Peace & Justice – Issue 3.1

Be the Change: Peace,
Justice, and Compassion

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” — The Dalai Lama

This issue of Peace & Justice is about how you can employ the tools of understanding to create compassionate changes in our world.

We hope you enjoy these articles, and that you will share them with your family and friends. Seattle Peace Chorus invites you to subscribe to this newsletter. Future issues will be full of interesting articles, photographs, and videos on themes that emphasize the desire that you share with us for a more just and peaceful world: Subscribe here.

Non-hostile Communication

Hostile communication, especially online, seems to characterize our present climate. It’s everybody’s responsibility to care for how our words can make a difference.

Parole ostili, Italian for “hostile words,” is a social awareness project against the use of hostile language in online forums. In addition to establishing programs in schools and businesses, they publish a ten-point manifesto and invite everyone to sign it.

  1. Virtual is real
    On the Internet, I only write or say what I would dare to say in person.
  2. You are what you communicate
    The words I choose define who I am. They represent me.
  3. Words shape the way I think
    I take all the time I need to express my views in the best possible way.
  4. Listen before you speak
    No one can always be right, and nor am I. I listen, with an honest and open-minded attitude.
  5. Words are bridges
    I choose words to understand, make myself understood and get close to others.
  6. Words have consequences
    I am aware that what I say or write can have consequences, small or serious.
  7. Share with care
    I share texts and image only after I have read, assessed and understood them.
  8. Ideas can be discussed.
    People must be respected
    Those whose views and opinions differ from mine are not enemies to be destroyed.
  9. An insult is not an argument
    I accept no offensive and aggressive words, even if they support my point of view.
  10. Silence says something too
    When it’s better to keep quiet . . . I do.

More information (in English) is at paroleostil.it

Resources on Change, Justice, and Compassion

Web sources
Books

Organizations Working on This Issue

  • Doctors without Borders, caring for people affected by conflict, disease outbreaks, natural and human-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.
  • Be The Change, a collective of positive, conscious artists all sharing a basic belief in the good of humanity.
  • UNICEF, braving war zones, treacherous terrain, disasters, and disease to make the world safe for kids.

Quotes about compassion

“Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.” — Bhagavad Gita

“Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” — Nelson Mandela

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa

Announcements

Mark your calendars! Seattle Peace Chorus will present “Be the Change: Songs of Peace, Justice, and Compassion,” with Seattle Iranian Choir, directed by Afshin Sepehri.

Saturday 19 November 2022, 7:30 pm, and Sunday 20 November 2022, 3:30 pm, at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.

Come 30 minutes before the concert to hear a guest Iranian speaker giving the story of the current women’s uprising in Iran.

We sing songs affirming the universal rights of justice and freedom, with the desire for peace and compassion toward all people and the planet that sustains us all.

These concerts are supported by:

Thank You for Supporting Seattle Peace Chorus!

We thank everyone who chose to support Seattle Peace Chorus . . .

The work we do for peace through music runs in, through, and around everything. With peace there is a better chance to meet the climate crisis. With peace, there is a better chance to meet all the human needs of the planet. The ripple effect is endless. Peace through music increases the chances of this happening exponentially. Music sings to the very heart of everything we want and hold dear.

Donating to the Seattle Peace chorus not only helps bring the messages of peace and understanding to our communities and world, it’s also easy to do! We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so donations are tax-deductible. Our identification number is 91-1380540.

Words from our Director . . .

Frederick N. West

There are formulas for how to measure land, how to determine the third side of a triangle and how to determine what is wrong with one’s car engine.

NASA has determined where best to park the James Webb telescope in an area of space where the gravity of Earth and Sun pull in equal measure. The Lagrange points of space keep the wonderful infra-red telescope from being assaulted by the heat of the sun. Rotate around the sun with the Earth and you will be fine.

There are engineers busy designing our light rail system and we watch as it appears to take shape and determine present and future motion of passengers.

There are computers busy with algorithms determining our shopping patterns and an entire myriad of calculations enter into our lives.

Where then is the formula for Peace, our most treasured concept where everyone beneath vine and fig be at Peace and unafraid.

Peace may just begin then as it does in the Mission of Seattle Peace Chorus as a desire, multiplied by human voices into vibrations for inspired song.

With song comes a beginning of a dialogue with the listener.

Peace may only begin with a sense of fairness that the community works for.

Justice would be the Lagrange point then in space where all people were equally participating in our democracy and the democracy was felt to be fair and defended and provided for as such.

All people then could feel the equal warmth of the sun and the blessing of crops, the fairness of wages, labor and availability of food and lodging, health and freedom.

And thus we sing to engergize ourselves and the commons with messages of Peace, with energy for Justice and with appetite and zeal for Freedom.

Not ever having perfection we still work with the tools of our democracy and the freedom to express ourselves.

We sing for Peace, we sing for Justice, and we take off our hats and honor all those who have walked before us on the road to compassion for the trials of others.

Find a balance with the beauty and majesty of the Earth’s orbit and we might just make it.

Work for fairness in all things.

Peace will sprout as the result of our toil and devotion.

Start with your neighbor and the larger neighbors will follow.

Be the Change!

Action Ensemble Corner

Dale Rector

After an enforced “dormant” period during the pandemic, with regard to in-person events — we did provide successful virtual performances a few times — SPC’s Action Ensemble is excited to be out singing again, as the more activist arm of the chorus. On 24 September, AE singers joined an “Anti-Nuclear Rally and March” from Cal Anderson Park to the Federal Building. “Citizens for the Universal Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” sponsored the event. AE participants led singing during the march, handing out lyrics as they went, and sang/led three songs at the culminating rally. Our larger SPC chorus originally formed back in the 80s to oppose nuclear weapons development. Now, threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine War bring new urgency to continue to resist this ultimate danger to peace on our planet.

On 8 October AE participated in the Rally to Defend Abortion Rights in downtown Seattle. This action was organized by Seattle Democratic Socialists of America and Seattle Green Wave. Eleven or so AE members participated along with another 350 or so people, who rallied at Cal Anderson Park and then marched to Pike Place Market and then on to Steinbrueck Park. The crowd was young, and alternated their own well-organized, vibrant chants with songs led by AE, as everyone moved forward. Marchers were strident in opposition to the recent Supreme Court decision that struck down the Roe vs. Wade precedent, taking away a key right that every woman in the U.S. had enjoyed for the last 50 years.

On 18 October, AE singers were invited to sing at an evening event at the UW HUB entitled “War, Peace and Resistance in Poetry and Song.” Our Ensemble, with eight participants, performed three songs directed by Miriam Blau and accompanied by Nedra Gaskill. This event culminated a month-long exhibit at the HUB, hosted by Seattle Veterans for Peace Chapter 92. Its purpose: to remind the public about what resistance to the Vietnam War looked like back then, as a way of educating students and other young people who might not have a clear idea. Special kudos to Miriam, who has stepped in for this event to help out while regular director Doug Balcom protects against a special vulnerability to Covid.

All of you in the SPC Community — please remember: The SPC Action Ensemble exists to provide a channel for regular chorus members, and anyone who has sung in the chorus in the past, to sing out in relation to a specific issue(s) that particularly moves them, with the aim of securing and defending peace and social justice in our nation and the world. Please watch for coming events and don’t hesitate to call 612-327-6515 or 651-503-3402 (Dale and Sue Hurley Rector) if you want to join up or have questions.