Peacing the World Together: How to Be a More Peaceful Person ...And Help Save the World

By Frank James Unger

A small refrigerator magnet has adorned our kitchen for more years than I can remember. It bears the image of a dove with the words, Let there be peace, at least between you and me. The three square inches it has displaced is opposite in proportion to its magnitude in the lives of family and friends. It is a mantra, a goal, a challenge. Because for so many, peace does not come easily or naturally!

Archeological evidence substantiates human irascibility. Indeed, Homo sapiens were endowed with tendencies toward turbulence. Bones shattered by instruments of humanoids are not uncommon to ancient skeletons. Written documents confirm the same: Cain and Able, David and Goliath, dozens of bloody wars and holocausts are recorded in biblical and pre-biblical documents that manifest mankinds snarling, crotchety predisposition to conflict and violence.

Discouraged by that disturbing legacy, we recognize exceptions. Though peace is an intentional accord, it is made easier for some who luckily avoid the ancestral consequence of contentiousness. Through genetic good fortune, they are endowed with intrinsic tranquility and a special quiet devoid of malevolence. Gladly, they accept the gift of unsolicited good genes.

Acknowledging a quarrelsome nature, then, we embark on this journey of peace, the road made smoother through relevant prayer, prose and poetry. Each step is an encounter with a peace borne naturally or achieved the hard way. In either case, the following pages are channels of peace . . . at least between you and me.

And so we reach out together, striving to influence families and cities, states and nations . . . peacefully. After all, the leaders of mighty and minute countries alike agree that the key to peace between all lands is that it begins within individual hearts, homes and families. For only then can it infect every place on a precious earth we will someday call . . . peaceful.

Of all the arboreal wonders on earth, none is more amazingly self-propagating than Ficus Benghalensis, the banyan tree. A massive, improbable sight to behold, the banyan puts down feelers from its branches; the feelers grow into the ground and become roots; and the new roots pump sap up and act as support struts for the tree. In this way, the tree grows outward.

Equally as amazing, banyans count their days in hundreds of years as they create the widest natural canopies in the world. A single tree can provide shade for an entire village. It is said that Alexander the Great camped with an army of 7,000 soldiers under the shade of one banyan.

In more recent years, an imposing banyan tree has spread its arms and roots over one full acre of land in the city of Fort Myers, Florida. Its notoriety and location are the result of a friendship between two of Americas early business pioneers, men who were close, personal friends.

The time was 1925. One of the men visited the county of Andhra Pradesh in India and came upon the largest banyan tree in the world, having since reached 570 years in age and covering the breath of 14 acres with 1,650 roots. At the time of his visit, the entrepreneur had a vested interest in the tree, suspecting it might prove valuable as a source of natural rubber. He brought a seedling back to his friend who had a Winter residence in Fort Myers. The friend was delighted with the gift and planted it on his estate. It grew well and still delights guests.

Harvey Firestone was the purveyor of the seedling. His friend, Thomas Edison was the recipient. To this day, seedlings of Edisons great tree are sold at his estate, one of them growing in fine health on this writers property. Similarly, admirers from around the world have procured seedlings and carried them back to faraway lands. Hence, the legacy of the giant tree of India is proliferated by the tree of Thomas Edison, now renowned as the third lar

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 14, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469107004

Frank James Unger

Frank James Unger was born and raised in Chicago. He attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary into his fourth year and later graduated from St. Joseph’s College with a degree in English/journalism. He is the father of seven children and married to the same woman for sixty years. As president of his own video production company, Frank authored scripts for media presentations and produced and served as host of a series of radio programs for a leading corporate sponsor. Frank has written three books on salesmanship for the private business sector and self-published eight fictional books.

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Copyright © 2007 by Frank James Unger.

Cover design by Francis John Unger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

About the Author

Foreword

Preface

Ficus Benghalensis

PART I:

ROOTS

FAMILY PEACE: A wake-up call!

A Peaceful Man of God

Communication

LOVABLE: A Prayer

Me and My Bag

A WALK ON THE BEACH

Windows of the Soul

A true story

HA-PAST-TREE

The Missing Piece of Peace

A Peacing Deed

Peaceful Lady

PeaceTime

An essay

PEACING WITH GOD

An Invitation

The Peacing Lovers

A short-short story

Addendum

Volunteerism

A FAREWELL TO FRIENDS

Justice Without Judging

PART II:

TRUNK

Place of Peace

The Coffeeboys

Men of Peace

SYNONYM FOR PEACE

Everyone’s Best Friend

A film script

Personalizing Peace

The Cloud, the Tree

and the Butterfly

MAKING PEACE

A MAN’S PEACING PRAYER

Gift of Peace

All in the Family

OPEN HEART

Peaceful Excitement

Aura of Peace

THE RAINBOW CONNECTION

Saintly Little Lady

Me and My Bag

Word-Keys to the

Kingdom of Peace

A Childs-eye View of Peacing

Peacing Lions of Ethiopia

Riding the Back of the Tiger

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

PART III:

BRANCHES

The Real Prince of Peace

Friendly Feuding

e.g.

