PEACE THROUGH PURITY

The fog in the morning of the Women's Federation for World Peace seminar gave a sense of being enveloped in God's womb – a quiet and reassuring place where miracles are born. In the spirit of the morning, on this Saturday, January 12, 2013, in Fairfax, Virginia, a historic event was about to be birthed. The Washington, D.C. metro area chapters of Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP), DC, Virginia, and Maryland organized a seminar on purity, which explored the question: "What does abstinence have to do with peace?"

Like the historic birth of Jesus, the seminar seemed to emerge quietly and modestly at first, but then it became charged with excitement and urgency. This was indeed a seminar wherein women could further their understanding of their role as mothers of this world, and, more importantly, gain the tools for bringing about real and sustainable peace.

On this Saturday, WFWP Virginia Chairwoman Mrs. Katherine Cromwell warmly welcomed about 30 women and quite a few men to the Northern Virginia Learning Center. She introduced Mrs. Angelika Selle, WFWP USA President, who welcomed them to the "virgin" area of Virginia – further alluding to the seminar's topic. Mrs. Selle, through showcasing the efforts of various ongoing abstinence programs, shared the crucial relevance of abstinence and purity to building a peaceful world. She also emphasized that the audience, as enlightened women and men, must use the tools currently being presented, and get moving with promoting peace through purity.

Mrs. Heidi Iseda, the National Clean Slate Program Coordinator from Los Angeles, then began presenting the Clean Slate training program. She first introduced the program, and then demonstrated the undeniable importance of abstinence education for both children and parents worldwide. From October of 2007, Mrs. Iseda was the Director of the Clean Slate Education program, a community-based abstinence education program (CBAE), with oversight and funding by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families. With a federal grant, Mrs. Iseda led the program for over three years and reached over 14,000 teens in California. At the termination of funding from the Department of Health, Mrs. Iseda brought the Clean Slate Education curriculum over to Women's Federation for World Peace as the national program coordinator.

Among the practical facets of the program, it essentially teaches the importance of a life of abstinence -- that it is not only about sex, but about cultivating healthy relationships and building a guilt-free, purposeful, joyful life. "What does abstinence have to do with peace?" Mrs. Iseda asked, "It has to do with inner peace." Abstinence has to do with a life free of heartbreak, free of distraction, free of sexually transmitted disease to name but a few of the benefits. Thus Mrs. Iseda presented a direct link to the teaching of "good sex," which is the monogamous, faithful relationship between two loyal partners and which is the foundation of a peaceful society and a peaceful world.

Mrs. Iseda was accompanied by Mrs. Priya D'Silva Franklin, who gave the audience a sample of the Clean Slate program curriculum. Mrs. D'Silva Franklin, a young newly married woman and trained presenter, introduced the first section of the Clean Slate education curriculum entitled, "Protecting Your Future." She led the audience through hands-on activities, one of which included throwing around small colorful plastic balls to one another, which we were told afterward showed the easy passing around of STDs through the "fun" of casual sex. Activities like these helped illustrate the seriousness of certain careless life-style choices that young people might make, and their devastating consequences. We could see that the activities also could raise young peoples' awareness of the consequences and personal burdens resulting from premature sex, such as at 13 years of age being responsible for a baby– something that kids do not normally think about when engaging in casual sexual activity.

Then, Washington, D.C., WFWP Chairwoman Mrs. Eny Reed introduced the High School Essay Contest on Purity, which she and two other women, Mrs. Elisabeth Aihe and Mrs. Wasana Catalan had given birth to four years ago. Since then has been an ongoing project in various public high schools around Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Mrs. Reed exhibited this growing project through a video, which demonstrated the positive impact the contest has had on both the young people who wrote about why they chose to stay pure, as well as on the others who heard their testimonies. Thus, this essay contest continues to have a substantial impact on high school students' ways of thinking, and further serves to impact the people around them.

Mrs. Reed passionately stated that "we have the power (mothers' power) to save the world" as women working together. The essay contest program is furthermore a concretizing supplement to the Clean Slate program. "Like the lid on the pot," said Mrs. Selle, "these programs can complement, complete, and concretize each other." Mrs. Selle showed how these two programs indeed complement each other and are explicitly linked to making the overall vision of WFWP a reality.

So what does abstinence have to do with peace? After listening to the engaging educational presentations, and to the testimonies of its previous successes, the audience agreed that abstinence truly has everything to do with peace. As Mrs. Iseda pointed out, abstinence has to do with inner peace: "When you are free in your conscience, then you have inner peace." And it has to do with world peace, too, because, when citizens become people of inner peace, there is a natural decline in crime, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, single parenthood, poverty, and other social ills.

Mrs. Selle finally brought this theme of abstinence and peace around to the educational role of the Global Women's Peace Network. She shared deeply that through promoting "abstinence before marriage, and loyalty within marriage," we strengthen the power of "good sex within marriage" in this world currently dominated by influences of "bad (licentious) sex".

Finally, Maryland Chairwoman Mrs. Kim Dadachanji gave an especially thoughtful "Call to Action." She pointed out that before Mrs. Iseda began researching and teaching the Clean Slate Educational Program, it wasn't being done. That before Mrs. Reed and her colleagues began the High School Essay Contest, that also was not being done. Therefore the impact that these programs are having now, was not being felt by the communities involved. She called us to act on what we want to see in our communities and to become presenters of the Clean Slate Education, to take it to the schools, to the churches and other places of worship, and make a positive impact on both parents and students and thus foster more peaceful communities to combat the culture of "free sex" that the media portrays as "normal."

In the final analysis, it is up to each person, in particular each woman, to take a stand against the current culture that is inundated with the wrong message about sex; and to begin a new trend of happier, more fulfilling, free, and peaceful relationships.