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Understanding Depression Interview with Gordon Parker

Poetry in the Air Interview with Sarah Wider

Evangelicals and the Environment Interview with Rev. Richard Cizik

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Believing in Change

When I first began working at the United Nations in 1948, I was told that I could not use the word peace. We could speak about the progress of peacemaking, but there was no acceptance of the fact that peace could be the normal situation for all of humanity in all countries. After a couple of years, everything changed. Now, peace is a word that is used everywhere in the United Nations.

If you are working for a better world, there is one thing which you should not count on, namely, that what you dream will happen during your life. Some things will take longer than that, but that is not a reason for not continuing to bring them nearer to reality.

Robert Schuman is remembered as the "Father of Europe." In Europe there were many wars between countries. My grandparents lived through three wars between France and Germany. My father lived through two wars, and I lived through one. Schuman was prime minister of France, and later foreign minister in 1950 when he made the Schuman Declaration proposing that West Germany and France jointly manage their coal and steel industries. This was the origin of the European Union. In 1963, I went to Schuman’s tomb to tell him that there was now a total acceptance of the European Union.

There was a border I could see as a child from my window at the edge of town, which I hated, and I asked, "Why can birds and animals go there while, I, as a human, can’t go there without having to fill out a paper?" The border has now disappeared, and nobody complains about its disappearance.

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