Over the intervening week he got several email reports from the sponsoring teacher.
On the first morning after the last meeting, the students and staff were greeted by numerous brightly colored messages drawn in sidewalk chalk on the front steps, a couple of concrete walls and other fixtures. A few were simply, “Got Peace?” Some were more graphic, vaguely psychedelic, and one quite extensive in size and complexity. Each bore at least one of either the old peace sign, a dove, or olive branch, but always some variation on the sunrise emblazoned with “Peace Day Dawning”.
On another day, quite a few students showed up decorated with variously colored t-shirts with large peace signs and doves. On one sleeve everyone had the sunrise symbol again. The staff one morning found fresh cut flowers, one in each of their mailboxes in the lounge, with a simple card saying, “Peace!”
There were other creative expressions, but one in particular stood out. During a lunch period, a mixed quartet stood near an entrance with a boom box, and began singing very soulfully the old Chi-Lites tune, “Have You Seen Her?” However, the lyrics had been changed to make it clear the lady being sought was Peace. Half-way into the first verse, a girl slipped out of the ladies room nearby. She was dressed in a colorful psychedelic full body suit with numerous peace signs, over which she wore a diaphanous dress with long flowing sleeves. Atop her pixie-cut hair she wore a headband with doves mounted atop long springs, waving constantly with her movements. She darted around, touching the various singers who pretended they were trying to catch a glimpse of her. She kept this up, until the last verse, when she danced around in front of them, teasing as they reached for her, spinning away.
So it was no surprise when it became somewhat fashionable among the students to wear variations on some of the peace symbols, with a bit of the hippie-era revival of peace, love and flowers, and flashing the two-fingered salute.
At their next meeting, their greeting of him was a bit more enthusiastic. They had been quite busy and the response was fairly strong. He grinned broadly and allowed them to tell him about some of it. The group was well over twenty this time.
“So, you’ve at least created a certain flush of awareness. By no means could I criticize any of it. Excellent, all of it.” He sat down in the middle at his usual place. “You know, of course, most of this will die down.”
They agreed, and no one seemed to dampen much.
“Good. You understand this is just the first salvo. They know you are here, and what you are all about. I like your logo of the dawn. Keep that; use it in more places. It’s the branding for your message, which cannot be confined to just this one institution. We know everyone in the world deserves a chance to have Peace awakened in them, but we can reach only so far. As others are awakened, we want this to be inclusive, not just a thing you have here at this school. Indeed, this is something for the entire human race, and the symbol of dawn is fairly universal across cultures and languages.”
He stood. “Keep it harmless. Be obtrusive, but measure skillfully — artfully — how far you should push in each context. Peace has a thousand names, and does far more than just de-escalate tensions. Peace means doing the right thing all the time, everywhere. Another name is Love, or Compassion, or Charity, but always the aim is to awaken Peace in others.”
“Sounds like a religion,” one fellow said, laughing. He didn’t laugh alone.
He turned to face the lad. “As you know, the system is militant about dampening any religious expression on the taxpayer dime, so I’m not going to give you openly religious talk. Ask me about it privately; your sponsor will give you my email address. But you can figure out for yourself what it should mean for you in those terms.” He turned to face the rest of the students, slowly rotating to engage them all with his eyes. “There is nothing I can do to avoid making this sound like some sort of religion. It is most certainly all encompassing like one, making claims on your entire existence.”
He sat back down in his seat. “I know of few religions which don’t value peace on some level. In the long run, I strongly expect if you carry this even half so far as I am encouraging, you’ll get into trouble with every source of authority in your life — government, church, family — everyone will be at least inconvenienced by your choice to be a full time peace maker. Some will be openly hostile. You’ll have to find your own balance, your own level of commitment.”
A girl asked, “So if we want to make of this nothing more than another silly activity with friends, we can?” Her tone implied she had no such attention.
“It’s only what you make of it. If you want me involved, we’ll keep talking and doing the same way it’s gone so far. Otherwise we can contact one of the major peace institutes and get you a more traditional leader. There are hundreds of overpaid time wasters like that out there. But I warn you again: It won’t be Peace you are promoting, regardless of what you call it. If you really want peace, I believe I have some and I’m willing to share how I got it. You can’t have mine, but you can surely have your own. The last thing you should want is anyone else’s control, at least as you know of it in this world.”
