean. Most people will have a fairly correct idea of what I feel. They have felt peaceful at times. But if I say I want peace, I doubt that a single person will know what I mean, though he may assume that he knows. Indeed there is reason for asking if I myself know what I mean.

I have heard parents say to children who were making noise and running in and out - There must be peace in this house. What did the parents mean? A mere absence of racket and commotion? I have heard MAXXAY people declare - There must be peace in the world. What do they mean? An absence of large scale armed warfare? Surely we cannot be satisfied with negative definitions. we attain Neither will be satisfied with any positive accomplishments unless we envision a positive condition, and come to some agreement as to what it is.

By peace do we mean the peace that passeth understanding? Vyer few mean this. The majority have in mind something far less, a rather mundane and external MAXXAY condition.

peace? How are we to attain it?

There is general agreement that peace means the absence or large scale armed conflict, the presence of a somewhat orderly and functioning society. The emphasis in most cases is not on peace as such, but on the life that can be lived under peaceful conditions. In other words, peace is regarded as a means to something more important. The question is - what is this more important "something"? At this point disagreement is likely to occur. Is it merely the gratification of personal desires? Is it, rather, the often unconscious urge of men toward their own soul, a search for truth and reality, a questing for God? In most of us there is a mixture of the two. Partly we are thinking only of our little selves and little lives; partly we can not escape wanting to transcend just these little selves. It is because we waiver between these two that we attain neither ordinary peace nor the peace that passeth understanding.

people of the world will agree. Most people regard
peace as a more or less external condition of society.
They want this condition because then, so they feel
and hope, they will be able to do what they want to do.
In other words, people regard peace as a means to some-
thing else. In their minds, this "something else" is
the important thing.

Having defined the kind of peace that most people
mean when they say they want peace, the matter before
us now is to find out what are the prospects that this
kind of peace will be attained in the not too distant
future. To this end, let us keep in mind that we must
consider both aspects of the proposition, namely, the
prospects of abolishing large scale armed warfre,
and of establishing a somewhat orderly and functioning
society which will serve as means to that all-important
something else.

War, as everyone knows, has had a formidable continuity
throughout what we know of man's history. This is a grim
and sobering fact. It should not, I think, weaken our
conviction that war can be eliminated, but it should
check those who are over optimistic in the belief that
this war will be the last. What is called for, as I see
it, is neither pessimism nor optimism but an enlightened
to
realism which takes in account both the fact that war
is a deep-seated MUMM disease of very long standing,
and the inherent possibly of human beings to overcome

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this and all the others plagues of the flesh and spirit.

The very first thing for us to do is precisely to regard war as a disease. Some people do. Some don't. I doubt that MM much headway will be made until the majority do. This attitude will take the false glamor out of war. Of more importance, it will enable MM us to have and to hold the physician's approach to the trouble - detached, and at the same time having a vital concern. Whereon, we will examine the "patient", namely, ourselves, with the aim of discovering the cause of the trouble and then resolutely applying first, effective checks, and then effective cures. Of course, some of us have been doing, or trying to do just this for some time; but not enough people have been doing it daily and through the years.

Is the real root-cause of war known? I doubt it. I think that is still to be uncovered. But we do know many of the contributing causes. Among these we may list the following: internal conflicts in people; psychological frustration; greed; deprivation; egotism and vainglory; the desire to "get away with it"; rivalries among the war lords; economic systems that pit men against each other; our rather strange ideas of "honor" and "insult"; the seemingly unceasing contests between the "haves" and the "have-nots"; all sorts of beliefs and practices connected with race, nation, class, creed. Certainly these known contributing causes are enough for us to

go to work on. But will we? Judging by what people
have done - and have failed to do - in the past, the
outlook is not particularly promising. People want
peace. There is no doubt of this. But there is grave
doubt that people either are or will be thoroughly
willing to undertake what is required of them, for
what is required is) that they exist, no, not in war,
not yet in peace, but in an active and often painful
struggle with themselves to purge from themselves the
very causes of war which we have just mentioned. I am
very much afraid that the desire for peace is by no
means as strong as the disinclination to cure oneself
of the causes of the disease of war. Yet this must
be done; otherwise the disease will remain, and it will
break out again. War-prevention begins at home.

