What's Love Got to Do With It?

"What's Love Got to do With it?" Tina Turner snapped the question in a hit record more than a decade ago. Today, that song could serve as the national anthem for the culture of cynicism that seems to be rampant in America and around the world. And that cynicism seems to be working overtime as another holiday season is upon us.

From fistfights over under-stocked and over-priced toys at the mall to escalating violence in the Holy Land, the grinches of greed and separation seem closer than ever to turning the dream of "peace on earth, goodwill to men" into just another bumper-sticker slogan. And just because you are not actively trading blows with someone, doesn't mean you are not directly or unconsciously part of the problem.

While we may absolve ourselves from responsibility for much of the hateful and violent conflict we see around us, this frenzied season creates the kind of inner tension that keeps many of us on short fuses and gives some of us the proverbial holiday blues. In short, this sacred season has come to be about everything other than its original purpose - peace on earth and love.

The hectic pursuit of things...the fear of loss, the need for more...is ripping the heart and soul not only out of the holidays, but out of humanity itself. Add to that the worldwide enmity and violence spawned by divisions of religion, ideology, lifestyle, culture and race and you have the perfect recipe for the inevitable fall from within.

I am not advocating the end of ambition, competition or achievement, but rather a heightened awareness of the fact that though we may live in a material world, we are ultimately spiritual beings having a human experience. That is all well and good as the topic for a Sunday sermon, but what does it have to do with day-to-day living? Plenty.

First of all it means that we are one. In the world of spirit, as we are also beginning to see in the world of quantum physics, there is no separation between us and them, nature and mankind, you and me. As Jimmy Carter puts it in his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, "The blood of Abraham, God's father of the chosen, still flows in the veins of Arab, Jew and Christian." We are all brothers and sisters in flesh and in spirit. The very real differences between us are simply examples of the inexhaustible variety and beauty within oneness. They should be cause for celebration and joy rather than fear and conflict. And to those who think that oneness means blandness, one look at the dynamic spectacles of nature should remind us that there is great latitude in oneness - for individuality, creativity and harmony.

The second practical reality of oneness is that its power rests in each and all. That means we don't have to sit around and wait for governments and institutions or the next Messiah to save us. Each of us has the power to change the world right now. Or, as Deepak Chopra puts it, "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way....We must not bring one war to an end, or thirty, but the idea of war itself."

Until we abandon the belief in violence and war as viable options for settling human disputes, we will continue to perpetuate death and destruction even as we call ourselves a peace loving people.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Some may call you naïve or weak. But an attitude of peace is the ultimate sign of strength. It takes a great deal of empowerment and courage to look your brother or sister in the eye and say, I hear you...I know you...I care about you...I forgive you...I love you. The fractured state of the American family and relationships in general is evidence that we have not yet fully unleashed this power in our personal lives, let alone in the public, political or global arenas. My holiday wish for mankind is simply that we begin to do so. In the words of the song by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson: Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me...

What's love got to do with it? Everything.

Happy Holidays!

Terry Edmonds is former chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a New York corporate speechwriter.