BlogBlast For Peace ~ November 5, 2009 ~ How You Can Participate!

When I sat down to write a blog post in October 2006, I didn't expect it to birth a movement. Or did I? But that is exactly what happened. Frustrated and bewildered by the state of affairs in our world, I offered a challenge to my readers on my blog, Mimi Writes: What can we do? I asked. I tossed out an idea: Let's all write a blog post about peace. And while we're at it, let's make some noise. Sign your name on this blue globe graphic, write a post about what peace means to you, title it "Dona Nobis Pacem" which is Latin for Grant Us Peace and publish. One day. One voice. One subject." I wondered and asked......What would happen if we all said the same thing on the same day? I'll tell you what happened.

We had a movement on our hands.

And before I knew it, there were peace globes everywhere. My dream is still to see those Latin words on every blog and every Facebook page and beyond - that vision has not changed; but what I'm finding in the ranks of blog pages across our world is far more eloquent than mere numbers can convey. I read them all. Mothers wanted no war for their sons and daughters. Fathers wanted prosperity for their families to flourish. Children scribbled paint-by-number love on blue graphics. Soldiers found no victory in misery. People held court with their adversaries for one day of truce talkin'. A dialogue began. Passion prevailed. Anger found words. Angst bowed to hope.
Diversity stood up to be counted. Tolerance spoke.
People wrote peace.

And here we are three years later watching the world continue to seemingly implode, explode, violently spin out of control. But we know - this United Nations of Peace Bloggers - that what is written on the blog pages of nearly fifty countries serves as a model of what people really want.

Peace.

This is the first peace globe that ever flew. My name scrawled on a world.

As I asked my readers to do in November 2006, I wrote a post called Dona Nobis Pacem: The Silence Of Peace after I discovered an amazing sight atop my piano on the eve of our first launch in the blogosphere. It was a handmade blue marble formed by my grandfather - and it looked just like our blue graphic.
He was the most peaceful man I'd ever known. In that moment I knew the Peace Globe movement was no accidental splash.

Today there are thousands of names, thousands of voices, thousands of stories, thousands of little blue globes spinning hope. We fly them once a year and they remain in infinity on the internet in an Official Gallery. Since that day, we have moved out and beyond the page to encourage activism in our local governments, continuing those conversations off the blog page and into our daily lives. Some have sent their peace globes to the White House or to their elected officials. Many have become more aware of what is going on around them politically and globally, how unrest anywhere in the world affects us all.

I have made it my mission to learn about my world too. Human beings just a plane hop away from me endure lives of horror just outside their doorsteps. Everyday.
Can I cross the blog border, forget all that, and just remember that voices of peace can't war? Can you?

There are no bombs falling in my backyard. No children running around without food or water or clothing. But somewhere in my world there is a neighborhood like that. And I must look at it. Not only must I be cognizant of that fact but I must be responsible for a revolution of change in me that might eradicate the face of that neighborhood and change it into something much more akin to peace. Am I willing to embrace societies and cultures opposite my own? Are you? The change is in me. The change is in you. It starts with awareness. And if you are a human being with a soul and an open-minded spirit, it will propel into compassion.
From that point - you and I - will begin to want those two worlds to collide.

BlogBlast For Peace is not about a splash on a page for one day. It is a mantra that must be shouted and prayed everyday everyday everyday until there are no more places to look away from when we watch the nightly news. And no more excuses for why my plate is full in my nice warm home and there are children sitting in sand across this globe I call home.

Peace bloggers have turned an idea into a peaceful revolution.
Grab the blank globe at the top of this page and write your own. Place it wherever you reside on the Web. Send it to me at blogblastforpeace@yahoo.com and I will add it to the Gallery with a link to you.

Please join us on November 5, 2009.
To be inspired. To be counted. To be change. To be hope.

I believe that words are powerful - this matters.

Dona nobis pacem,
Mimi Lenox
Founder/Creator
BlogBlast For Peace

Go the logo below for complete details on how to participate: November 5, 2009 Click here for inspiring examples that will help you make your own peace globe:The Peace Globe Gallery
A special thanks to David Califa, Gordon J. Millar and the folks at iPeace for hosting this forum and allowing us to speak peace together.