“So, we just come and do what we like?” The girl’s tone sounded like an honest question.
He smiled, “Exactly.” He rose and put his foot on the seat, leaned his crossed arms on the raised knee and faced the girl. “Throughout human history, all the trouble and wars have been caused by leaders. The path to making peace is doing all we can to weaken every leader over us, and every leader around us, and every leader with so much as the potential to touch our lives. We must dedicate ourselves to acting leaderless.”
“Dude, we in a government school, in a state which does everything possible to prevent alternative education schemes.” One young man was catching on.
He straightened up and began slowly threading his way among the broken desks in a wide circle around the group of students. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking there is some well defined goal in all of this. Making peace in the world is not an objective, but a commitment regardless of consequences.”
The smallest boy in the group said, “So if we don’t need leaders, why do we need to you to explain it?”
He chuckled, “I’m glad so many of you are actually awake.” He took a few more slow steps in his circuitous route. “I’m not leading you. The only way you can be a peacemaker is if it lives in you already. All I do is share my own perception of things from a much longer base of experience. I am surely wrong on some things, but it’s the best I know.”
He stopped at a vantage point where he could see all their faces at once. “If making peace lives in you, my words will only awaken it. If what I say grabs hold of you, not in the desire to be my disciples, as it were, but calling you to your own fire, your own plans, then I succeed. I am making peace.”
He gestured with his hands inclusively of the crowd. “If to any of you I sound like a rambling fool, then you aren’t actually a member of the club, regardless of what the forms in the office say. You are certainly free to hang around, play along, or even make trouble if you wish, but you won’t actually be a part of what happens in the long run.”
He glanced meaningfully at the teacher. “Depending on whether your actions afflict this lady’s conscience, you may get into some sort of trouble for some things you might do. You’ll have to negotiate with her, but not with me. If this doesn’t interest you, nothing I can say or do will make it work. But if by now some spark has been lit in your minds, this meeting will be its own reward. You’ll come back next week ready to discuss your own ideas, and I’ll gradually fade farther and farther into the background. You will each lead yourselves in making peace.”
He held up his left hand, palm out. The thumb was extended directly horizontal, the first two fingers were almost straight, and not quite together. The other two fingers were limply curved. The gesture itself was almost indistinct. “Make peace.” Then he abruptly turned and left the room.
