“We may not see eye-to-eye, but we can speak heart-to-heart.” So began Colman McCarthy on a recent drizzly March evening, addressing 100 folks who turned up to hear him talk on “Peacemaking in the Home, School and Community.” For an hour and a half, he discussed the commitment required for peace, peace-illiteracy in America and specific actions we can be taking on behalf of our children to become a more peace-literate society. His stories were poignant and sprinkled with humor, and he invited ideas and stories from those who came to listen.

McCarthy laid out three requirements of peace: prayer, service and non-violence. He defined prayer as cooperation with our own gifts, which requires us to keep asking, “Am I using my gifts well?” and then acting on the answers. In other words, prayer is an action.

Service is the second requirement of peace, said McCarthy. He strongly promoted expecting service from kids at early age, noting that the experiential knowledge of service sticks much longer than anything that can be learned in a classroom. He asserted that service helps make the connection between the suffering we see and the policies that create it; kids will learn to ask why it is happening, and who allows it to happen, he said.

Finally, McCarthy addressed non-violence, probing the question of whether we can teach peace. (See below for the link to his related Star Tribune opinion piece on bullying.) He talked about how Americans are peace-illiterate, the level of conflict in American families, the hypocrisy of some famous peacemakers who treated their own families badly and the outrageous current military budget, which pumps money into killing rather than healing.

McCarthy's call to action for the evening was that we go and demand the study of peace in our schools and advocate student organizing. "Unless we teach them peace, somebody else will teach them violence," he warned.

For the last half hour, McCarthy took questions, and often asked the questioner their own opinion. Topics ranged from the difference between non-violence and pacifism, to the effect of gender on violent behavior, to the meaning of patriotism.

McCarthy concluded by reading The Paradoxical Commandments, by Dr. Kent M. Keith, which includes, “The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.” And he added his own admonition: “You do not need to change the world – just keep the world from changing you.”

Connie Lanphear has been attending SJA since 1990 – first as a single person, then married with kids, now single with kids. She lives near the river in Minneapolis with her two grade-school aged daughters and two cats. Most recently, she has worked in communications for two environmental organizations and has just launched a freelance business offering writing, editing and graphic design. Her hobbies include yoga, rowing, reading, stained glass, knitting and working (endlessly) on her house.

Colman McCarthy is a former Washington Post columnist, and founder and director of the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. He has taught classes in peace studies for 20 years at colleges including Georgetown University, the University of Maryland, College Park, American University, The Catholic University of America and at a variety of high schools in Washington D.C. as well as Bethesda, MD.

To read McCarthy's 4/28/07 Star Tribune opinion piece, “To battle the tradition of bullying,” visit http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1083451.html.

Rich Ryan is a new member of SJA's webteam. Rich owns a photography business, Rich Ryan Photography in south Minneapolis, http://www.richryan.com.