Carol Bedrosian Receives The Peace Abbey Foundation Courage Of Conscience Award
Even a steady rain couldn’t dampen the joy and festivities at the 50th anniversary celebration of The Life Experience School and Courage of Conscience Award presentations held on Sunday, September 24 at The Pacifist Memorial in Sherborn, MA.
Founded in 1972 by Lewis Randa, The Life Experience School is a program providing day services for adults with special needs. Offering a path with heart, the program highlights the unique gifts and talents of staff and students alike. Over the past five decades it has inspired the creation of The Peace Abbey, The Courage of Conscience Award, The Special Peace Corps, The Peace Memorials in Sherborn, The Stonewalk Global Pilgrimage, The Peace Abbey Room at UMass Boston, and too many other programs, projects, movements and memorials to mention, all dedicated to inspiring and sharing peace.
Founded in 1988, the Courage of Conscience Award honors individuals and organizations that have distinguished themselves for their humanitarian and peace activism as poets, educators, physicians, elected officials, journalists, actors, athletes, and soldiers. It has been received by Maya Angelou, Greenpeace, Pete Seeger, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks and many other extraordinary individuals throughout the world.
This year’s ceremony honored activist singer-songwriter and Community Church of Boston leader Dean Stevens, Spirit of Change Magazine publisher Carol Bedrosian, and Indigenous activist singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (via Zoom). Huddled in a 60s hippy van to receive the award, Carol gave her acceptance remarks to a friendly crowd of dozens of well-wishers braving the rain. The ceremony and festivities ended with a rousing chorus of everyone singing “Love Train,” led by Tim McHale of Music with Heart, and being uplifted upon departure.
Read Carol’s Award Acceptance Speech
I’m fortunate to have met so many amazing people in this lifetime. Several of them are right here, including our own Lewis Randa, founder of the Peace Abbey, The Life Experience School, The Peace Memorial, where we’re all gathered now, and other projects too numerous to mention.
I was completely enthralled on my first visit to the Peace Abbey, and privileged to join students of the Life Experience School in Morning Meeting. Sitting around The Peacemaker’s Table, we shared a unique handwashing ritual created by Lewis in 1986, passing a bowl of water around the table, and reflecting on our hands as instruments to create peace. Afterwards, walking through room after room filled with spiritual artifacts, icons, books, wisdom, and artwork, I felt the immense presence of all those spiritual traditions gathered in one place. A collection worthy of many, many lifetimes collected by one man in one lifetime for the sole purpose of freely sharing it with everyone. For peace. For turning belief into manifestation. Conscience into courage. Saying it. Believing it. Being it. Peace is possible.
What we believe in we manifest. Thought by thought, day by day, we build a belief system that fuels our actions, and becomes our world, and our truth. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past 8 years from Donald Trump, it’s that the idea of truth is pliable and the power of belief is commanding.
So why not believe in goodness and compassion and generosity, and a vision of living peacefully in a cooperative way? You can create this every day, tipping the scales just a little bit more towards love and light with every thought, word and deed you choose. Act with compassion to overcome despair and anxiety. Every single one of us is just as important as the other in determining our collective outcome. Combine many minds towards this end, and anything is possible. Humanity’s superpower is transformation. Birthing. Creating something new.
This extends to claiming the self-healing powers we were born with. Humans incarnate with everything they need to live on Earth. Humans can feed themselves, provide for themselves, educate themselves, procreate and birth themselves, even kill themselves. Why would we not be able to heal ourselves?
Though this belief is still far removed from mainstream thinking, don’t let that stop you from exploring the world of self-healing yourself. Just as learning to eat, cook and feed ourselves are innate life skills we readily pass on to our families and others, healing ourselves is also an innate life skill to be learned and passed on. There are thousands of tools, methods and practitioners to help you discover the truth of your ability to heal yourself, ultimately through your own two hands and mind. Choose whatever method appeals to you and start learning. They all lead to the same place.
Since I began Spirit of Change over 35 years ago, I’ve been obsessed with the idea there must be a simple, free, accessible-on-demand way for people to heal themselves. And sure enough, we are born with it. Accessing it takes time to learn, and requires being still and going within. It requires slowing down, where you will find peace, both inner and outer. Isn’t that nice? When you heal yourself, you heal the world.
Not that every disease or symptom is meant to be healed in this lifetime. Some are learning tools with powerful lessons in one’s evolution towards higher qualities. Accept whatever your body presents as your newest best pathway to growth, and a project that will take you deeper within to work on. Even though it may be uncomfortable or painful, disease is an opportunity to help you tap the confidence, comfort and relief you are already capable of delivering to yourself, and is only a belief away.
I want to humbly thank my friends Lewis and Meg Randa for their recognition and accolades in bestowing this prestigious award upon me. May we all enjoy the presentation of it in good health. Thank you, Lewis, Meg and everyone who has manifested the Life Experience School and Peace Abbey into being.
Dean Stevens sings his version of “America the Beautiful” before receiving his award.
Carol Bedrosian and Lewis Randa after the ceremony at the UU church next door.
