The Cultivate Peace Conference opens with a Peace Pole dedication hosted by  Rotary Club of Walla Walla-Walla Walla, Washington-USA

April 13, 2024

On a warm spring Saturday, about 75 people decided to forgo taking advantage of the pleasant weather and instead meet at Walla Walla Community College to discuss peace.

Saturday, April 13, was the inaugural Cultivate Peace conference, hosted by the Rotary Club of Walla Walla.

Organizers Jan Corn and Nancy Milton, co-chairs of the Rotary Club’s peace committee, said they want to make the conference an annual event.

Attendees heard from keynote speakers Pedrito Maynard-Reid, a Walla Walla University professor and Rotarian, and Deloria Bighorn, who serves on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada.

Both shared personal stories and their views about peace.

Bighorn talked about three protagonists she said needs to take action for peace to be achieved: the individual, the community and the institution.

She said it starts with the individual. She talked about three “bad medicines” that get in the way of peace.

The “bad medicine of the eye” is not seeing the people around us, she said.

“That’s when you can walk by a person and you don’t acknowledge them,” she said. “You don’t even see them.”

“Bad medicine of the ears” involves what you listen to.

“Watch what you let be said, especially if it’s about your own relatives,” she said. “That’s a real illness we have right now. Letting talk … harsh talk, be lodged in here (she motioned to her ears.) … Whoever is feeling bad and talking like that, I don’t know what you are going to do about them, but you can just say, ‘OK, I need to go.'”

Lastly, she said to beware of the bad medicine of the mouth. She said words can injure.

“Sometimes we would rather someone slap us, than hear the words they can say to us,” Bighorn said. “And the words can live with us way longer than a slap.”

Maynard-Reid called his presentation “Peace, impossible possibility.”

He said peace is impossible today with society’s current mindset. But he said it can become possible if we change our mindset and start to care about other people.

“We are at a place (where we say) ‘I must win at all costs … I am going to fight with all my might until I win,'” he said. “It is the age of rage and fight. Road rage. Inner rage. Office rage … quarantine rage. Mask rage. Fight or Flight. Facebook unfriending … Rage rage rage! Fight fight fight!”Society is very divided, he said.

“The red is not just red, it’s deep red,” he said. “And the blue is not blue. It’s deep blue.”

Much like Bighorn, Maynard-Reid said people must change their mindsets within themselves to make a difference.

Rotary member William Gatchel said he attended the conference because he wanted to hear the thoughts of others.

“My main reason for being here is I am here to learn,” he said. “To hear how people are approaching the desire for peace in a way that is constructive for everyone.”

Maynard-Reid and Bighorn’s messages focusing on oneself resonated with Gatchel.

“I think they are spot on,” he said. “Peace starts within yourself.”

The conference started with a Peace Pole dedication in front of the main building on the college campus, where a Peace Pole with the words “May Peace Prevail On Earth” was unveiled.

Walla Walla Community College President Chad Hickox said he was glad the conference occurred at the college because the subject is important to him.

“The definition of health is not the absence of illness,” he said. “And the definition of peace is not the absence of war. It is so much more than that … It is a necessary pre-condition for us to live happy, flourishing, complete lives.”

Written by: Jeremy Burnham  
Photos by: Greg Lehman, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin