Sabine Lichtenfels - in the Name of Grace
To all Peaceworkers,
We wish to give thanks for the moving Global GRACE Day on November 9th, for the many reports, videos and pictures on our website. We wish to thank the group of young organisers who saw to it that people worldwide were able to connect, that people from areas of crisis were able to directly connect with the people in Lisbon, in Berlin, in India or in Palestine. One begins to have a feeling for the "Movement for a Free Earth".
Please read on the homepage www.global-grace-day.com to get an impression of the variety and creativity of this touching day and of the experiences which mirrored the presence of the power of GRACE.
I want to use this opportunity to pass on an abreviated text from the book "GRACE - Pilgrimage for a Future without War". For those of you who have experienced this day with great joy and high committment it is important and good to regularly go back to the source, to the origin of the movement and to remember how the Global GRACE Day came about. May GRACE grow into a comprehensive movement, a movement which is not bound to a specific world view, to an ideology or to power and rivalry, but instead is bound to the beauty, compassion and perception of life, a movement that stands above violence and that has learned to respect all of life. For the stewards of GRACE the study of these disciplines is essential since GRACE is much more than an emotional wave of enthousiasm.
Text of Empowerment: What is the Meaning of “Grace”?
From the book "GRACE - Pilgrimage for a Future without War" by Sabine Lichtenfels
GRACE says: I am willing to end the war and to understand the means by which it can be ended and I place myself in the service of a solution.
(...)
GRACE demands self-knowledge. And self-knowledge is not always easy. To discover flaws in others is much more pleasant and easy, than to unmask oneself.
(...)
When I am out there in the name of GRACE, I try to meet the human being and let myself be touched by them rather than by the world views they represent.
All would be lost whenever our meetings started with a debate about world views. Nobody kept listening and as a result the meetings ended in emotional upheaval. The meetings unfolded in a completely different way whenever people were touched by each other in a deep and humane way.
Then GRACE happened.
I let myself be touched and I try to touch others. Whenever possible, I enter places with my heart open.
I do not condemn anyone or anything when I am in the state of GRACE, rather, I gather up the courage to speak the truth. I want to speak the truth in such a way as to reach out to others and to change them, from feeling that only they are in the right and also to avoid worsening even further the war situation.
(...)
GRACE reminds us of another truth and reality at work behind the terrible dimensions of a culture which will soon have exhausted its last resources. The truth is simple and the same everywhere.
When forming an opinion, we tend to forget that we do this mainly from a level of interpretation. The truth lies beyond all opinions. The truth is distinct from ideology in as much as truth is both simple and true.
(...)
Because of our fear of the truth of life we consider our opinions and views to be true and defend them right until the bitter end. This is psychological warfare that finally results in real war. We hold to be true what has nothing to do with truth. This is the story of our socialisation with which we identify.
All of a sudden you look into the distorted mirror of mankind which has separated itself from its roots. You look at the same patterns of fear, anger, powerlessness and trauma which are everywhere and at the resulting war with its destructive acts of revenge. It is the suppressed life itself that chooses revenge in order to survive. (...)
Behind this avalanche that rolls across the regions of war on this planet writing its painful history of victims and perpetrators, behind all this, you come across the same hunger everywhere – a hunger for life, a hunger for love, a hunger for trust and belonging, a hunger for acknowledgement and a hunger for wanting to be seen and understood. This hunger is independent of race and creed. It simply exists, in every human being for as long as he or she still deserves this name. (...)
GRACE always reminds you of this.
GRACE is like a consciously chosen naivety that helps you find your way through through the welter of world views so that you recognize and protect the elementary and simple truth behind all things. You create an opening for the cry for life.
You see the collective body of pain in front of you, this body that has presented the Jews with their terrible fate. You equally recognise the collective delusion of the German people who have still not been able to truly look at and heal their past. You see the effects of a patriarchal religion and culture which has taken a wrong turn for thousands of years, and you see how war is an inseparable part of it, just as much as thunder and lightning are part of a stormy night.
The history of victims and perpetrators and our identification with either one of them has to come to an end.
At this point world history awaits a big transformation, the final awakening!
GRACE REMINDS YOU ALWAYS THAT THIS CHANGE DOES NOT COME TO PASS BY WAY OF ONES OWN FORCES.
GRACE reminds you of the sacredness of life itself at every moment.
GRACE reminds you that the only way back out of the dead end street is for humankind to successfully return to the very basis of life and love, of trust and truth.
GRACE is the power of a long breath that is going to last because it can see a new dawn at the horizon of history, a paradise of love and charity, a culture honouring variety while at the same time acknowledging common values.
GRACE is the umbilical cord that connects us to this vision and guides us, as of this moment, to act and behave out of its Geist*, its freshness, abundance and beauty.
* The noun “Geist” (adj. geistig) is used throughout this book to better reflect the notion of “intellect, spirit and soul” as expressed in this German term.
Sentence of Empowerment: I let myself be touched and I try to touch others.
With best wishes
Sabine Lichtenfels