Voices From India ~ Comrades in Peace

I am thinking of my friend Prometheus tonight and wishing him well. He has been awol from the blogosphere for awhile - in fact, he reappeared in June 2008 to post his peace globe and disappeared again . He pens (sometimes!) the ever popular and intelligent Moving (Middle) Finger Writes. As our mutual comrade, Lizza from the Philippines remarked in her post this weekend, he is sorely missed but we wish him love and happiness as he embarks on a new and joyous journey of his own. I always think of him around peace globe time. I also thank him. Why? Because he challenged and inspired me to keep going, maybe more than he even realizes. You see, two years ago he mysteriously appeared in my comments with this wise but smart-aleck quip about my idea for peace globes. He wrote, ""Yo Mims. This is a bit like digging a tunnel to China armed with a plastic spoon.....Ergo, I sign up."

And so he did. Prometheus, ancient enigmatic blogger extraordinaire from India and champion for peace, broke his self-imposed silence that day to write one of the most stirring pleas for world peace I've ever read. I was deeply moved and encouraged.

This is what he had to say way back in the blog year 2006:

"Mimi started this idea called the Peace Globe. Titled Dona Nobis Pacem, and signed by participating bloggers; the Peace Globe was nothing more than the desire for peace of each individual blogger. Undeniably feeble an idea. Surely, a chain of globes cannot achieve what numerous important-sounding treaties did not achieve. When the United Nations, in its third avatar, has failed; when NATO is nada; when NPT is history; when the Kyoto Protocol is worth less than a retarded rodent’s rear and Human Rights have been, er, left behind; the term ‘snowball’s chance in hell’ seems rather inadequate to describe this audacious Peace Globe idea. Prometheus himself has participated in some high-sounding global treaties and world forums. He has seen enough to believe his former superior officer who termed these events as ‘Meeting-Eating-Cheating’ charades. Prometheus did tell Mimi that this Peace Globe thing was ‘like digging a tunnel to China armed with a plastic spoon’. But Prometheus did participate in the Peace Globe venture. Why?

There is a proverb in Hindi that means ‘even a twig is assistance to a drowning man’. When the sun is blotted out, even a firefly seems dear. For Prometheus, the Peace Globe was not just a symbol of his derision for war of the military kind. It also symbolized his prayer for a world where we treat each other with respect, with equality, with justice. A world where we have rid ourselves of hidden agenda, of malice, of superiority over another race or religion, of our selfish traits and of our parasitic tendencies. His dream of a clean human race, one that achieves so much more by harnessing the time formerly spent watching our backs. Like the Elf kind of Tolkien. Wise and serene. Drowning in an endless ocean of stupidity, selfishness and hate; the Peace Globe was Prometheus’ proverbial twig."

So my friend - if you are reading - thank you.
Again.

And I will say to you today what I said to you then - wherever you are...
"About that plastic spoon. Scour the blogosphere today. Mims just got a bigger spoon."

See the fireflies?