The source of all power and peace is love–of one’s Creator and subsequently of His creation. You can never get very far by reversing the process as people are too unlovable and the things and qualities most loved by many are too transitory, often creating frustration, anxiety and pain. On the other hand, a primary source of unhappiness and perpetual discontent is ingratitude of our innumerable blessings, great and small–(compared to what?) Show me an unhappy person and I’ll show you an ungrateful person who never notices the helpless people and miserable situations within their immediate surroundings and around the world and thought to themselves “there, but for God, go I.”
This is a common condition of those who have or especially have been given too much, by God and man (or woman as the case may be). In mankind’s infancy and in the more rural and under developed areas of this nation and abroad families and communities have always pulled together and still do so in crisis, only to come out fighting again from our respective corners at the sound of the bell’s tolling that the danger has passed.
Ingratitude also breeds such destructive elements as resentment, defined by Webster as “indignant displeasure” and envy, which is discontent at another’s successes or achievements, mingled with the desire for equal advantages, often without equal effort and investment in achieving them.
In mankind’s present stage of young adulthood, he continues to pray for peace while constantly waging war. Peace is of God; war is of man. The closer we draw to the one, and farther we move from the other. “The love of God surpasseth all understanding,” we read in the Holy Bible. This love is evidenced by the mercy (as opposed to justice) displayed in His bestowal of blessings on the good and bad, the obedient and the rebellious. As man’s love is too judgmental, we must strive to become as “hollow reeds from which the pith of self hath been blown, through which God’s love might flow to others” as beseeched in a favorite Baha’i prayer. The movement of the world toward unity and peace, however depends upon our ability to have the meaning and substance of the three onenesses (of God, of religion and the human race) infused into our individual lives and our collective consciousness and actions, we read in the Baha’i Holy Writings. “The virtues that befit man’s dignity are forbearance, mercy, compassion and loving kindness toward all the peoples and kindreds of the earth” the same as we would expect.
As we observe United Nations Day on October 24…May God hasten the day when we become spiritually mature enough to come together in times of peace as we are drawn together in times of war and crisis and to voluntarily unite in love as we are forced to unite when seeking protection from hate.
In our current scientific and technological maturity it is quite evident that “The word is indeed too small for anything but brotherhood, and far too dangerous for anything but peace–the broad pathway to which is love.”
