This recording features only the Sunday Talk portion of the service. View the full service here.
Negotiating Peace – Rev. Darrell Jones – Talk Only
DESCRIPTION
Many believe that peace is the absence of conflict, struggle, disturbance or even war. What if peace wasn’t a state of nothingness, rather peace was an active practice that we brought to all of the conflict, struggle, disturbance and war in our lives? Peace as a practice instead of a state attained. Join us this week as we explore the peace practice that is our individual and collective responsibility. Discover and learn ways to negotiate peace inside and out in everyday living.
SUMMARY
- Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to navigate disagreement with respect and compassion.
- Hate, even toward those we see as harmful, harms the one hating as much as the one hated.
- Negotiating peace is a lifelong spiritual practice of listening, understanding, and restoring friendly relations.
- True peace requires acknowledging the divinity in all life and being willing to step into the “wilderness” of uncertainty and change.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Darrell Jones (00:01):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Such a sweet song. So what if you were singing that to yourself, I believe what you say of me, what are you saying about yourself right now? What have you said about yourself this week? Think about that for a moment. The impact of what we say, not only to the world, not only to our friends, to our family, to our loved ones, to our pets, but most importantly, what are you saying to yourself, y’all, okay, here’s the thing that I love about spiritual community and that I want to take more. This is complete deviation, sidetrack of my talk today. Spirit got me up early this morning and was like, okay, you wrote this. I got some other things to say. One of those things that Spirit wants me to call out is community, and there’s something powerful about coming into a room with people.
(01:13):
Everyone online, I’m not dissing on you. I’m glad that you’re here. Stop multitasking for a minute and let yourself be present and be a part of the community of dialogue and discussion on Facebook and YouTube, because that is community as well. But everything that I want to talk about today, it is not a 20 minute talk, it is a lifetime of practice that we are here to talk about. It’s something that we return to over and over and over again. It’s not something that you learn once and then you’re good to go. It’s something that you learn and you unlearn and relearn on a daily, weekly basis. For those of you who may think about lifetimes, we’re learning lessons for a lifetime and then another one. It’s not that simple. We think it’s that simple, right? We want to go to school, get the grade, and we’re like, okay, check that off.
(02:06):
Nope, there’s nothing you’re checking off. There is a lifetime of learning. And to do that with community, to be here on Sunday mornings, to come on a Wednesday night, to do something on a Monday evening or a Tuesday or whenever it may be, I just want to encourage everyone to do more than the one thing that you do a couple of times a month to engage with Cityside and do one more thing this month. Not for Cityside, but for yourself. But what I know is that when you do that for yourself, you’re doing something for the community because wherever two or more are gathered, awesomeness happens. Yes. So there’s this interesting thing that I think creatives, does anyone in here consider themselves a culture or creative? Anyone use that term anymore? Okay, so I’m not talking about artistic creativity. So it’s like you’re living a life that’s creative.
(03:01):
Maybe you’re coloring outside of the lines. Yeah, okay, I’m doing that as well, but I realize the importance of the lines. I always said that in my life if I didn’t have some boundaries, I would just be driving all over the place. And so there’s something beautiful about that and Reverend Amy decided to go with the Centers for Spiritual Living themes for the month of May, and I was actually on the committee that wrote the themes for 2025 and this idea of raising your voice when there were about 10 of us, 12 of us that sat in contemplation and writing and prayer and visioning of how is it that we can be in this faith, in this tradition where it’s all about our consciousness, but take the responsibility of raising our voice in the world. That is something, whether you realize it or not, that is at the edge of new thought right now.
(04:01):
It’s at the edge of centers for spiritual living, which Cityside is a part of. There is this almost behe dialogue and conversation about what we should or what we shouldn’t be doing. Should we be marching? Should we be putting our hand up and saying that’s not right? Should we be doing anything other than sitting quietly praying and affirming and knowing that God is all that there is? I don’t think there’s a should. I don’t think there’s one over the other, but we must be in this dialogue of what does it mean to raise our voice? And so that’s what we’re exploring this month. What does it mean to raise your voice? And notice it doesn’t say raise your voice in protest. It just says raising your voice, right? Oftentimes we conflate the two that to raise your voice is about pushing against something. No. This is just you being the culture creative that you are coloring outside of the lines and letting your voice be heard.
