society

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Happiness, Peace

Customers are always happy to hear their pianos after I tune them. Is that the only happiness they share with me? No, my other obligation is to be so kind that the customers say to themselves “I’m so glad I could talk to Kent today.”

Peace activism is not only fine-tuning an institution like taxation or social welfare. It is also a commitment to delivering the message so that the audience will say “I’m so glad I interacted with Kent today.” Ineed, if I do not inspire that happiness in my listener, there is little chance that my message will have a positive effect.

Undertaking to be against something constitutes being in opposition. Progress, on the other hand, is a matter of being in support of something. Peace building lifts the self-esteem and happiness of the parties to the peace.

When I try to tune two people who think they hate each other, it is crucial for both of them to conclude “I’m so glad I could talk to Kent today.”

copyright © 2011 Kent Busse
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Islam’s creative role

Author: Kent Busse

The Old Testament identifies the function of persecution as “Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.”

Jesus instructed “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Gandhi taught “First they ignore you then they laugh at you then they fight you then you win.”

The US Marines put it this way: “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.”

Senseless persecution is the doorway through which America has admitted its Quakers, Jews, Mormons, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Africans, Hispanics and Latinos into fellowship. Open, public confrontations are so much better than the secret police and mass disappearances employed elsewhere.

Young children are held up as our role models because they possess the pliability and resilience to express conflicts in heated screaming matches and move on from there to work out their differences and share the playground without perpetuating grudges. This is the power to be healed.

Allah and nonviolence will yet see us through the current round of persecutions by which Islam is assuring its diversifying role as a permanent fixture in the American landscape.

copyright © 2011 Kent Busse