just be it Just Be It is a practice of presence that recognizes the limits of language. When aware of silence there is a state of inner still alertness. You are wholeheartedly present.

When we advocate for peace and non-violence, we must honestly ask:

Do our actions work?

Not according to ideology,

not according to pride,

but according to the simple law of efficacy.

Did the Vietnam War work?

Did the preemptive invasion of Iraq work?

Did the seizure of a foreign leader bring wisdom into the world?

When we look carefully,

when we remove the slogans,

we must admit that violence rarely produces the peace it promises.

Perhaps the most important question we can ask our elected leaders is simple:

What is your wisdom?

And what do you mean by wisdom?

Is your wisdom locked inside rigid beliefs and inherited narratives?

Or is wisdom something living—

a practice continually tested

by the law of efficiency, compassion, and non-harm?

Today I lift my horn.

I have been asked to play taps to honor the fighting of soldiers who supposedly brought us freedom.

But when I look honestly at the wisdom of the wars they were asked to fight,

I cannot blow my horn in honor of violence.

Today I play my horn for something else.

For healing.

For the reduction of suffering.

For the day when wisdom replaces our habit of war