(04:58):
Is anyone not letting their voice be heard right now? Yeah. Okay. So hopefully this talk is for you, not hopefully it is in this book, Brene Brown. Some people love her, some people hate her. I just think that she pushes the edge of the way that we relate to one another. If you have not read anything by her, whether it’s this book, braving the Wilderness, the Quest for True Belonging or one of her other writings, just get in relationship with some of the things that she writes and talks about because she’s a great speaker, she’s a great writer. But for those of us who are research nerds, she’s a researcher. She brings data, she brings information. People who need numbers to back up these philosophical and spiritual and principle-based ideas. She does that. So check her out. Alright, now let’s get to the talk ish. Last week, Reverend Amy was talking about boundaries. And
(06:58):
So what just happened is what I want to talk about. You think you can plan yourself into the perfect life? Nope. Boundaries are a good thing. Boundaries are a great thing. But somehow we think because we’ve created a boundary that the line isn’t going to be crossed. Well, I have healthy boundaries. Why is this still happening to me? Anyone ever had that thought? Why are these people still talking to me? Or maybe you’re like, okay, I see their boundaries are there, and all of a sudden you find yourself floating across the boundary and calling that person you were never going to talk to again or scrolling through their social media and seeing what they’re doing. Anyone boundaries? I try to be fairly pg, but I just want to be a little bit more activated today. Boundaries are bullshit for this purpose. They are only there as guiding rails.
(08:25):
They are not hard. They are very, very soft. There’s lots of holes in the boundaries and we don’t do a great job of respecting boundaries. We don’t respect others’ boundaries and we don’t respect our own boundaries very well. So then what do we do? We find ourself in conflict. One of the words in the talk title, negotiating peace, conflict, reconciliation, transformation. That to me is what the spiritual journey is all about. We wake up and go to sleep and wake up and go to sleep. And then as we move through the day, our boundaries are constantly being renegotiated.
(09:10):
Regardless of what we’ve put into our journal, regardless of the prayer that we’ve spoken, regardless of the difficult conversation we’ve had with someone, the boundary is always being compromised. And this isn’t like some fatalistic thing, this is just wherever two or more are gathered, there’s going to be difference period. Whether it’s one person having a different optical view of a color and we try to say, that’s purple. No, it’s not, it’s blue. Something as simple as that. The way we look out into the world is going to be different. So if that’s the case, then we need to learn how to be with conflict because I actually don’t think conflict is a bad thing. If there wasn’t conflict, then the word peace wouldn’t exist. Think about that for a moment. It’s kind of a natural way of being in life, and I’m going to come back to it when I get to some definitions. I love my dictionaries and definitions of words because I think we spew a lot of language in the world, but we don’t really think about what we’re saying. So I’m going to come back to some definitions about peace negotiation, conflict reconciliation, and transformation. But as you think about those words, think about a garden, there’s constant conflict in a garden.
(10:40):
Alright? All right, before I get too far to the left, let me come back to my script and just focus us. So the description for today’s talk is this idea that many of us believe that peace is the absence of conflict, struggle, disturbance, or
Paige Kizer (10:55):
Even war, the
Rev. Darrell Jones (11:14):
Wars of our life. Peace as a practice instead of a state attained. That’s what I want to explore today. And this quote, man, it’s a lot of words, but see if you can take it in civility, which to me is something that is the way of practicing peace. Civility, Brene Brown says is claiming and caring for one’s identity, so your identity, your needs and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process. Civility is about disagreeing without disrespect. That’s the nugget right there. I’m going to repeat that again. Civility is about disagreeing without respect. Seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past one’s preconceptions and teaching others to do the same. Civility is the hard work. It’s not easy. Civility is the hard work of staying present even with those with whom we have deep rooted in fierce disagreements. It is political in the sense that it is a necessary prerequisite for civic action, but it is political too in the sense that it is about negotiating. Interpersonal just two of us. Interpersonal power that everyone’s voice is heard and nobody’s is ignored.
(13:00):
Again, lots of words to digest there, but if you got lost, just hear this first sentence one more time. Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity needs and beliefs without disregarding someone else’s in the process. Civility is about disagreeing without disrespect. I’m not a great pop culture person, but I got to bring in a little bit of pop culture. It’s been in the forefront. There’s a movie out right now called Sinners. Anyone’s seen it. It’s interesting. It’s not my jam. It’s not a movie that it’s not a genre that I’m all about, but actually another minister, Reverend David Alexander down in Atlanta said, you got to go see it. And there’s lots of cultural references. There’s this cool throwback to looking at the history of blacks in this country and the African diaspora and the importance of music. I’m not giving you a spoiler, but it’s basically it takes place in 1930s, Jim Crow South. And so it’s this interesting exploration and look at things that are happening in the world. My brother-in-law was like, it’s kind of a cool way of teaching some history where they’re trying to cut out history and they’re making it in pop culture. But the thing is is that it’s a vampire movie.
(14:33):
It’s a vampire flick. So that’s the thing that kind got me twisted in my head. I’m like, that’s not really the entertainment that I get into, but it was cool. It got me thinking so much that I wrote a piece on Substack, if you follow that called Hatred, the Modern Day Vampire. And I wanted to share a little bit of it with you in the context of our peace talk today. So after seeing this movie again, I’m not going to give any spoilers here. I don’t even really talk about the contents of the movie, but an impression that I took from it and it was on hate as the modern day vampire hate to me is a form of violence. Hate always harms and hurts.
(15:25):
Hate always hurts the ones on the receiving end, but we must realize that hate does nothing to heal or benefit the health of the mind. Body or spirit of the one hating. Hate is our modern day vampire, just like the bite of a vampire violently killing the living hate kills sometimes literally the life of the one hated hate sucks a little bit of life out of everyone each and every time. It is expressed as a man of African descent with darker skin. Whenever I’ve experienced hate directed towards me, it’s nipped a little bit of vitality out of my core. And can it be regained? Yes, but it takes a toll each and every time. It’s experienced and regaining and reclaiming my vitality in anyone’s vitality who’s experienced hate. If it’s chronic upon them, it’s almost impossible. But one of the things that I feel so compelled to speak about today and what I wrote about is the impact of hate on the one hating because most of the time we focus on the impact of hate on the person that’s being hated.
(16:48):
Yes, those that blatantly hate bigots, misogynists, homophobes and more. There’s like a little hit that they get a seeming life boost that is felt. The ego feels satisfied, vindicated, righteous, whatever it feels. However it is not sustaining. There is an emptiness that returns and more hating is required to fill that emptiness, much like a vampire needs more blood to stay alive. Now, I assume most of you here in the room and watching online, if you’re paying attention and you haven’t jumped away, you probably identify yourself as being somewhere in the middle to the left of the social and the political spectrum. Yeah, more than likely you consider yourself inclusive, accepting, and welcoming.
(17:49):
Now, I invite us all to consider for a moment if we hate yes, we are inclusive. And yet have you ever said the words, I hate Trump. I hate bigots. I hate judgmental people. The impact of hate is not exclusive. It is quite inclusive regardless of what we may be hating on, even if it’s something we see as evil unquote or harm to society. If we are using the word hate, it is impacting us. It gives us the hit of righteous indignation. But realize that this hate is still harming your mind, your body, your spirit and your nervous system.
(19:00):
We may be for the rights of all, however, if we are crying for this from a space of hating another, the hate is still present and chances are that hate is strong and harming you. So you’re picking up what I’m putting down. We must check our consciousness in our righteous indignation of raising our voices and screaming. Are we coming from a consciousness in a place of hating something, being against it, or are we talking about what we are for the love and the inclusion that we truly desire in the world? If you desire to begin negotiating greater peace in your life, one place you can begin this week is by detoxing from the word hate.
(19:47):
Remove it from your spoken language, your internal dialogue, and whenever you meet the feeling of hate, because you don’t choose to hate, it’s this instantaneous programmed thing within you. So you’re going to hate, don’t get it twisted in your head that you’re going to go intellectually. I don’t hate anyone, I walk around the person loving everyone bull. That’s a boundary that it’s not real. Hate is going to come up within you, but when it does have compassion, kindness, and forgiveness and do your best to pivot away from that hate to love, and it doesn’t mean that you have to love the thing that you don’t like because that’s where we get caught, right? This is where forgiveness doesn’t work for people. How can I forgive that person? Forget about that person. Can you forgive yourself for a minute? Forget about yourself for a minute. Can you just forgive history? Can you just forgive the fact that the temperature swung down from 80 to 50? Dang it, I liked wearing shorts yesterday. I want to wear them again today. Do something to shift to pivot. As Sean Jen Wright says in his book, the Four Pivots, pivot your attention away from the thing that is consuming you into hate, that is consuming you into anger, that is consuming you into a space of pulling your consciousness down from connection to God.
(21:21):
Hate does nothing for you or the planet. Well, let me rephrase that. Hate does everything, but it never does anything that you want it to
Paige Kizer (21:35):
Do, to
Rev. Darrell Jones (22:16):
Practice, to exercise, to offer and embody. So verb. If peace is a verb and it is something for us to practice and embody, then our talk today is inviting us to negotiate peace within ourselves every day. It’s something for us to practice and embody every day. The practice of peace is what allows us to step into these principles that we talk about, that we teach about, that we learn about here in new thought, in all the ancient wisdom practices. If we aren’t in negotiating peace, then we’re disempowering ourselves. So here’s a couple of the principles of new thought that there’s unity in all life. Now we speak that word all the time.
