Send Love to Syria

If you want to change the world you have to see the world as your family.  I haven’t seen the image of the child who has awoken many people to feel compassion for Syrian refugees.  I don’t have t.v. and tend to just follow my own feeling.  However the information came to me.  In Melbourne there was a candle vigil for refugees.  I am warmed that people are awakening to their common humanity with other humans who are fleeing intolerable conditions. 

Gareth Evans speaks of the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect.  He is right, until all nations can come together and take responsibility for upholding the values of a united nations.  What you do to one you to do all.  Until we can see ourselves in each other, see everyone as a brother and sister, then we are still living in separated states of existence.

I remember visiting refugee camps in the north of Thailand.  People were fleeing the Burmese army in the jungles of Burma.  I met activists such as backpacking doctors giving medical treatment in difficult conditions.  I met backpacking teachers teaching the Karen in the jungles.  I met so many brave people reaching out to vulnerable people.  In the Ma Lae camp I was part of the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Program in Bangkok.  They allowed me to clown with an American in the camp.  She had theatre training.  We clowned around this 50,000 refugee camp to bring hope and smiles to people.  We did funny walks, juggling, mime and generally brought good will to people.  The children were so happy.  For me this is peace making.  I had an experience in a Cambodian slum where I clowned with Cambodian children in a makeshift school. I met their parents in a market and connected through fluffy balls and music played by my friend Pasky who played tablar drums.  We spread love and joy like the pied piper.  I never forget getting into the car to go the airport.  The translator tells me ‘this is like a movie’, he was shocked.  Meanwhile two little boys are chasing the car.  It suddenly dawned on me that the kids were chasing this dream, they were not wanting the clowns to go away.  So I put my hand out the window and the little boy and I touched fingers.  I then had a realisation that connection is the real peace work.  So I put my hand out again and gave him a puppet.  He stopped running.  In that moment that little boy was my teacher of peace.  He was a poor child in a slum with nothing, no running water and diseases to deal with.  Even the one toilet was absolutely horrific, very dirty.  Yet I saw the beauty in the people and the children.  I saw the innocence of smiles.  The willingness to accept the diversity of a clown and a Sri Lankan clown.  It is a moment I reported with tears to Rotarians in Bangkok.  It was a moment in my life I will never forget as it taught me peace.

You cannot teach peace through war.  As Byron Katie states all war must be put down on paper.  It is not intelligent.  I can not longer accept war stories as the future.  We must create a new story of conflict resolution.  We have to learn to question our own negative thinking and we have to be able to communicate not when it serves us or for some purpose but in the moments we really don’t want to talk.  For those are the moments when your pain blocks resolution.  All resistance to resolution masks beliefs about another that are not true.  Until you question for truth (www.thework.com) you cannot see the truth.  When we are angry, when we are right the other wrong, when we ignore calls for discussions it is us at war and that war is generated within, it has nothing to do with the other.  When you approach a problem with peace in your mind you start to see the confusion in the other.  You realise that they innocently believe their thoughts that they think they are doing the right thing.  Yet any violence or negativity in truth is a projection and it comes from unquestioned fears.  All defence is an act of war.  When you drop your arms (alms) you come to a situation without weapons you are standing in a state that appears vulnerable.  Yet there is no greater power when you are open to the other side.  When you realise that what you do for another you do for yourself as we are One world, one breath, one family and one planet in a solar system.  Is what we think true?  Can you be absolutely sure that it is true?  How do you feel how do you react when you believe the thought?  Who would you be without the thought?  Turn all thoughts around to yourself, the other and the opposite and look for 3 genuine reasons why the opposite is true.  This is where enlightenment to yourself opens.  This is The Work of Byron Katie.  It is one of the paths to freedom.

I have come to understand that love heals.  As  a World Peace Clown having travelled the world I saw the beauty in every face I met. I see the equality as I am just a clown.  I see the humour and silliness of the human condition and I love it.  I met people from so many cultures, hugged so many, I saw my family in their families.  I saw the real world and it was breathtaking.

From the sky I had the opportunity to look at this magnificient planet.  Some wonderful memories were seeing the Nile and the desert of Egypt from the sky.  Flying in to Cairo seeing the geometric pyramids rising out of the desert.  I clowned with Egyptians in Cairo and made good friends there.  I clowned in an Indian shopping centre.  People couldn’t believe we were clowning for free to spread peace and love.  I’ve juggled for street children with swollen tummies being seen as children rather than beggars.  Beautiful moment.  I juggled up in the mountains of Costa Rica with children of all ages, teaching about peace around the world.  I had nowhere to stay and a wonderful American woman Suzie gave me a bungalow to stay in for free.  I met kids in Bolivia and spoke of my journey.  I clowned at a Bolivian wedding putting a little yellow duck in the hat of one of the women with her bowler hat.  I met a wonderful Muslim girl in Alexandra who paid my bus fair as I didn’t have money, she wanted to explore the world.

So what I am saying here folks is the world is our family.  Think of what good you can do for Syria and simply do it.  Show them love.  Let love lead this world and we will never weaken to fight any more.

Teach peace in schools and at work.  Let’s make peace and harmony the foundation to a good life rather than greed and the extension of power.  Can we find the good, the holy and the beautiful in all hearts.  As you be the change the world will naturally follow.

Peace to you from a peace clown xxxx