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From: "Brendan McCloud" <>
Subject: [AMERIND-US-SE] The White Paths of Peace
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:55:02 -0700

Osiyo, My Brothers and Sisters:


I have done much thinking these past few days. Like many of us I am overwhelmed, angered, shocked, outraged, the full spectrum of emotions that one feels when confronted with the unspeakable and the unthinkable.

I realize that with the recent acts of atrocities, a new age is upon us, one that I had hoped I would never see.

There has been a justifiable outcry, a cry for retribution, for repayment, for vengeance. But there has also been an equal cry for measured thought about careful consideration and planning, a judicious process of advise and consent that has given me hope that we will not go headlong into Armageddon. There is hope but it is all too fragile.

What plagues me about this is that I have been working on my own paths of getting along in the world, of developing a way to find balance in decrying the injustices and day to day evils that I find unacceptable without becoming so out of balance in the anger of my responses that I become like that which I find abhorrent.

On a week long sojourn at Kalaloch Lodge just last week, I had worked out the first careful considerations of a way of thinking that that I have come to call the "the White Paths of Peace". In corresponding with one of my Cherokee friends I had described something I called the "the White Spirit Path". This was augmented by my further reading of the ways of the ancient Cherokee. In the Green Corn Festival I read that there had been an invocation about the "the White Paths of Peace". There is not much written about the specifics of this invocation, at least that I have been able to find, but I have strong feelings of the hopes it must have entailed and what values were expressed in it.

Who does not long for peace, prosperity and opportunity and a place to raise little children that is safe and good and where our loved ones are free from danger. Some call this the American way; others call it the pursuit of happiness. It is simple enough in its innocent hope and profound in its intentions. Our Ancestors must have certainly felt these things as well.

But these things cannot happen unless human beings follow a path that includes very complex values that contain equal measures of courage, hope, fairness, selflessness, honesty, honor, courage. and the list could go on forever.

What I had written, in part, to my Cherokee friend was as follows:

"I know that we who walk the white path must always be the ones who try to find or create balance in all things in our daily lives both in work and family. I work in human resources in my "day" incarnation and though it is often a struggle dealing with human difficulties I always think of my spirit path and try to find the balance in what I am doing.


I always strive for honor in my actions, also difficult when faced with two or more choices, none good. But I believe this can be done also. I can't help but feel that those of us who walk this path are held to a higher commitment to honor, courage and right actions.


I am also all too aware that we sometimes don't see our own clay feet, but that is how we learn on this path. Humility is also the great balancer. If I don't remember this I end up in a situation that is humorous and humiliating enough to make me remember..."

I believe these things deeply, but I have to remember the times that I have been brought to anger by injustice and wanted to strike out, even if only verbally to right the wrong. But a word spoken in anger can lead to a blow, a blow to a fight, a fight to a battle, a battle to a war, a war to an apocalypse.

I have thought often of Bruce Cockburn's song "If I had a rocket launcher." His is the perfect dilemma of a peacemaker so angered that in his frustration he longs for the very weapons of the enemies to bring them retribution. I also think of Logan the Mingo, who was a great friend to white and red alike until Jacob Greathouse and his companions killed every living relative that Logan had. In his rage for revenge he began a series of bloodthirsty retaliations that resulted in the frontier Indian War known as Lord Dunmore's War. Logan laid down his hatchet when his revenge was sated but the war he started continued for some time after.

And so it is with the dogs of war: Once loosed no man can recall them until they have had their way.

How does one find balance and walk the white paths of peace given the horrors of this past week? Given the horrors of the atrocities of the centuries for that matter.

The answer must be found in our spirit path. Each of us creates this in his or her own way. For some of us it is the total path of the Buddha, "harm no living creature". For others it is the path of the lawgiver or the peacemaker, the path of the prosecutor or the soldier, the path of those who rage in written words at injustices. Each of these, though completely different, contain their own laws and codes that must be followed that keep us from the paths of both the terrorist and the vigilante. For what is the difference between them since both behave as though a prior act of injustice has justified their own striking back. Are they really not one and the same?

Think of Israel and the Palestinians and of the factions in Northern Ireland. Think of our own Native Ancestors who even before the White Man came upon them, raided one another and fought over territory and followed the paths of revenge and retribution for each crime, first against one and then the other.

And so I feel I know why these wise ancient Cherokee invoked the White Paths of Peace at the Green Corn festival. They knew too well the ways of the other paths and prayed for the ones that stayed the ways of war and violence.

There will be justice for the great evils done this past week. Let us pray that our leaders find balance in their ways of achieving justice against a great wrong done to us as a nation and a people. Let us hope also that they stay their hand when tempted to lash out wrongly or blindly at those who may or may not have provided support or comfort to the enemy. So should we all.

The White Paths of Peace should be followed even when taken on the path to war. Force, if used, must be used judiciously and wisely, with balance and with humanity, no matter how great the provocation. If we do not follow these white paths, what is to separate us from those we abhor and would bring down?

Nothing.

Wado

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• [AMERIND-US-SE] The White Paths of Peace by "Brendan McCloud" <>