Speaking of Friendship

For Giving

Laughter

Emotional Elixir

Imagine This!

RECOMMENDED READING

She Was There

THE IMAGINER

SILENCE

John’s Peace

Postscript

The Essence of Empathy

Natural Disasters:

Excuse Or Opportunity?

GOD KNOWS

Actions Speak

Forgiveness: The Peace Core

Legend of the Dove

Father Antonio—

Nonviolence

Peaceful Reality Realms

Caring

Not Caring

Remembering

In the Name of Progress

The Son Shines

Pay it Forward

Fabled Lessons

Water-Cooler Talk

PART IV:

LEAVES

A Woman’s Peacing Prayer

A Touch of Peace

Be Touchy!

Hugging Saint

Test Your Peace-ability

Jim Henson (1935-1990)

Exercise for Peace

The Other Carpenter

Peruvians Peacing Together

MEDIEVAL PRAYER

OF PEACE

Me and My Bag

Marriage

True Love, Time and Peace

New Message

GOD’S RESPONSE

OF DREAMS AND VISIONS

Having a Ball with Peace

PART V:

NEW ROOTS

Musical Notes on Peace

Commonality

The I’s Have It (Or Do They?)

SPEAKING OF HUMILITY

Yeah-Buts

PEACING THE

PASSION TOGETHER

Peacing in the Great Outdoors

The Music of Rain

peacingtheworld.com

PANGAEA

"In order to see the rainbow,

you must first endure the rain."

PAX VOBISCUM

To all of my family and friends,

those who taught me the conjugal

relationship between love and peace.

About the Author

FRANK JAMES UNGER was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and educated in the Catholic Archdiocesan school system. He attended the High School seminary for nearly four years in preparation for the priesthood. Leaving the seminary after a change of heart, he earned a BA degree in English/Journalism from St. Joseph’s College of Indiana.

With his wife, Virginia, during the raising of seven children, he remained active as a religious educator at the Junior High School level. During that time, he wrote, produced and directed audio-visual presentations for Catholic Liturgies and the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

As President of his own Audio-Visual/Sales Meeting Production Company, Frank traveled the world, from the South Pacific and Southeast Asia to the capitols of all European countries and the major cities of North America. Throughout those years, he continued to produce and write presentations for religious education and liturgical events.

Frank has written three books on salesmanship for the private business sector and most recently published two novels, Adventures of a Sunflower and Friends in High Places. He has been published in Success Magazine and The Ligourian Magazine. Today, Frank pursues his avocation of writing and video production for charitable fund-raising efforts as well as for religious education. Frank believes that Peacing the World Together is the cumulative effect of his experience as a Father, business leader and a Christian man practicing his faith in the Roman Catholic tradition.

Peacing \’pees-ing\ v 1: an active verb derived from the noun peace 2: to make peace, to create peace from nothing 3: marked by an attitude that is willing to compromise, to relent 4:

commonly used with the nouns people, souls, hearts 5: actively pursuing a quiet mode of co-existence, serenity, love—see piecing 1: to repair, renew, complete 2: often used with together, to join into a whole.

Foreword

By the author

Before beginning this journey on the high road to peace, it should be noted that the map is charted by one writer’s observations and ruminations and is not intended as a homily, dogma or spiritual incantation. Simple, worded creations are the result of experience rather than expertise. As such, they are proposed and positioned as stimuli to reflection and debate. Most of the pieces are fictionalized to explain and support a position. Others are true, accompanied by proper attribution. All entries give witness to the substance of the complexities of peace.

In our time, if the world ever recognized and admired an expert on the subject, he was the late Pope John Paul II. But even he, embracing the world with wisdom and affection, even he was frustrated by the inability of many disparate, hostile peoples to reconcile their differences. Indeed, the road to peace is littered with the casualties of war, among friends as well as enemies.

Certainly, this writer is much less qualified, much less endowed with gifts of goodness than the Pope of Peace. And he doesn’t grasp the underpinnings of such a tempestuous topic nearly as well as John Paul II. But as he bravely places peaceful thoughts on these printed lines, the writer admits that he is but a curious student of an elusive human condition that is worthy of scrutiny.

That having been said, the author acts as a guide, a Tour Director on a demanding and rigorous excursion. The reader is invited to accompany him, to indulge as well as to ingest, to discern as well as to disagree, and to move through eclectic musings on a fascinating subject. Perhaps in the end, the reader and writer as one will share a plentiful harvest from…

Peacing the World Together!

Preface

A small refrigerator magnet has adorned our kitchen for more years than I can remember. It bears the image of a dove with the words, Let there be peace, at least between you and me. The three square inches it has displaced is opposite in proportion to its magnitude in the lives of family and friends. It is a mantra, a goal, a challenge. Because for so many, peace does not come naturally. It requires a conscious effort.

Archeological evidence substantiates human irascibility. Indeed, Homo sapiens were always endowed with tendencies toward turbulence. Bones shattered by instruments of humanoids are not uncommon to ancient skeletons. Written documents confirm the same: Cain and Able, David and Goliath, dozens of bloody wars and holocausts are recorded in biblical and pre-biblical documents that manifest mankind’s snarling, crotchety predisposition to conflict and violence.

Discouraged by that disturbing legacy, we recognize exceptions. Though peace is an intentional accord, it is made easier for some who luckily avoid the ancestral consequence of contentiousness. Through genetic good fortune, they are endowed with intrinsic tranquility and a special quiet devoid of malevolence. Gladly, they accept the gift of unsolicited good genes.

It is for the majority of us, however, that we embark on this journey of peace, the road made smoother through relevant prayer, prose and poetry. Each step is an encounter with a peace born naturally or achieved the hard way. In all cases, the following pages are channels of peace  . . . at least between you and me.

And so we reach out together, striving to influence families and friends, states and nations . . . peacefully. After all, the leaders of mighty and minute countries alike agree that the key to peace between all lands is that it begins within individual hearts and homes. For only then does it have the potential to infect every place on a precious earth we may someday praise as… peaceful.

"To achieve world peace,

we must each begin with

peace in our hearts."

The Dalai Lama

Ficus Benghalensis

Of all the arboreal wonders on earth, none is more amazingly self-propagating than the banyan tree, a native to India. A massive, improbable sight to behold, the banyan puts down feelers from its branches; the feelers grow into the ground and become roots; and the new roots pump sap up and act as support struts for the tree. In this way, the tree continues to grow outward.

Equally as amazing, banyans count their days in hundreds of years as they create the widest natural canopies in the world. A single tree can provide shade for an entire village. It is said that Alexander the Great camped with an army of 7,000 soldiers under the shade of one banyan.

In more recent years, an imposing banyan tree has spread its arms and roots over one full acre of land in the city of Fort Myers, Florida. Its notoriety and location are the result of a friendship between two of America’s early business pioneers, men who were close, personal friends.

The time was 1925. One of the men visited the county of Andhra Pradesh in India and came upon the largest banyan tree in the world, having since reached 570 years in age and covering the breath of 14 acres with 1,650 roots. At the time of his visit, the entrepreneur had a vested interest in the tree, suspecting it might prove valuable as a source of natural rubber. He brought a seedling back to his friend who had a Winter residence in Fort Myers. The friend was delighted with the gift and planted it on his estate. It grew well and still delights guests.

Harvey Firestone was the purveyor of the seedling. His friend, Thomas Edison was the recipient. To this day, seedlings of Edison’s great tree are sold at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, one of them growing in fine health on this writer’s property. Similarly, admirers from around the world have procured seedlings and carried them back to faraway lands. Hence, the legacy of the giant tree of India is proliferated by the tree of Thomas Edison, now renowned as the third largest banyan in the world.

Consider this book but a literary banyan, a seedling planted with noble intent. At best, it is designed to create peacing feelers that take root, send new and reflexive energy upward and outward, and serve as support for a human tree of peace. In this way, the new tree may opportunely touch all lands, creating a canopy of serenity under which all people might rest.

May the lesson of the great banyan propagate the pursuit of peace and may it spread its legacy to the ends of the earth. And may it always remain a symbol of unity and togetherness.

PART I:

ROOTS

FAMILY PEACE: A wake-up call!

For many years, I prayed impatiently for God to bring about peace between discordant factions of my family. With my prayers unanswered and battling the frustration, I suddenly became aware that God will respond to my request at His own pace and in His own good time,

though not necessarily in my lifetime. With that realization,

I better accept His will, and with a spirit of renewed faith and trust,

I continue to pray for family harmony.

To be sure, I am more patient than before.

A Peaceful Man of God

From 1971 to 1984, my family was privileged to enjoy the spiritual leadership of an extraordinary gentle man, Monsignor Russell J. Obmann. He was a poster-child for one of Jesus’ disciples, a man the Lord had selected, ordained and cherished as friend; hence, he was a dramatic influence on thousands of individuals.

The good Monsignor was 46 years old when we met him. At first blush of the body that housed the man, one didn’t recognize the dynamism inside. For the Monsignor stood 5'6 and was a bit on the roly-poly side. His balding pate was no deterrent to his charismatic persona. To meet him was to love him, for almost everyone. Though the Monsignor abundantly shed tears at weddings as well as funerals, he rubbed some the wrong way, because he stood for what is right and made no bones about letting his parishioners know his position on important issues of spiritual and moral consequence. Outspoken? More like honest.

Beneath the tough shell, however, an oversized heart marched to the beat of a different drummer, abundant with love and peace. During the Catholic Mass, near the last third of the ritual, the celebrant (priest offering the Mass) says to his congregation, May the peace of the Lord be with you. The response is, And also with you. When other priests then added, Let us now offer each other a sign of peace, Monsignor said, In the spirit of a peaceful God who loves us all, turn to the person next to you, in front of you or behind you, and with a smile, a handshake or a kiss, say to that person, ‘God loves you and so do I.’

Disappointingly but not surprisingly, few