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Monday, August 30, 2010

Oh, my gosh, OH, My Gosh, OH, MY GOSH! We Won! All of us.


The peace quilt has taken on a life of its own. It just won a prize, a big one, on August 28. Out of 80 entries in the Eugene Celebration Parade, the peace quilt entry entitled "Raise the Roof. Build Peace" won BEST Of SHOW under the umbrella of the Nobel Peace Laureate Project.

Actually, the middle schoolers who wrote, taught and inspired people of all ages to write 1,000,000 visions-of-peace postcards to Oprah won too. After studying a diverse group of heroes, the 24 U.S. Nobel Peace Prize winners, those sixth graders derived their own personal ideas for making a more peaceful world. The quilt went on its way this year voicing those messages as far as Russia and as near as Gary's Coffee Shop in Eugene. The Prime Meridian in England is next and a final international destination.

On the other hand, the Nobel Laureate Project Board which is building a peace park won too because we all walked supporting their vision of peace.

However, the real winner of First Place for Best View (representation of the parade theme) as well as Best of Show is obvious.

All 70 people who gathered early Saturday morning to walk for kids' visions of peace won the prize. Apparently, they got across the message of building peace to the secret judges in the crowd that clapped and clapped as we walked by. Every person did his/her part in the "moving play" of peacemakers. People from age two to 76 walked in line for about a mile in downtown Eugene along with the 80 other parade entries having a delightful time. We never expected to win. Now we can donate $450 to the developing peace park for the fun of it.


At the awards ceremony, even the incredulous announcer noted that our group had never been in the parade before and yet, we had won the top coveted prizes.

"Where have you been?" he quizzed.

That's a question we could ask Oprah or any of the rest of us who have yet to both envision peace and then act.

One sure thing is that little seeds of planted ideas sure can grow a lot larger than initially imagined. A tad out of control...

My friend Jen made a comment last spring that grew larger than anyone ever would have thought. The Vanlues, the quilt creators, held a similar thought. These delightful thoughts initiated a transforming or metamorphosing(butterfly language) event that turned out to be "better than good enough."

"Lura, why not bring the end of the quilt's journey to a close in the Eugene Celebration Parade?"

"I will."

Thusly, this past Saturday a diverse group of people headed by the U.S. Nobel Peacemakers walked under a raised roof followed by children's visions of peace protected by the fluttering butterfly quilt at the end.

Close by, walked Marcee Long announcing upcoming cultural and artistic events depicting her vision that "peace begins at home" at the Shedd beginning September 27 and ending October 3.* Peace ripples in the pond continue to expand. Seeds are planted. All of those metaphors seem to be working.

I wonder what British metaphors or sayings will be discovered in London on September 11.

*For information, check www.peaceparkevent.org. The upcoming set of visionary events are really, really big.


1 comment:

  1. Lura,

    We've added a post to our family blog about the peace project and the parade. Thought you might want to see it. :) http://myersfamilynewsreel.blogspot.com/

    Peace to all,
    The Myers family

    ReplyDelete

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