President's Corner: It's Healing Time
Dear friend,
As America remembered Veterans Day a few days ago, and also commemorated the 100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (a more in-depth article will appear in the next Logic of Love News), it is an appropriate time to remember the many wounds and physical and emotional scars that wars and civil strife leave behind in people's minds and hearts.
As the headline of a recent newspaper article about veterans noted: "After Wars, the Journey Home Takes a Lifetime." Indeed, the damage from armed conflict— mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical—is nearly impossible to repair in the hearts of those who were caught up in war. The outcome of wars can even divide countries, necessitating decades of concerted effort thereafter to restore, heal, and mend, as in the case of East and West Germany, and North and South Korea.
Echoes of this tragic postwar division of a country were heard in our recent, unprecedented Global Women's Peace Network International Forum, "A Unified Korea: Rising Above Challenges." The panelists presented heart-wrenching stories of those who escaped North Korea and now live in South Korea or Japan and how they are dealing with flagrant discrimination in their new environment in addition to digesting the horrors of their experience in the North.
So, with this first issue in November, let us take a moment to reflect on and take a look at the work of healing and digesting that is needed to truly restore inner peace (as much as possible) and to create a new reality of lasting peace. Forgiveness by people on all sides surely plays a major role in this work, including forgiving oneself, as does humility. Forgiveness even contributes to physical health! See the article in this issue on "Forgiveness for Heart Health."
This month, our WFWP/GWPN forums also honor and celebrate our Native Americans' heritage in several events around the nation, as their spirituality has much to offer in helping to create harmony and oneness.
So, here is to a most memorable month of November, as we start with Remembrance near the beginning and end with Thanksgiving—giving thanks that, in the midst of it all, our God, Our Creator, has always been with us and is sustaining us.
Stay warm and safe!
Angelika