Five Minutes For Peace
May traffic stop, work suspend, communication cease.
For five minutes may the only human noise be the sound of lives being saved.
Let us all come together, for this one moment, in silent hope and prayer.
Five minutes realizing that despite our titles, our blood runs as red as a beggar on a corner, as a madman in an institution, as a prophet's, as a king's.
We all feel pain, fear, confusion, anger and frustration.
It is only what we feed each other that tips the balance of fault and fairness.
We have all been prisoners of our pride, selfishness, and illusion. We all have, at times, allowed these ailments to lead us astray. We all know what it means to be lost, to be frightened. Yet we, are all also bearers of truth, of love, of compassion and understanding.
Five minutes of silence on behalf of everyone who truly wants nothing more than food, shelter, honest rewards for honest work, and to care for that which they love.
Five minutes of prayer for every man woman and child who wants simply to worship, to offer thanks and reverence for this chance at life, in the best way they know how.
Five minutes of peace for all whom feel it better to be enlightened, than beaten into submission.
Five minutes of silence for every person who, quite honestly, finds the wrath of God, Mother Nature, and human error excitement enough, thank you, without the terror of war, and the nightmare of our kin destroying brothers, sisters and ourselves.
Five minutes of hope that if any find their only joy in hatred, murder and destruction, they will go off to some desolate, barren land, happily destroy each other there, and leave us who seek peace alone.
Five minutes of peace, in the name of being tired.
Tired of feeding our children to angry ghosts who have only multiplied in the days, weeks, years, centuries, millennia of vile discord.
Tired of wasting our energies on hatred and fear, when there are so many places they are needed for love and solace.
Five minutes of silence in respect for those lost.
Five minutes in prayer, may they rest in peace.
Five minutes to find the pulse of our world so we may dance and sing in harmony once again.
Five minutes of silence in the name of living, and letting live in the best way we can.
Five minutes in the name of listening to and teaching what we believe is right, instead of terrorizing others who we fear are mistaken.
Five minutes of respect for every three-year old that shakes her head and sighs, newly aware of the madness that surrounds her.
Five minutes in sorrow for all children who come of age only to paint themselves in the colors of death because they see no hope, and do not understand why.
Tears for all those who know only the darkness, the misery that seems their birthright.
Five minutes of prayer, five minutes of love, five minutes of universal forgiveness.
Five minutes to show the world, that we are not the only ones who feel this way. Five minutes to feed the faith that we are not alone.
What next? What then, you ask? After five minutes of contemplating the hope and insanity that has brought us thus far? Listen to our hearts, let it deem our next actions.
Help to turn these towers of babble we call "modern technology" into beacons of hope.
For love, truth, and forgiveness are contagious. They spread with our embrace.
Purge yourself of the sin you find, sacrifice your secrets, and offer forgiveness to those you find doing the same. Let us have hope.
Let our prayer find action in universal solidarity, let us free ourselves and our children of this baggage of misery which we have carried since the dawn of time.
Let us clean our ragged wounds so they may finally heal. Let us restore this home, this life-spring, this haven we call "Earth". We may never find perfection, but it is ever noble to try.
