Instruments of Peace
As an Instrument of Peace, our task in life is relatively simple: to accept God’s love and to transmit it to others.
Instruments of Peace (IOP), American Veterans Nurturing Healthy Spirituality, is a growing corps of American Veterans praying frequently and living with conviction that the values we served and fought for will be restored and prevail at home and abroad in this and future generations.
Veterans must nurture healthy spirituality because unhealthy spirituality is what creates Veterans. Example: selfishness, in one form or another, has started every war and motivates every crime and social injustice imaginable. Social injustice has its roots in selfishness, and selfishness is rooted in emptiness, and emptiness is an expression of an unhealthy spirituality.
Our orientation is the power and presence of the Holy Trinity God our Father and Creator, Jesus our crucified and risen Christ, and their Spirit present among us. There is no other point of orientation or context for health spirituality. Neutrality is not a point of orientation.
As a member of IOP, you may expect short, weekly, spiritually insightful meditations to help guide and encourage you on your journey, plus a weekly IOP kindness suggestion.
Veterans living this lifestyle will be living witnesses impacting the lives of those around them.
The Prayer of Quiet can also be very helpful: Simply begin your day silently and gently whispering within, “Jesus, Jesus” or “love, love”
one or two times with each breath. This is a powerful and transforming experience – first in you, then in others. Continue periodically through the day.
A Daily Prayer for All Seasons
This day I call to me
God’s strength to direct me,
God’s power to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me, …
God’s shield to protect me.
St. Patrick
A Veterans Healthy Spirituality Creed
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Mast, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self
That we are born to Eternal life.
(Prayer of St. Francis)
Charles Tooman
An Instrument of Peace
US Army Veteran
Hospice Chaplain
PTSD Support Group Chaplain
Vietnam Veterans of America
Associate Member
Contact: peace@glrc.org
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Psalm 33:12
And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him —
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah 11:2