“I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”  (Helen Keller (1880-1968)

“I am more interested these days in creating peace than in fighting those who created this war and want it to continue.  Now I am interested in strategies that create peace through reconciliation…. I’m going off to study peace, reconciliation and healing.” Diary, July 5, 2005

Today is the day of the London bombing.  It is hard not to see it through the memories of the Omagh bombing, August 15, 1998.  I have been crying all day.  The editor boyfriend says we are all children of the same God, and feeling like a child during times like this is the proper orientation.  What God allowed this to happen today?  How do you stop a war?  How do you prevent the next one?  Call this diary “The Methodology of Peace.

TWENTYONE YEARS AGO IN NORTH CAROLINA

Twenty-one years ago I was working in the education department of a major hospital in North Carolina – as an adjunct to the Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery, Infant death & disability was so bad in NC at the time that it rivalled Albania.

So I started a book project, “Reducing Infant Death & Disability in North Carolina, A Community Approach.”  I defined the problem as having 13 causes… and I went to the TOP experts in those 13 fields, and asked them to contribute no more than 6 pages on their topic/target area/solution strategies.  This project resulted in a very good little book and everyone was most pleased with the community effort to save children’s lives.

The fellow who contributed the chapter on Nutrition had worked in the LBJ administration.  The woman who wrote the chapter on Preventing Teenage Pregnancy was the head of that project in Raleigh, NC at the time.  There were chapters on Transportation (most prenatal clinics were beyond the reach of low-income women) Employment Advocacy (many employers would not give pregnant women time off for pre-natal care)

There was a chapter on the Prevention of Preterm Labor.  This was an extremely important chapter, as the administration of labor-stopping drugs to women in pre-term labor could have damaging effects on mother and child.  The inside dope on this problem was the lowest intervention possible:  Native American women knew that if a woman is in pre-term labor the cure is to rest her on her left side, hold her hand and to get her to drink as much water as is humanly possible.  Imagine!! Saving lives without dangerous and expensive drugs!

At the end of that year, because of projects targeting problem areas in NC health care and access to care, and lobbying efforts, and improvements in medicine, most importantly developments in natural and synthetic lung surfactants for premature infants, the infant death and disability rates for that one hospital improved by 100 more children saved.  That was 2,100 lives ago.

HOW DO YOU STOP A WAR?

Well, the way that worked in 1984 is the same way I plan to approach this one.  Go to the top experts and ask them to contribute no more than 6 pages.  “How Do You Stop A War?”  When I say I’m going to school, I mean it.  and my way of going to school is to ask those who know.  I am going back to the childhood message I got from Dr. King about non-violence.  

He preached that message in the shadow of trees used for lynching.  He preached that message in front of the church where three little girls going to church got blown up by a bomb.  He preached that message when the US was rocked by hatred and violence.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

HOW DO YOU STOP A WAR?

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. — Dwight David Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. — Dwight David Eisenhower

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, the pursuit must go on. — John F. Kennedy

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. — Martin Luther King, Jr

And the one I’ll leave you with.  Can you believe that once there was a US President who said this?

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind…War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” — John F. Kennedy

BRING ME YOUR VIEWS.  HOW DO YOU STOP A WAR?

Anyone who wants to bring their answers here, or their resources of answers others have made to this question, you are sincerely appreciated.  And your answer is no more or less important than anyone else’s because you know as well as I that no one can stop a war, and unless a lot of someones try this impossible task perpetual war is what we have to look forward to.

“The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize the people.  We will not live in terror.”  Prime Minister Tony Blair, July 7, 2005

HOW DO YOU STOP A WAR?