Only love can drive out hate. -- MLK

Events

Featured Quotes

  • Non-violence confronts systematic injustice with active love, but refuses to retaliate with further violence under any circumstances. In order to halt the vicious cycles of violence, it requires a willing acceptance of suffering and death rather than inflicting suffering or death on anyone else.
    • John Dear, Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action (2000)
  • Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil.
    • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here?: Chaos or Community (1967)

Featured Global Community

Focusing on those practicing nonviolence in a world of violence

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

What does it mean to be a person of active nonviolence? We live in a culture so deeply infused with violence that it no longer seems unnatural. How can we create an alternative–a culture of nonviolence whose vision is both personal and universal?

Campaign Nonviolence is a new, long-term movement whose goal is to bring nonviolence into the mainstream. How? By studying the principles and methods of nonviolence. By striving to live nonviolence in daily practice. By sharing stories of nonviolence. By taking nonviolence public in our neighborhoods, schools, religious communities, organizations, cities, and societies.

In the words of author and pacifist John Dear, the life of nonviolence requires three simultaneous attributes:

  • being nonviolent toward ourselves
  • being nonviolent toward all people, all creatures, all creation
  • joining the global grassroots movement of nonviolence

As we weave these three intentions into our lives, we discover the power of nonviolence to meet the overwhelming crises facing our selves, our communities, and our world today.

We cannot do everything, but we can each do something! The journey begins with a single step.

What you can do NOW:

DECLARE

STUDY

  • Explore the literature of nonviolence--its history, its practitioners, its ideology, its poetry. (See CNV-Iowa Resources).

PRACTICE

  • Pursue a daily practice of awareness that affirms the power of nonviolence and acknowledges the ways we allow violence to permeate our lives.

  • Carry that awareness into your daily life, your work, with your family, in your social circles.

ACTIVATE

  • Bring the alternative of nonviolence to the attention of your faith community, social organization, advocacy group, workplace–any group in which you are involved.

  • Help build the nonviolent community! Consider sponsoring a book group or one of the free online courses in nonviolence (see resources).

  • Ask your organization to consider endorsing Campaign Nonviolence and join the growing movement.

  • Be mindful and prayerful of global actions for nonviolence. Although rarely in the media spotlight, people around the world are striving for peace through nonviolent strategies.

Practice active nonviolence: toward yourself,
toward all others, and toward the world.

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an Iowa initiative in support of Campaign Nonviolence

Campaign Nonviolence has been initiated by Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service. For more information about the national campaign and its supporters, see
www.paceebene.org. For the Iowa initiative, contact info@cnv-iowa.org.
 Download a CNV-Iowa flyer