As a youth leader, a couple decades ago, I was late preparing a club talk one evening, so I made up a story about teddy-bear like extraterrestrials whose planet is rescued from ecological disaster.The tale was later written down as a children's story called the Buffins of Twerpus.In my current adult novel the buffins have re-appeared in the middle of the human Battle of Armageddon, at Granada, in Spain, AD 2103.Using only color and sound they disintegrate the humans' weapons and create an empathy among the combatants that stops the battle in its tracks.
The entire population of our planet is divided into two camps, those who see the aliens as a lethal threat to humanity that must be tracked down and exterminated, and those who see them as the fulfillment of the dream of world peace. Juan Pedro Paradez is Poet Laureate of the latter, a world-wide Disparate Peace Network. Sitting on the Sierra Nevada's treeless north slope, facing Granada he composes aloud, a sonnet of thanks for the buffin intervention. It is instantly disseminated, mind-mind and world-wide, via "brain screen," the implanted internet chips they share.
"Wrapped up in rainbows, rills of sight and sound,
a healing flow, engulfing hate, in streams,
they came to us with pow'r beyond our dreams.
Still, in their work, no dire intent was found.
In one empathic ah-ha! we abound,
life-force evolved, as the Creator deems.
One momentary gift our soul redeems,
Redemption for a planet lost, and found.
Elder siblings in the quest for life
arrived on Earth as bearers of the love
that, once embraced, will raise us to the height.
This is our time to jettison all strife,
receive the heav'nly unifying dove,
Earth elevated, out of dark to light."
If you were among the billions of Earth in AD 2103, which camp would you fall into? If the alien intervention happened today?
Is it possible that there is non-human life somewhere in the universe that has been growing and developing for untold eons?Imagine a society so ancient that the few thousand years of written human history seem like a moment.Is it possible that such life has evolved beyond the need for any type of violent force to maintain order?Through a billion years of ethical and spiritual development, it has arrived at a truly civilized civilization.What would the encounter be like when such a people first come up against humanity as we are today, in our continuous state of international conflict and warfare?
I imagine a scenario where the ancient buffin people attempt to extend their empire of peace into the habitat of humans in the twenty first and twenty-second centuries.As the "half-pint," fleece-covered ambassadors of peace enter our Solar System they risk their own annihilation at the hands of a humanity that just might mistake their extension of friendship for aggression and their pacifism for weakness.How would we deal with the gentle "invaders?"How would you or I deal with a buffin that we mistook for a vicious, alien "critter?"
I am excited to finally get Empire of Peace published and this blog up and running. I have a million thoughts I would like to share with readers out there. I know a blog, by itself, isn't going to change the way the world views peace but am trusting that the ripple effect will have a significant impact on all of us. If one person reads ideas and messages that make sense and passes that along to one other person who has the opportunity to share with someone else and beyond, then this is all worth doing.
As long as we have hope that one day the global community will achieve peace then the possibility is still there. The day we lose hope is the day that the dream dies. So check back with my blog to read inspiring messages of Peace from fellow readers, and maybe even from me. Click to the right where it says "Subscribe to this blog". It will automatically send you a message every time I update the blog.
I look forward to seeing your comments and discussion. Peace is Possible! In the words of a young Russian-Spanish girl named Tanya Andrekov-Sanchez, "Look for peace and find me."
River Falls, Mann Valley, Wisconson, United States
I have been spinning tales about buffins since the 1970’s. The gentle extraterrestrials first appeared in these stories I told to teens at camps, clubs and around campfires while a professional youth worker in Kansas City. Now, after a business consulting career, and a published book on leadership, my tale of “evolved” buffins, Empire of Peace, reflects my Quaker world view to adult appreciators of literary science fiction. I am the father, step father and grandfather of numerous offspring, and have currently escaped, with my wife Pam, to a nineteenth century farm in Western Wisconsin.
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