re: peace through superior firepower

Yesterday at the farmer's market, where my girlfriend and I sell arts and crafts that we make, we had an unusual encounter. A man walked by our booth, looking at our hand made peace symbol magnets, and said they would be better with a set of guns on them. He then said something like, "peace through power," or "peace through superior firepower" or something to that effect. Usually in times like that I don't have anything to say. This situation wasn't any different in that particular regard. What was different was that I didn't experience that normal jolt that I get when I am shocked by a person's statement that is a direct affront to me. I just watched him go by, and we made definite eye contact, but I truly felt no malice toward him, or any need to prove my point by saying anything to him. He really didn't give me much opportunity to either, as he made his statement and kept going, really allowing no time for response. One thing I did notice, however, was that he seemed to experience a bit of a physical jolt in response to me. I'd like to attribute that to the way I remained open yet somehow unaffected by his comments. On an energetic level, I believe I was holding up a mirror to him, and that to me gives me some hope that there are ways of turning things around in people. I also saw a few other things happening that I think are worth taking a look at.

One was that his speedy, walk by comment, was very much like a violent act in and of itself. Instead of making a pro aggression statement in the face of our pro peace magnets, he could have shot me with a gun. In a subtle way he was demonstrating his reality to me. No dialogue, just hit and run. But as he said "peace through power," he was walking away from me, while at the same time we maintained our shop front and watched him go on his way. He was not powerful at all. Not only was he unable to change our minds, he was also unable to elicit a verbal argument from us, or even a sign of disapproval, shock, or dismay. It was us, who in this sense were unarmed of insult and a need to prove we were better than him, who ended up having the power in the situation. If anyone was more affected by the other, it was him by either what we were doing or not doing in response. And I think that manifested itself as the visible jolt that I saw in him, and which I normally feel in situations like that when I allow myself to be affected by someone hurling insults at me. I believe this occurrence was a result of a practice of meditation and energy work. I hope we can all find ways to tap into our source of strength in order to nonviolently empower ourselves.

It is that kind of presence that I embodied at that moment, which I believe has the ability to disarm people of their violence. I don't think we can go out into the world and do a "care bear stare" at an army and expect them to throw down their weapons, but I do think if we can cultivate something around this, there may be ways to transform societies and even other cultures beyond our borders, that will have the effect of deescalating our violent, chaotic world.