 Global Integration UpdatesCommon Ground for the Common Good Be the people we need--Build the world we need
Special News--July 2024Being the People Our World Needs
Reflections on Living in Peace The Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem towards the start of Shabbat “A chill is in the air and a sense of magical expectation fills my heart. The twilight is slowly descending, and a crescent moon is slowly rising over the yellowish, limestone buildings. I put on a kippah (head covering) and make my way to the wall itself, passing hundreds who are praying, chanting, singing, swaying, repetitiously and rhythmically bowing, circling in fraternal groups, and/or clustering for discussions and teaching sessions. I touch the wall. I rest my forehead on it. I am transfixed to it, caught up in the social, spiritual, mystical reverie around me.” Pax Dei—Living in Peace 5 (Kelly) ------------------Overview
In this Update (#97), we feature the special series Kelly did on Pax Dei—Living in Peace" (15 brief blog entries from CORE Member Care). Living in peace is not an abstract ideal but rather a daily practice of seeking holistic wellbeing in all areas of our lives and our spheres of influence and ultimately for all people, all peoples, and our planet. Living in peace is a key part of engaging in the challenging issues in our world as well as in member care and mission.
These blog pieces are part of a larger collection of entries on "Loving Truth, Peace, and People." Collectively they represent core perspectives--including values and virtues--from a diverse group of the people and the Christian Scriptures. We encourage you to take the time to reflect and connect with others as you consider what it means to live in peace.
New Resources
--Global Peace Index 2024 (June 2024)
Institute for Economics and Peace
--Core Humanitarian Standard (2024--second edition)
CHS Alliance
We conclude the Update with some personal perspectives on being "people of faith-hope-love" in the Christian tradition who embrace "common ground for the common good." This inclusive approach encourages active learning and collaboration with a diversity of colleagues on behalf of wellbeing for all people and the planet. See these Global Integration Updates: Warm greetings,
Kelly and Michèle   MCAresources@gmail.com
Featured Resources
Being People the World Needs
Reflections on Living in Peace
 "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out." Annelies Marie Frank, 15 July 1944, The Diary of a Young Girl --------------- Pax Dei--Living in Peace 1
The Non-Noble Non-Peace Prize
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 2
Pre-Natal Peace for Humans
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 3
Peace with/for Nature
Typhoon Haiyan
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 4
NonViolence and NonPassivity
Gandhi and the NonViolent Peaceforce
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 5
Dona Nobis Pacem
Jerusalem, City of Peace
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 6
International Day of Peace
Geneva Peace Talks
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 7
Aspirations and Desperations
The Age of Aquarius or the Age of Egregious
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 8
Turning Hope into Action
The United Nations Year in Review 2013
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 9
Ideals
Anne Frank
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 10
Globalization of Indifference
Pope Francis
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 11
The World We Want
One Million Voices
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 12
Hugs and Kicks
Going Global and the Willowbank Report
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 13
Rest in Peace—Resurrect in Perfection
Dave Pollock
Pax Dei--Living in Peace 14
Just Peace
World Council of Churches
Pax Dei—Living in Peace 15 (conclusion)
Peace Prayers
Francis of Assisi
Suggested Applications
Making It Personal 
Q: Where is God?
A: Where is man?
Two prisoners, Auschwitz concentration camp One way to use the 15 brief entries above is to review them over the course of a few days. For example read one-three per day, reflect on them, and make at least one personal application. Use the entries as a springboard to list some quotes-writings that have been important guides for your life and work. You can do this on your own, with a friend, or as a small group. These entries are meant to shine light on our thinking and lives (honest self-appraisals) as well as bolster our resolve to seek peace in our relationships and in our world. "So love truth and peace." (Zechariah 8:19)
More Personal Reflections
Being People of Faith-Hope-Love
As people of faith who practice Christian spirituality, we are committed to responsibly engage with others in the challenges facing our world, locally through globally, while holding firmly to our belief that we are in God's hands. We pray that God's purposes "will be done on earth as they are in heaven;" acknowledge that prayer, repentance, and relationship with God are key to human-planetary wellbeing; and live in hope for the time when God through Jesus Christ will decisively intervene in human history with equity--righteousness and justice--to restore all things. And in the meantime, we seek to embrace lifestyles of integrity that prioritize a deep, practical love for truth, peace, and people--and this includes being willing to acknowledge, resist, and confront evil in its many forms (starting with ourselves, etc.)
We do not want to further problematize our world's plight by focusing primarily on the negative. Rather we want to also promote the many examples of the good going forward, as people of integrity find common ground for the common good.
Finally, we want to highlight that the despair and disillusion that result from seemingly intractable problems like climate, conflicts, poverty, and corruption can also be quite positive. They can embody a crucial existential message about reality that can be "revisited"--explored and heeded--rather than simply "resisted." They can point us to Someone who is bigger than ourselves, the SDGs, humanity, and our world--the knowable, Eternal One who is both in and beyond space-time and who loves us all dearly.
The above thoughts build upon the Personal Reflections in Perils, Paralysis, Hope: Sustainable Development-Sustainable Destruction? (Global Integration Update, October 2022).
Member Care Associates
MCAresources@gmail.com
 Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a non-profit, Christian organization working internationally from Geneva and the USA. MCA's involvement in Global Integration focuses on the wellbeing and effectiveness of personnel and their organizations across sectors (e.g., mission, humanitarian, peace, health, and development sectors) as well as global mental health and integrity/anti-corruption, all with a view towards collaboratively supporting sustainable development for all people and the planet. Our services include consultation, training, research, resource development, and publications.
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Global Integration
Global Integration (GI) is a framework for actively and responsibly engaging in our world--locally to globally. It emphasizes connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity, commitments, and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based). GI encourages a variety of people to be at the “global tables” and in the "global trenches"--and everything in-between--in order to help research, shape, and monitor agendas, policies, and action for all people and the planet. It intentionally links building the world we need with being the people we need. Our Global Integration Updates are designed to help shape and support the emerging diversity of global integrators who as learners-practitioners are committed to the "common ground for the common good." 2015-current (90+ issues).
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Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability;
it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God,
and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (April 1963) |
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