A Peace Pole at the Church of St Peter

On September 21st a Peace Pole will be planted in the grounds of the Church of St Peter in Peebles. There are more than 250,000 Peace Poles around the world on all continents, in every country you can think of. They are in simple places, such as churches and gardens, and extraordinary ones, such as at the Pyramids of El Giza, Egypt or the Magnetic North Pole in Canada. They are promoting healing of conflict in places like Sarajevo and the Allenby Bridge between Israel and Jordan, in the Himalayas i.e. the Indian and Pakistan border. There is one at Iona and the six sided Pole standing in the grounds of Dunfermline Abbey was dedicated by the Dali Lama. All these hand-crafted Peace Poles display the message and prayer May Peace Prevail on Earth on each of their sides, usually in different languages.

The Pole at St Peter’s will have the prayer written in English, Japanese, French and Northern Welsh (probably the closet extant language to that which used to be spoken around here). The St Peter’s Pole was generously donated by Hugh Peebles greatly assisted by the proceeds of his Eastgate show in March. All the poles are dedicated as monuments to peace and serve as constant reminders for us to visualize and pray for world peace.

Picking up the pole from the World Prayer Peace Society European Sanctuary near Dumfries. Pictured are Jessica Shackleton, Hugh Peebles and Caroline Uchima.

September 21st is a very appropriate day to plant the pole because in 2001, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted resolution (A/RES/55/282) designating September 21st of each year as an International Day of Peace. The intention of the resolution was and is to have the entire world observe a day of peace and non violence. An ever-expanding number of people worldwide, representing a wide variety of religious and spiritual traditions, have committed to the task of working with each other for this International Day of Peace. All with the following objective: "To encourage worldwide, 24-hour spiritual observations for peace and non violence on the International Day of Peace, 21 September 2006 in every house of worship and place of spiritual practice, by all religious and spiritually based groups and individuals, and by all men, women and children who seek peace in the world."

MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH