“I offer you peace.
I offer you love.
I offer you friendship.
I see your beauty.
I hear your need.
I feel your feelings.
My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.
I salute that Source in you.
Let us work together for unity and love."
-Gandhi.

Also, inspired by two others,
Both who "write the scripts" and "act the parts",
In their own dramas of life.
One, I've known for over a year,
The other, over a decade.

Regardless of the time,
Our shared existence in this world,
At this time in human history,
Is deeply significant,
To a point words alone cannot describe.

If we live lives of lasting value in our existence,
The time is define by this value,
If we live lives of decadence,
The time is defined accordingly.

In other words,
The people define the times,
Not the other way around.

Eleven years after 9/11,
The times continue,
And we still have work to do,
For some people still justify victory attained by violence,
Under the guise of religion.

As Gandhi would tell these people,
This victory is tantamount to defeat,
For it is momentary,
And those who seek non-violence,
Offer the lasting solution to violence.

The violent are too addicted to evil to see what they’ve done as wrong,
And they actually see the non-violent as evil,
For they see themselves as right,
Their violence as good,

9/11 was sinful,
And no religion can ever justify it.

War itself,
As well as such an act of war,
Is "civil war" in reality,
That humanity wages against itself.

This is equally sinful.
And no political ideology can ever justify it.

We,
Humanity,
Must put an end to this institution called war.
We must abolish it,
Along with nuclear weapons.

Slavery for example,
Was once thought to be “natural”,
And a taken-for-granted part of human nature.

Then,
We stood up to it,
And we abolished it.

War and nuclear weapons are no different,
And should be treated no differently.

To do so,
We must awaken,
To the inviolable dignity,
Of life itself,
And respect human life no differently.

Therefore,
If “[we] must be the change [we] wish to see in the world”,
The change must be nonviolence,
Of which love for life itself is at heart.

For human life,
This not only means confronting physical violence,
But confronting spiritual violence as well.

When we confront violent tendencies in ourselves,
Only then can we confront them in others.
When we instead choose to love and forgive ourselves,
Only then can we love and forgive others.

Yet,
This is nothing new.
It something that we already know.
In fact,
This great power for good,
Lies within each of us,
Greater than any weapon,
That could ever be created,
By way of human ingenuity.

Non-violence,
Is not retreat;
It is not mere theory,
It is not for the faint-hearted,
It is not impatience in the face of defeat,
And it certainly is not defeat itself.

Non-violence,
Is moving ever-forward;
It is action,
It is for those with a heart of steel,
It is patience to be victorious,
And it is certainly victory itself.

Responding non-violently,
Remaining undefeated,
This is where peace begins.

To establish peace within oneself,
To inspire it among others,
This is where humanity begins.

Jason Howard