As a Messenger of Peace for the UN, and UNESCO special counselor for “Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences”, how do envision your role in today’s world.
I think that it is everyone’s responsibility to be involved in one’s community. I’ve always been very skeptical about people that say: “I want to save the world, help others…” This is because to save the “world” is a Sisyphus project – too abstract to actually be put into practice. What is possible – and the most difficult task – is to first look at oneself and try to identify what’s wrong. Before searching for the other, one has to find oneself.
Being a messenger of peace is like being a reminder of something that defies power, something that runs deep inside all men’s soul. Peace, as well as justice, has a natural authority that given enough time and enough space, imposes itself. The challenge lies in the fact that too often we let our better judgment get crushed by too much fear, by too many scars.
You have to know deep in your heart that things cannot keep going the way they are.
Action is your only recourse.
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How do we find oneself? Do we have to go through a trauma in order to find ourselves?
Wouldn’t it be easier if we start an Early Child Care Education Programme such as the one implemented at Reggio Emilia Italy, considered an example around the world? Why dont we start lobbying our Education Department, our government and demand what we deserve. We all can vote, can’t we? One vote can make a difference.We can build from there and get the best from each culture for the betterment of our planet.
It is all in our hands.
Thanks Savita for that, you might want to follow-up on that perhaps?.
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I Agree to Mr. Coelho’s answer.
Particulary I remember that Jesus said to be kind to your “Prossimo” (in italian) (i.e. tha man who lives near you). That is an important advice.
Everyone is able to “love” those who are far,(there are non risk in doing so), but if everyone takes care of people who are close, it will create a sort of “net”, that will spread all over the world and could really bring positive energies.
Of course these energies are not those of oil or nuclear, but are , in the end, much more important.
Remember the exercise of the blue globe described in The Pilgrimage?
It is, in my opinion, an exercise to practise the words and advice of Jesus.
What do you think about Mr. Coelho?.
Have a nice day.
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You have to know deep in your heart that things cannot keep going the way they are.
Action is your only recourse.
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For a while I studied liberation theology and, for a time, considered taking up a PhD in the subject, or perhaps even a Master of Divinity. I thought I would, as you say, “save the world.” But this was the thing - the more time I spent locked in a room, sitting behind a desk, writing these highly philosophical papers on how to solve all the world’s ills and liberate all the world’s oppressed, the more I thought and thought and worked to put my thoughts to paper, the more impossible the project seemed and the farther removed I felt from reality. I began to see myself as this privileged intellectual safely ensconced in the tall tower of academia.
And the first generation of liberation theologians didn’t go about it in this manner anyway, I realized. They didn’t start with books and theories. They started where they were, deeply involved in the daily reality of the community, and the individual lives that made up that community. Action came first, theological reflection upon that action, after.
During one of the classes I took in liberation theology, I wrote a paper that detailed how much American’s “waste” each year on their pets - the millions they spend on these furry companions each year, and how far this money could go if directed to help children in poverty stricken parts of the globe. Again, trying to “save the world” with words. I had a lesson to learn, one that you might say snuck up on me slowly, and took me quite by surprise.
Some time after we moved to Texas, we were driving down the highway one day, when we saw this half-starved dog that looked like it had been hit by a car. At my daughter’s pleading, I stopped and picked it up. I thought, “What could it hurt? And it couldn’t cost that much to feed one dog.” What really surprised me was how quickly the she recovered from both the starvation and the bodily injuries. Within a few months she blossomed, from a pathetic mutt, little more than a walking skeleton, that no one wanted to touch, into a beautiful and graceful young dog that everyone now wants to adopt. What shocked me the most was how little it took really, how easy it was to give her life, because, in essence, that’s really what we did: She was, when we picked her up, on the verge of death, if not by starvation, then surely by the next car that came along. She was suffering horribly, and then in a very short while, she began to spring to life, like for the first time ever she knew what life really was.
It was so easy, to help this dog - to bring her from the brink of death to the promise of a good life - that the next time we saw a dog in a similar situation, this time one about to be run down in the middle of a freeway, I stopped and picked it up too. It had a huge gash in the top of it’s head and an infection in both eyes, from which he was rapidly going blind….At any rate, that was two years and twenty-something dogs ago. Now I work with a local agency on the agreement that whatever I pick up and nurse back to health they will adopt it out for me. Just this morning I took a tiny pup into the vet for the first time, so anemic from worms that it would have died soon without attention. It also had a broken leg that had already partially re-healed in the wrong position, and a terrible skin condition requiring multiple forms of medication. The puppy has been here at our house for four days now. At first it only stared off into space. Today it played for the first time, as though it actually began to feel like living, as though it realized that there might be something worth living for.
I know these are all very small victories, and the battle does not come without its tragedies. They can’t all be saved. And, in the end, they are (as many it seems would like to remind me) “just dogs.” They aren’t human beings. And, yes, there are definitely just as many human beings just as much in need of care. But the dogs are here. When I go out of my house, stray dogs are everywhere. I don’t have to “search” for one to save. I have only to decide which one looks like it needs saving the most - which is in the most dire need or most immediate danger. And I don’t have to go to another country in search of them; I don’t have to travel across the globe. God just puts them there beside the road, and I just pick them up and do whatever I can. And I know that whenever the story ends, whatever bit of good was done, it is more than would have been done otherwise. Even though there are lost battles at times, the war is still worth waging.
So, you see, I stopped trying to “save the world,” and at least for the time being, am concentrating my efforts on saving just one little lost mutt at a time. It is a small contribution, but solid. I can see with my own eyes the good that is done - it is real, not simply some abstract dream of changing the world.
Now my new motto, as I often jokingly say, is: A NEW DOG, A NEW DAY.
Sincerely,
And with much love,
Savita
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“Hey, hey I saved the world to day”.
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I feel so proud of our host here, Paulo Coelho for being a Messenger of Peace for the UN and special counselor for UNESCO and so many other ‘recognitions’ and living his life and writing and.. and .. and you still find time to ’spend’ with us here in the Blog.
‘KNOW THYSELF’: it was written in the entrance of DELPHI and it is said that it was given to people by Apollo.
As you say above, my dear Paulo Coelho, one has to find oneself.
Peace. It seems it is an attainable dream in Cyprus. So many years of war, conflict, division, have left their scars and fear in the souls of the people.
Love,
Thelma
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