March 2022

Dear Friends,

For some time now, my phone alarm wakes me up to Sarah McLachlan singing, “The Prayer of Saint Francis”. I listen.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy…”

I believe in the power of prayer. Though I don’t subscribe to any formal religion (I find the dogma and righteousness off-putting) I am very spiritual. I believe we are all one coming from some great miraculous place interconnected and interdependent. I believe it is our dharma or purpose to come to know this truth and to live it. If we are all one then we would not hurt one another, we would not pollute and damage our planet, we would not try to control or punish each other. We would forgive. We would cooperate. We would love each other and the earth. This is the world I believe in deep down in my core, so seeing the opposite of that playing out just about everywhere I look (even in my own thoughts and actions sometimes!), is painful.

Can any one of us do anything meaningful to stop a war in a far off place? This war or the hundreds of other wars or conflicts causing death and destruction at this very moment? It often feels there is very little to do but despair that we humans are acting like this. I feel a war brewing inside of myself about how wrong this is and I begin to judge, even hate. I feel fear percolating from my brain and gut into my heart. My heart! I am a peace-loving person who at times, I notice, finds satisfaction in the killing of people who are on the other side.

I find myself sucked into a narrative of “us” versus “them”, again. It happens so easily. This is not the truth of who we are and yet our culture is one that constantly divides - are you a Democrat or Republican? Christian or a Jew? Black or white? Rich or poor? I am caught up in this delusion and catch myself thinking tactically, “how can we kill Russions without pissing off Putin enough that he decides to nuke the world?” This thinking is so far from my true nature as a loving being that I find myself sick. I am depressed and angry when I wake up if I read the news the night before. I am so mad and sad at the injustice. The pain and suffering of those in far off places affects me and I can’t sleep. I am at war inside of myself. I am not at peace.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”, I hear each morning and I ask, “How can I be that instrument of peace?” I want that, but I can’t stop the judgment and blame. I want this war and all wars and conflicts to end, then I could be at peace. I want everyone around me to act a certain way, then I could be happy and at peace. Can that happen? Can you all do that for me? Can we just stop this war so I can be at peace? Please?! I am scared.

I know as much as I want to I am not going to be able to stop this war or any of the senseless wars and conflicts tomorrow. I am not able to control the way other people act to make my life easier and more blissful and peaceful. I have to find that peace within myself. I can stop creating a war in myself and in my home because I am so angry about the war or about something someone else did. I’ve noticed I’ve been projecting the hurt and fear I feel by seeing the senseless violence on to others around me. Do you understand that we are so often projecting our own pain and fear on to other people instead of listening to our own hurt and taking responsibility for it and asking for what we need in a way people can respond to? Putin is in all of us. He just happens to be an extreme version. Have you not ever wanted something that's not yours?

"If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all..." said Yogi Bhajan.

I like to think my God is Love. My God is not a warring God. My God doesn’t support sex slavery and pollution and poverty and starvation. Byron Katie says, “What is is God.” How can it be that God allows this? That this type of murder and injustice flourishes in our world. I believe it is all an opportunity for us to awaken, to become more aware. Most definitely we are asleep to our true nature. We are collectively stuck in a warring consciousness. It is tribal and it is limited. It is us against them. It requires a winner and a loser. It is the lowest state of consciousness and I have often wondered, “How can it be that we are still here after all these years on the planet?” We know better, but we don’t do better. Not yet.

There are evolutionary stages and biological responses Dr. Deepak Chopra writes about that help me understand why and how we are here. What we are seeing is our root or base level consciousness playing out, whether in our red vs blue politics where someone is right and the other is wrong even to the extent that we want to kill the “other” (Did the Jan. 6 rioters not call for the death of Mike Pence? Nancy Pelosi?, AOC?, Biden?) or Russia vs most of the world in a war.

We can evolve and where we are headed is a beautiful place. It is called Unity Consciousness and we are capable of it. It is the truth of who we are. For now, I can’t force the world into that place, but I can certainly move myself from the warring consciousness playing out in my own body and mind into a higher place. I know better, so I can do better. And until others know, it is up to us to hold the truth, hold the light and do what we can to ease suffering along the way. See below a list of organizations to support RIGHT NOW to help those affected by war. And, do this work: Think of one way you are at war with yourself or someone you know and make peace. Forgive. Let go. Where there is darkness, bring light. Where there is fear, bring love.