(23:10):
Think of the political spectrum in this country. You are one. There is unity in all political thoughts. We are one. I see some jaws getting stiff. If you can’t come to some level of peace in your own mind and body that you are one with someone that you have a disagreement with, you’re adding to the problem. It’s not just their stinking thinking. Your attitude is not contributing to the possibility of greater peace on this planet. We must be in the action. We must be in the movement. We must be in the embodiment of peace no matter what we come up against. I had a coaching session with someone this week and we were in this conversation and they were just trying to, they kept saying about the conditions of life. If this changes, when this changes, then the spiritual journey, some people say it’s waking up to what’s real or what’s true.
(24:30):
The real walking the streets every day. The spiritual journey is waking up to what is and regardless of what’s there finding peace with it, the spiritual journey is waking up from what is and being the tranquility, making peace with it. It doesn’t mean that you have to be okay with people being harmed. It doesn’t mean that you have to be okay with people being pushed to the sides of society. That’s not what we’re talking about. Finding a space to soften your edges because the very people that you think need to change their minds, they need to talk to you. But we go like this and we want to walk away from them. We don’t want to talk to them. How can I possibly talk to that person who thinks that thing? How can I possibly have a conversation with that family member who doesn’t believe the way that I do that has harmed me or said mad things to me?
(25:44):
Deep breath in. Dang, I’m only on page two. So I want to pick apart the talk title really quick in the definitions of these words. So peace, and this is where I think we have one of the fundamental challenges in our world today. We talk about different operating systems and constantly our phones and our computers are being upgraded. We’re going from 2.0 to 3.0 to 6.9 to version one, 0.3, 8, 9, 2, whatever it may be. That’s because there’s this realization that things constantly need to change and upgrade. That the expression of God is not static. It doesn’t stay the same way. It is constantly expanding, expressing, and that is something that we must be willing to embody in our own language, in our own practice of our spiritual expression. The definition of peace in the Oxford dictionaries is freedom from disturbance, implying no disturbance.
(26:56):
There is never, ever, ever going to be the lack or freedom of disturbance in the Middle East. It’s not going to happen. And you can be like, well Daryl, how can you hold that in your consciousness? And that’s not a right thing to do. Come on. There’s never ever going to be complete and total equanimity in your family. Yeah, got a couple of eyes on that one. There is never, ever, ever going to be perfect equanimity and equality in this country called the United States of America. If that statement was true, we’d be living in a very different history right now.
(27:45):
So if we’re waiting for life to be free of disturbance, we’re never going to see peace in the time that we’re in this body. Negotiate means to obtain or bring about by discussion. So peace if we can say it’s more about a practice, a way of being as opposed to getting to a state of freedom, of anything, of nothingness. To negotiate peace then is to bring about by discussion, to bring about by action to bring about by movement. And the way that this talk title was written in terms of the series for this year is it was negotiating peace, conflict, reconciliation, transformation. So on some level, negotiating peace requires those other three words. Peace is not something that happens without those things. We must actually have some conflict in order to realize peace. There must be this rubbing up against of the shoulders. And conflict is a serious disagreement or argument. Anyone ever experienced that? Is there one happening inside your heart and mind right now?
(29:26):
Reconciliation is the restoration of friendly relations. I love that kind of flow of words, the restoration of friendly relations. So reconciliation, oftentimes people look as like I must reconcile or kind of like I have to be okay with something I don’t like. No, you can still not like someone’s viewpoint. But what if you could restore friendly relations with that family member? What if you could restore friendly relations with your neighbor if you are a staunch Democrat? What if you could restore friendly relations with a Republican? Or if you are a convicted Republican, what if you could restore friendly relations with the independent? Or if you’re an independent, what if you could have a civil to go back to that word, civil conversation with a democrat, trans transformation, a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance?
(30:31):
The only way transformation happens is if we’re willing to reconcile and in order to reconcile we must step towards lean into the conflict and negotiate to bring about peace by daily activity and discussion. So the definition for peace that I kind of piecemeal together from all of these words is if you’re willing to, who’s ready to practice greater peace this week? Alright, so then you are saying, I’m willing to bring about tranquility in serious disagreement or argument through dramatic change to restore friendly relations. Close your eyes, take this in. If you are willing to practice peace in a new way, starting today, you are saying yes to bring about tranquility in a serious disagreement or argument through dramatic change to restore friendly relations.
