As you surely know, the need for education for peace has not gone away! And, this children’s book for peace has been especially popular. In fact, Peacemaker Minnesota https://peacemakermn.org has given away hundreds of free copies of “The Barnyard Buddies STOP for Peace” to appreciative children in St. Paul and suburban schools. They just got a grant to provide thousands of books teaching peacemaking and conflict transformation in Minneapolis – Yes, THOUSANDS! Your school, child or grandchild’s school, or friend’s classroom could be eligible for these free books for each child in the class. Musical in-class support is available too.
NEEDED!! They are looking for Minneapolis classrooms that want these FREE books! Please contact Dan McNeil at PeacemakerMN and find out more details. [email protected]
Clearly, we need to bring more skills for peacemaking and peacebuilding into the world. Unresolved conflicts and divisions have created the multiple wars and devastation raging today. This recent article cites Pope John Paul II. It reminds us that peace begins with each of us but we must be trained to become a peacemaker – meaning a person who is compassionate and kind and does right in the community and world. Parents and teachers need tools and wisdom to share peace with children, but the children can learn the skills even if their parents don’t.
“Peace is not essentially about structures but about people. Certain structures and mechanisms of peace—juridical, political, economic—are of course necessary and do exist, but they have been derived from nothing other than the accumulated wisdom and experience of innumerable gestures of peace made by men and women throughout history who have kept hope and have not given in to discouragement. Gestures of peace spring from the lives of people who foster peace first of all in their own hearts. They are the work of the heart and of reason in those who are peacemakers (cf. Mt 5:9). Gestures of peace are possible when people appreciate fully the community dimension of their lives, so that they grasp the meaning and consequences of events in their own communities and in the world. Gestures of peace create a tradition and a culture of peace. Religion has a vital role in fostering gestures of peace and in consolidating conditions for peace. It exercises this role all the more effectively if it concentrates on what is proper to it: attention to God, the fostering of universal brotherhood and the spreading of a culture of human solidarity”.
From: Promoting Peace through Christian Education in the Family, by Elżbieta Osewska and Józef Stala, Faculty of Humanities, University of Applied Sciences in Tarnów, 33-100 Tarnów, Poland. The Faculty of Theology, Section in Tarnów, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, 31-002 Kraków, Poland. Religions 2024, 15(2), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020175, Published: 31 January 2024. (This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Religion in Marriage and Family Life)
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Thanks for all you do!