My Commitment to Peace - Hearth and Home

By Paula Zayco Aberasturi

There are bush fires right where I live, as the sun keeps igniting parched grass. They say Mars, planet of strife has conjoined with the sun, under the sign of Aries, sign of fire. Yesterday, the earth trembled in Iran. And I cannot count the number of hotheads I just ran into. A friend was the object of infuriated messages for things unintended. Another person incensed because people had neglected respect and propriety. And then of course, there was the Marathon Madness. The last few days have constantly played to the theme: fire. Will someone please douse the world with cool? Beat out the flames. Spread some Peace?

Yet. How does one spread peace when much closer to home, we kindle the fire? And I don’t mean the country. Closer to home. Just today I snapped at my daughter. She wanted me to print a picture, on my brand new printer. The paper jammed and my state-of-the-art printer was suddenly belching out uneven dots instead of straight lines. And so I screamed at her. As though the broken printer was her doing. She later asked her nanny to send me a message: Turn that frown upside down Mama.” And the hot-tempered mama’s heart broke.

So, what about world peace? This is my everyday and peace here, is a pipe dream.  I cannot stop the war in my house. Especially, I cannot resolve the fighting I plan and carry out in my head.  And so, I expect the roadmap to peace, pipedream or not, starts much closer to home. World peace is yet too grand. It’s the stuff of perfect worlds and beauty pageants. I imagine that peace will have to begin inside out.

I.e. Learning to listen with compassion. When fearful or angry, knowing whom to snap at: printer and not child. (My inner essence just keeps getting jammed somewhere, and I expel crooked instead of perfect.) Being less resentful of husband, even when I will be waking up at dawn, as the roosters crow.

Let there be enough cool heads at home. And maybe, in the fullness of time, we could douse the world with cool. Extinguish the flames inside out. Peace.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

Paula Zayco Aberasturi is a licensed lawyer from the Philippines. After seven years of working for notable law firms engaged in corporate law and banking, she now devotes her law practice to research, writing, advocacy and forging partnerships for the advancement of ecological conservation, responsibility and sustainability. Also a student of James O Dea’s five-month Peace Ambassador Course, she also hopes to see her practice unfold towards using the framework of restorative justice and non-violent communication.