(31:39):
This is a radical practice, y’all and radical, if you look at that word, it means the root of something. So if you are going to do this radical peace practice of a negotiating priest in your life, then you must get to the root of one of the biggest principles of this teachings that God is all that there is. If you are walking around looking to point at things in people and places and even within yourself and say, this is not God, this is not love expressing, you’re not being radical enough, you’re not getting to the root, the essence of life is the divine. You can open your eyes or keep ’em closed, whatever you want to do. I heard a great conversation on a podcast today or earlier this week that there are no bad people. There’s just bad ideas, but we make things evil. That’s what’s happening in the world right now. Regardless of what side things are on, we’re trying to make people evil. And when we make someone evil, then it’s okay to kill them.
(32:49):
It’s okay to completely disenfranchise them from any access in the world. So be careful to be in this radical practice to bring us back to some of the words of Brene Brown. She said, the wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude. In searching. It is a dangerous as well as breathtaking place. A place as sought after as it is feared. It turns out to be the place of true belonging and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you’ll ever stand. If you want to really be radical and negotiate peace, recognize that you are saying yes to stepping out into the wilderness. It is one of the most feared and sought after place on the planet in order to truly experience peace within your heart, mind, and soul today, regardless of what’s happening out in the world. That’s a bold practice.
(33:56):
Alright, I got to wrap this up. Even though there’s five more pages, how many of you are wanting to transform your lives? Okay, so that means that you are saying, I want to go through dramatic change in form or appearance. I’ll ask again, how many of you’re ready to transform your lives? Not as many hands went up. Think about what it is that you are saying yes to and what you’re actually doing and what you are actually doing. I wasn’t going to talk about this, but it’s a practical thing. My wife and I have been on a five week journey of transforming our metabolism. In the past five weeks, I’ve lost about 24 pounds transformation that took a lot of negotiating daily, multiple times a day to bring peace to my metabolism so that it can handle life better.
(35:10):
Are you ready for reconciliation? How many are ready for reconciliation? So that means you’re ready to restore friendly relations with yourself. Forget about everybody else for a minute. Start with you. Restore friendly relations with yourself regardless of what did or didn’t happen in your history. Are you honoring where conflict is in your life today? This is the serious disagreements and arguments, not only that you’re having outside with other people, but with yourself. This is where you negotiate peace every day. This is where peace arises from an active dialogue with yourself and with your spirit. This is the spiritual journey, waking up to what is no matter what it is, and bringing the tranquility of peace to it.
(36:22):
Alright, a couple of practices and then we’re going to go into prayer. Another quote from Brene Brown. We have to listen to understand in the same way we want to be understood. We have to listen to understand in the same way we want to be understood. Peace is not telling people what to do or what to think. It is understanding how they’re trying to step into life and meeting them with love, kindness, and compassion. In order to do that, we must listen. So if you want to negotiate greater peace this week, start listening more than you’re speaking.
(37:12):
If you would like greater peace and negotiate more peace in your life, remind yourself that everyone is not out to get you. If you are wanting to negotiate greater peace in your life, remind yourself that there is enough of everything to go around. Do this in meditation and do this in prayer. Practice it in your personal little dojo on your couch so that when you step out into the world and the microphone cuts like it did just a few minutes ago for me, you don’t freak out. You bring peace to it. That’s all we’re doing. The journey, the spiritual journey is waking up to the day of what it is and meeting it with peace. It’s actually quite simple, but it is a very, very radical practice. Let’s go into some prayer.
(38:19):
Bring your hand to your heart, call into mind any and all ways that you have not been peaceful with yourself this week. The ways that you have shamed yourself, the ways that you have beat upon yourself. I should have, I would’ve. I could have. Why didn’t I? Why did I? And all the ways that you held everyone else, parents alive or not, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, lovers, current and past. And let this be a moment right here, right now where you allow peace to be poured into you and you pour peace into the moment. Meet whatever is in your mind and heart right now.
(39:27):
This is the spiritual journey, negotiating peace in this moment. And what I affirm and know is that that is what we are here to do. That is the purpose of every single person, the 8 billion plus people on the planet. We are here to negotiate peace everywhere we go. And if every single person on the planet was truly negotiating peace wherever they are, there would be no war. There would be no famine, there would be no laws saying that people can’t be who they are. We would be negotiating and talking and being in discussion and finding friendly ways to be an understanding with one another. And what I affirm is that that is what we are a catalyst for anyone listening to this right here and right now, whether you don’t know how to do it or not, but the fact that you’re just being in this moment of pause, you are negotiating greater peace and bringing it into the world and onto the planet. So I am grateful for the peaceful beings that we are, for the peace that we embody, for the peace that we practice. May it be enough and more to transform what was, may it be enough to transform what is and carry us in to what is to become.
(40:42):
I release this word and allow us to be the transformation we seek. And so it’s amen.
Paige Kizer (40:58):
Thank you Reverend Darrell.