On the morning after the United States 2004 national elections, Cheri Huber sent these thoughts on peace to the worldwide email list of Living Compassion:

“It is time to reconcile all beings in the world.
Peace is no longer just a good idea, a dream without any real belief.
We can no longer hope that war and violence can defend and protect.
We must choose peace if we are to survive.
We must make a radical turn from the right, and a radical turn from the left.
We must make our way back to center. Not a political center, but the center of our being.
We must become a good friend to those who agree with us and those who do not.
We must invite everyone to the table; we must sit together, share, learn, listen, open our hearts, and, together, move to the place that is the most compassionate to all.”

That radical center, that center of our being, is a place that is not against anything. That is perhaps what is most radical about it. Many of us who are committed to peace, passionate about peace, activists for peace, conduct our quest for peace from a conviction that we are against an adversary, and we know who that adversary is. We wage war for peace, and peace eludes us.

St. Francis said, “Do not try to change the World. Change worlds.” He did not mean escape, write off the world and walk away. He spent most of his life walking into the world, talking with people, engaging them. He did not try to wrench the people or the world into some shape he was convinced they should take. Rather, he greeted all with “Pace e bene”: Peace and Good. He simply lived in a world in which he and everyone else belonged.
T.S. Eliot describes: “A condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.” The radical center. The place lived from by Francis, by Clare, by Gandhi, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Costing us our identity, our righteousness, our separateness, our against-ness. Costing us all the mean victories.

Yet it creates a universe of possibility, generosity and freedom. A woman in Kenya sees the devastating result of deforestation and begins to plant trees. A mother in Washington, DC, befriends the young man who killed her son. Communities around the world rally to support local organic farmers and establish farmers’ markets. Indigenous people in Ecuador seek partners in the United States to save the rainforest that is their home. A group of Zen monks learns that children in an African slum need food, and they say, “We can help.”

To be sure, even when the path of peace seems clear, the work can be demanding and challenging. It takes practice. Peace is a practice. And, it is exciting, rewarding and the most fun a human being can have. We choose peace; it is a matter of survival. We invite you to join Living Compassion at the table of peace.

Zen Monastery Peace Center
We are here, on 320 acres in the beautiful, peaceful foothills of the Sierra Nevada, living this practice and inviting you to join us. Check out our wide variety of retreats and workshops.

A Center for Peace in Assisi, Italy
Cheri’s vision for an international grassroots center for peace came to her in the perfect place. Assisi welcomes over four million visitors each year, drawn there by the lives of “peace and good” of Francis and Clare. We are ready to make this happen; the perfect location is for sale. We can see its rooms filled with interactive displays, stories, and practices of peace. We can see our guests from all nations sitting in the garden, coming to know each other, sharing a cup of tea. We simply need the resources to make it happen (approximately two million US dollars to purchase the site and get it up and running).

Dollar for Peace
“What if we asked everyone to send in one unit of the currency of their country (peso, euro, pound, kwacha, yen, dollar….) and the those people sent the invitation to their friends and relatives who would do the same and those people would do the same…

Might we be able to reach people of peace all over the world? Might there be two million of us who would contribute at least the equivalent of one euro so that we could be the ones to actually make this Center for Peace a real place in the world? Why not?” — Cheri Huber

We love the idea of financing this grassroots center with donations of one unit of currency (a dollar, euro, pound, yen, peso, kwacha…) from millions of people. Of course, we are open to larger donations; a few major contributions added to the others would allow us to secure the site and get started.

Person of Peace
The Center in Assisi will keep a list of people of peace from around the world. Declare who you truly are; enter your name as a person of peace.

The Center for Peace on the World Wide Web
We want everyone to visit us in Murphys and Assisi, and we know that not everyone is able to. You can visit our Peace Center online. All the teachings, practices, and stories that we will make available in Assisi
will be online for participation and practice in your own home. Help us grow the site by sending us your favorite stories and practices of peace. The guideline is that these are stories for peace, not against anyone or anything.

Other support for choosing peace includes our Daily Peace Quotes, our handmade Peace Flags, Open Air Talk Radio--our weekly opportunity for compassionate conversation. Learn more about these on our website.

View from the garden of the proposed Assisi Peace Center.

View from the upper windows.

This flag, with the Italian word for peace, hangs from many balconies in Assisi.