We restart the Gems next Monday.

Meanwhile, did you know there are 195 countries on Earth, and that about 29* of them are at war right now?

*Edited. Source: https://armedconflicts.org/

• Afghanistan
• Albania
• Algeria
• Andorra
• Angola
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australia ♡
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Bahamas
• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Barbados ♡
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Belize ♡
• Benin
• Bhutan
• Bolivia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Botswana
• Brazil ♡
• Brunei
• Bulgaria
• Burkina Faso
• Burundi
• Cabo Verde
• Cambodia
• Cameroon
• Canada ♡
• Central African Republic
• Chad ♡
• Chile
• China ♡
• Colombia ♡
• Comoros
• Congo (Congo-Brazzaville)
• Costa Rica
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Croatia
• Cuba
• Cyprus
• Czechia (Czech Republic) ♡
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Denmark
• Djibouti
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• Equatorial Guinea
• Eritrea
• Estonia
• Eswatini (fmr. “Swaziland”)
• Ethiopia
• Fiji
• Finland
• France
• Gabon
• Gambia
• Georgia ♡
• Germany ♡
• Ghana ♡
• Greece
• Grenada
• Guatemala
• Guinea
• Guinea-Bissau
• Guyana
• Haiti
• Holy See ♡
• Honduras
• Hungary
• Iceland
• India ♡
• Indonesia
• Iran ♡
• Iraq
• Ireland ♡
• Israel
• Italy ♡
• Jamaica
• Japan
• Jordan
• Kazakhstan
• Kenya
• Kiribati
• Kuwait
• Kyrgyzstan
• Laos
• Latvia
• Lebanon
• Lesotho
• Liberia
• Libya
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Madagascar
• Malawi
• Malaysia
• Maldives
• Mali
• Malta
• Marshall Islands
• Mauritania
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Micronesia
• Moldova
• Monaco
• Mongolia
• Montenegro
• Morocco
• Mozambique
• Myanmar (formerly Burma)
• Namibia
• Nauru
• Nepal
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Nicaragua
• Niger
• Nigeria ♡
• North Korea
• North Macedonia
• Norway ♡
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Palau
• Palestine State ♡
• Panama
• Papua New Guinea
• Paraguay
• Peru ♡
• Philippines
• Poland ♡
• Portugal
• Qatar
• Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Romania
• Russia
• Rwanda
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• San Marino
• São Tomé and Príncipe
• Saudi Arabia
• Senegal
• Serbia
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Solomon Islands
• Somalia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• South Sudan
• Spain
• Sri Lanka
• Sudan
• Suriname
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Syria
• Tajikistan
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Timor-Leste
• Togo
• Tonga
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Tunisia
• Turkey
• Turkmenistan
• Tuvalu
• Uganda
• Ukraine ♡
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom ♡
• United States of America ♡
• Uruguay
• Uzbekistan
• Vanuatu
• Venezuela ♡
• Vietnam
• Yemen
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

Bold = Experiencing Armed Conflicts
♡ = I know/love someone in this country

MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH

Last November, I joined a “Global Interfaith Compassion Pod” on ServiceSpace.org, where  I learned about a beautiful initiative that began more than 70 years ago. Masahisa Goi of Japan started the Peace Pole idea in 1955. It is “a monument that displays the message ‘May Peace Prevail on Earth’ in the language of the country where it has been placed.” This grew into the World Peace Prayer Society and spread worldwide.

I was deeply humbled that a man from Japan, whose country had been decimated by our atomic bombs only a decade before, would start this beautiful idea. I decided to join this initiative in my own way. About 15 years ago, I started praying/sending healing to people/groups of people. Starting last year, I also started praying “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in (country) for all 195 countries.

“And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.” ―Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

I spent a few months looking up where every country was in the world and took a screenshot of the map to save them all. The hearts on the list above are for countries where I know and love people. I hope to add hearts to all 195 countries. Many of these friends and loved ones are gone, like Ali Mohamadi from Iran, a friend from college. Ali went home after graduation to fight in the war because in the 80s all young men in his country were required to serve. A year later, we got word that he had been killed. He was a lovely young man, full of hope.

War wastes our young people and breaks the hearts of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, and friends every single day. “It is with great sorrow and deep regret…” These letters do nothing to replace the people the war has taken.

“Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.”

-Carl Sagan

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I want to share something Carl Sagan said about our “Pale Blue Dot” after we got the first photo of Earth back from Voyager 1 on Valentine’s Day, 1990. He gave the famous “Pale Blue Dot” speech in 1994. Here’s a shorter version, and below that, the full version.

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Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it
everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate
of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions,
ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every
hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every
king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father,
hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every
corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every
saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a
mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the
rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in
glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a
fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the
inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely
distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their
misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent
their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we
have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this
point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great
enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there
is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from
ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is
nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could
migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment
the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building
experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of
human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it
underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another,
and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve
ever known.

-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Source: Awakin.org, Pale Blue Dot

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This ^ is one of many gems shared here over the years about peace. I believe almost everyone on the planet wishes, hopes, and prays for peace every day.

Peace

I hope you join me every day, if only to say these words: May Peace Prevail on Earth

♥