Being a Peace Warrior

People sometimes ask why I named my foundation Imagine Peace instead of something softer, safer. Here's the truth: peace isn't soft. Peace is brave.
I don't think of peace as the absence of conflict. I think of it as a daily choice—to soften instead of sharpen, to listen instead of defend, to give instead of hoard. That's a warrior's work, not a passive one. It takes more courage to stay open than to shut down.
I've spent five decades writing my way toward that kind of courage. Poetry taught me that the smallest act—a line, a stanza, a single word chosen carefully—can shift something in a person who reads it. Multiply that by a lifetime, and you start to understand why I believe peace is built one person at a time, not legislated into existence overnight.
Being a peace warrior doesn't mean never feeling anger, grief, or fear. It means choosing, again and again, not to let those things have the last word. It means showing up for a stranger's cause because their suffering matters as much as your own comfort. It means writing the poem even when you're not sure anyone will read it, because the writing itself is an act of hope.
I carry that into everything—my books, the charities I honor, the children's stories I write, even the smallest interactions of an ordinary day. Every person I meet is a chance to practice peace instead of just believe in it.
That's the work. That's the warrior's path. And I'm nowhere near finished walking it.

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