I do not minimize the need of a sane, just, and
workable economic system throughout the world. But
I ask - How is such a system even to be devised, much
less put into practice, unless individual human beings
work upon themselves to change themselves? No one can
reasonably expect such a system to come about of itself.
No one can reasonably expect any political economic or
political system to effect a thorough catharsis of
people. Our external "systems" are but projections of
what we are, and are not. The present systems came out
of us, because that was the way we were. If any different
or better systems are to be born they can only be born

of us because we, in ourselves, have become different
and better human beings.

I realize the need of a really functioning real
League of Nations. War is not only a matter of individuals
but of huge groups and nations on a vast scale. Therefore
a large scale world-organization is necessary if another
war is to be checked. But, in the first place, I am
not at sure that such an organization will ever really
come into effective operation unless individuals the
world over change enough to really want it to. I am
sure that should such a World-State become an accomplished
fact, the most it will be able to do is precisely to
check war, not at all to uproot the causes of war.
It will delay another war, but not profoundly and
thoroughly prevent war. Such check, suc delay will
prove invaluable, but only if and as each one of us
temporary
uses the absence of war-conditions as an opportunity
to work upon himself as he has never worked before.

It is perfectly clear to me that inorder to have
peace in the world, and/or peace within, you and I
who
and however else wants these conditions, must become
By
peaceable human beings. I peaceable I mean able to
be at peace with oneself and with the world. Now it is
obvious, of course, that one reason for our present
disability in this respect is due to the verywhere
prevalent conflicted and warring condition of the outside
world. But it is equally true, though not so obvious,

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that another and even more potent reason for our disability
is *that* to be found in our inward conditions of
conflict and warfare. Were God to make our environment
utterly peaceful, there is no doubt *that* we would
be, in consequence, more peaceful within ourselves, for
a time. But neither is there doubt that the deep causes
of war would remain in us, liable to break out at any
would
time. Indeed we soon fight or do something else
if only
violent to break the boredom of that peaceful world.

We are unable to be peaceable,
are
but all too capable of making war within ourselves
and against others because we continue to seek
the advantages for the

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to recognize, much less fully realize, the work that
must be done in the world and upon themselves if war
be to be eliminated and a serviceable
is to abolished and a somewhat orderly and functioning
society come into being, it does not seem likely that
either of these results will be obtained, in next
fifty or a hundred years. In saying this, I am of course
speaking of my impression of the general situation as
it is today.

Things may change. Something may happen so that
large numbers of people will awake and take active
part in the two works. I believe in miracles, that is,
in the unexpected operation of the unpredictable
spiritual powers of man. The very horrors and
difficulties of the situation just may be the outward
causes of a most miraculous happening throughout
the entire race of mankind. There may be a veritable
ressurrection and new birth. I devotely hope so.

main part of this writing considered
In the body of this writing I have spoken mainly
of the peace that the majority of people seem to
mean and want when they say they want peace. Now at
work like to say
own
the close a few words about my own individual attitude.

It is significant that this individual attitude

Peace has no meaning as a merely external condition.
Peace has to do with our inner experiences and states
of being. It exists when there is real meaning in our
lives and work, even though there be suffering in these
lives, even though the work is that of creative struggle.

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is what this world is, a purgatory, a workshop.

Therefore let us evaluate conditions accordingly. Let us not ask, out of fixed notions of what we think they ought to be, either for peace-time or for war-time conditions. Rather let us ask for whatever conditions will best help us in our essential undertaking as human beings and children of our Father. This is the thing to put first - our essential undertaking, Christ's work, our work. Let us try to see everything else in relation to this.

Who knows enough to be absolutely sure just what circumstances favor, and just what hinder, our basic purpose? I have my opinions. Indeed I have my convictions. I shall not give them up unless, by experience and reasoning and new light, I am otherwise convinced. Yet I say to myself, it might be that in a peaceful world, were such possible, we would fall down on the job and go to sleep. We may need to be stirred up. We may need prods, and whips occasionally, and adversity of many kinds. In a word, we may need creative stress. I think we do. However this may be, let us hold fast to what we are really living for, and live accordingly, whatever comes to pass. This is our business - to seek first the kingdom of God - and not bother too much about whether the other things are added unto us or not.