peace.

"Peace is not just the absence of war. Like a cathedral, peace must be constructed patiently and with unshakable faith." (John Paul II)


but when we switch on the television, we are bombarded by the images in the Mediterranean, countries such as Syria, Egypt, Israel...where peace just seems like a word lost in their vocabulary. JP II once said that if the Mediterranean can find peace, then the whole world will be at peace. The place where peace needs to start because there it is hardest to attain. On the 15th-17th of May, I attended a conference on the economic, cultural and spiritual prospectives among the cities, regions, and people of the Mediterranean through the John Paul II foundation.

 

7 hours of speeches, with a few breaks, endless desserts, wine, catered food. But obviously I'm not here to talk about how much food I ate or how much patience I needed to sit for 2.5 hours listening to men who spoke so fast in italian. And yes these politicians, presidents of universities, mayors, or ambassadors were almost all men-a good 95 %. In the western-European society, people seem to think that men and women are equal. That's a joke to whoever thinks that way. But anyways it was incredible to be able to attend such an event because through experiences they shared about the past, present, and future of the Mediterranean, each and every person had a desire to work towards a better world, where the world can be one family. A few notes that I jotted down that some of them said for the work towards PEACE..

" we must think in the place of the OTHER."

One of the speakers: M. Twal said Europe in general just feeds money to the Mediterranean thinking that that's what they need, but they need to take the step to place themselves in the other's shoes, and ASK what they actually need. And what they really need is the education of how to make democracy their reality, how to work towards this opportunity.

 -Gandhi once said, "Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachment to our opinions: we want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want NOTHING for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into other's needs and understand how to serve them."

"we must educate the young, the future."

Many speakers mentioned the importance of education of the future because it is really where all the prejudices, fears, and judgements start, if one is not educated with the truth. For example, if someone is taught when they are young that to hate a certain race or religion, then when they grow up it will be incredibly difficult to not have that mentality. That's where the problems of the Mediterranean start, the mentality of each and every person. So continuing on from the education of the young as it was mentioned numerous times as the way to work towards peace.

but it was Jean Benjamin Sleiman (Archbishop of Baghdad) who grabbed my attention because he said,
but who educates the young?
it's the women in our society,
we need to teach woman how to be a REAL woman. Many will say yes, women and men, but in reality, the women spend the most time with the young.

How often do we see in our society that woman are below men as a secretary, maid, assistant, or on the television, commercials, internet, our eyes are plastered with images that show women with perfect skin and hair, with a certain figure and with barely any clothes on, or in the music videos, they are seen as objects to satisfy the pleasures of the opposite sex, the list really goes on...

As a woman, I am subject to this image in the society, but I choose not to follow the current of the society, but to act upon it, to dress in a manner that I'm respected, to maintain a certain physique not by dieting and not eating carbs because I need to look a certain way, but by exercising because it is actually vital to my health...and making my voice heard and acknowledged....

because even here, living with 40 girls around the world, everyday I here someone saying they need to lose weight because they can't fit into their pants no more, or they have a belly, and obviously would much rather that it was perfectly flat...obviously I understand, but why do we think that way as women?
because that's all our minds are filled with each and everyday...on the television, in magazines, in commercials...

for me when I arrived, I went on a run every morning at 6:15am, but eventually some others also wanted to start exercising with me. But obviously for most people, it is really difficult to wake up that early, so I said to myself, that because I want to share this passion to everyone, to think of other's before myself, that even though I would prefer to do exercise in the morning, I sacrificed what I wanted, and began exercising with the girls. And each time someone comes to me and tells me that they want to do exercise, I say to them straightout, "you're not doing exercise because you want to lose weight? ....... because it doesn't work, you got to do it because you want to have a healthy lifestyle." That's where it starts, changing the mentality of the person is what needs to be done to bring about CHANGE. we can't just talk and talk, but we need to ACT, to DO, to CHANGE.

that's it, the Focolare Movement, not only tries to bring Unity among religions, or in the economy, as I have written in my past posts, but also in the area of Politics. A branch of the Focolare Movement, called Movement for Unity in Politics which wants to contribute to building peace and unity.