Listen HERE for a podcast from Aspen Chapel Minister Nicholas Vesey that may bring some peace.
Click on the website for Care, the international humanitarian juggernaut, and a pop-up window appears. “UKRAINE EMERGENCY,” the alert says, with a photo of a woman holding a child. “Families in Ukraine are fleeing violence and urgently need emergency aid. CARE is providing food, water, and more,” the homepage says. The group has partnered with People in Need and hopes to build a fund that can reach 4 million people, especially women, girls and the elderly. Donations for Care can be made here.

Doctors Without Borders, which works in conflict zones, is partnering with volunteers in Ukraine to help people travel to health-care facilities and working to ensure that people have access to health care and medicine. To support Doctors Without Borders’ Ukraine work, click here.
GlobalGiving, a U.S.-based nonprofit crowdfunding platform for grass-roots charitable projects, launched its Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund page, stating that all donations to the fund will support humanitarian assistance in affected communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled. You can donate here.
The International Rescue Committee, founded in 1933, helps those affected by humanitarian crises and works in more than 40 affected countries, as well as communities in Europe and the Americas. According to its website, the IRC is on the ground in Poland and working to help displaced families. The site offers suggestions on how you can assist Ukraine, such as welcoming refugees and social media activism. You can donate here.
Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Crossprovides assistance for victims of armed conflict and has been working in Ukraine since 2014 to supply emergency assistance and support hospitals with medical equipment. To support the ICRC’s efforts in Ukraine, you can donate here.
Journalists with the Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war, offering the world constant updates as they fear for themselves, their families and their homes. The Independent has started a GoFundMe asking for support, but they’ve also promoted a separate GoFundMe — “Keep Ukraine’s media going” — for journalists around the country who have received less international attention. “[Ukraine’s reporters] have shown extraordinary courage, but the reality on the ground is that most operations cannot continue from Ukraine alone,” one organizer wrote. “This fundraiser is aimed at helping media relocate, set-up back offices and continue their operations from neighboring countries.”
Project Hope, an international health-care organization founded in the United States in 1958, works to empower health-care workers facing health crises, according to its website. For the Ukraine invasion, the organization says its emergency teams in Europe are sending medical supplies and standing by to provide health screening and care for refugees. You can donate here.
Razom for Ukraine was founded in 2014 and has since launched efforts to build a stronger democracy in the country. Now, according to its website, the nonprofit is “focused on purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items. We have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.” Razom — which means “together” in Ukrainian — posted a list of the lifesaving supplies it has already purchased and is asking for more support here.
Save the Children, founded more than a century ago, is blunt about the grueling nature of its work: “We work in the hardest-to-reach places, where it’s toughest to be a child,” its homepage says. The organization says it is “gravely concerned” for the children of Ukraine and Afghanistan. Its donation page says that $50 can prevent three children from going hungry for a month, $150 can provide warm blankets for 30 children, and $300 can furnish masks to refugee health workers on the front lines.
Sunflower of Peace is a small nonprofit with ambitions to help Ukrainian orphans and internally displaced people. A post on its Facebook page in mid-February said it had launched a fundraiser for first-aid medical tactical backpacks. Each backpack, it says, can save up to 10 people. They’re packed with bandages and anti-hemorrhagic medicines, among other critical items. The group has worked mostly off its Facebook page, where it’s accepting donations.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs oversees U.N. Crisis Relief, with donations going toward U.N. efforts to fund work in humanitarian crises. Primary goals include supporting lifesaving activities, filling funding gaps and expanding assistance in hard-to-reach areas, according to its website. You can donate here.
The World Food Programme, the U.N.’s anti-hunger humanitarian organization, has launched emergency relief operations in Ukraine and surrounding border countries. WFP says it is scaling up to provide food assistance to 3.1 million Ukrainians affected by the conflict and has deployed 400 tons of food to the Ukrainian border this week. To support their efforts, click here.
Voices of Children, a charitable foundation based in Ukraine, has been serving the psychological needs of children affected by the war in the country’s east since 2015, according to its website. The group’s psychologists specialize in art therapy and provide general psychosocial support with group classes or individual sessions. Many of its psychologists are based in the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, areas that have long been controlled by Russian-backed separatists and that are on the front lines of the current, wider conflict. Now, Voices of Children is providing assistance to children and families all over Ukraine, even helping with evacuations. You can donate here.
Cited from The Washington Post.
Etsy and Airbnb are using their platforms to send money directly to people in need.