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The Morning Star of the New Day shines upon the Universe and looks on a different world, a world that has been weary and now longs for the attainment of Peace and the Epiphany or Manifestation of the Universal Experience. The world does not need a universal religion, but is does need the Universal Experience. So as the viewers of the world unite in sharing the celebrations of light and music, dance and song, so too do we celebrate coming Home to Peace.
We are its home; its tranquil dwelling place from which it gently reaches out and spreads across the whole of creation. It must begin with one or two, it must begin with us, and from us reach to everyone who calls.
So
let us come to this peace place and spend a moment together. Here we share a final dream for peace in the World.
As long as thee is a single act of Violence, a single act of War, and as
long as a single "Slave" remains to walk the Earth, our release and
restoration is not complete.
We
are still, and in the Quiet we enter a New Year, a New Century, a new
Thousand-Year History, and we realize we share this Universal Experience. We share the music, the poetry, and the moment with the entire world and
we realize when we have peace at last we will be Home.
A
Moment of Silence for Peace.
Good Morning!
We
are now into the first moments of the early morning and the first stirrings of the
new year.
It
is fitting that we begin with words from America's Poet, the wonderful Maya
Angelou and in her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" she writes:
Here
on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look
Up and out and say very
Simply with Love, Good Morning.
Across
the wall of the world
A river sings a beautiful song
It
says:
Come rest here by my side
Come clad in peace
If you would study war no more
Lift up your eyes
Upon this day breaking for you
Give birth again to the Dream.
We affirm that the World can make Peace a reality, and that Peace needs to fall upon the Earth like drops of healing rain. Let us continue to believe in the Miracle of Peace.
Our first reading of two is the Poem by Maya Angelou written for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations. It is called:
Our
thanks to Maya for such a wonderful poem, and the permission to read it at
"The Peace at Last Concert." The world is Anew,
Ascending
and spiraling towards Peace.
Our
Second Reading like the music of Stephen Foster comes from the 19th
century. Walt Whitman addresses
himself as he speaks to the Listeners of the Future.
This piece is taken from different poems in his "Leaves of Grass" and I call it:
Walt
Whitman's Salute to the World
We
finish this concert for peace with music as we drift back to the 20th
century and listen to John Lennon's "Imagine."
John saw a world of beautiful children and a world of
beautiful dreamers who believed in peace, and truly believed we could live as
One. We who know we are not the
only ones, listen or sing along with this masterpiece of peace and love.
We return to
Silence, and hear an ancient melody playing throughout the Universe. It sighs,
it sings, it whispers to a weary world ready for rebirth and joy, a world ready
to transform itself into a Bright New World, where the children are safe, and
where we offer them this gift of hope. Our
every thought joined with one another as our hearts cry out with Joy:
