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Three paths to peace can inspire six billion more-Mark Glinski World peace is on everybody's wish list. Sadly, the momentum of global events seems to render the notion of world peace to be just that—a wish. So, the Shinnyo-en Foundation has asked a simple, bold question: What if everybody, literally everybody on Earth, took personal responsibility for bringing the world a little closer to peace? Which way would the momentum shift then?
As part of this initiative, the foundation inaugurated the Pathfinder's Peace Award Ceremony, to honor three individuals, out of six billion, who have blazed their own trails toward world peace. The ceremony took place on the evening of Friday, April 20, 2007, at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA. Two of the honorees are Hollywood celebrities, and the third is a humble barber. Martin Sheen, known for his roles in the film Apocalypse Now and the television series The West Wing, received a Pathfinder's Peace Award for Arts and Culture. An advocate of non-violence and social equality, Sheen has leveraged his stardom to plead the cases of farm workers and protest war. He has shared the prosperity that flows from that fame with several charities. For him, the battles against poverty and war are linked in spiritual and practical ways. Four-time Emmy winner Alfre Woodard received a Pathfinder's Peace Award for Service. The distinctive voice that has graced so many films and TV series has spoken eloquently and tirelessly for political justice in South Africa and a solution to the AIDS epidemic there. In the late 1980s, she founded Artists United for a New South Africa (ANSA) to hasten the end of apartheid and the political ascendancy of the Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Afterward, ANSA concentrated its attention and resources on South Africa's foundering AIDS battle. A big part of the solution, in her mind, is the educating and mobilizing volunteers in South Africa. "People know how to solve their own problems," said Woodard, "if you help them." Another Pathfinder's Peace Award for Service went to Rueben Martinez, who quietly and steadily has been helping Latinos learn to read since 1993. Martinez' base of operations is his barbershop in Santa Ana, California, where he has worked for 45 years. There he has been grooming heads and minds, distributing free books and teaching impromptu reading classes after hours. Martinez' campaign has changed thousands of lives and earned him a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. It all began because a simple, pragmatic businessman was exasperated at the crippling illiteracy of many of his customers. Martinez summed up his vocational work with modest reflection. "I'm like the mailman," laughed Martinez. "I believe in doing steady things. Every day, week, month, year, I put in the work, and slowly but surely things start to change." After the Shinnyo-en Foundation honored the three "pathfinders," the Shinnyo-en order received grateful recognition from opposite ends of the United States. Joe Delfino, mayor of White Plains, NY, and Michael Duvall, a California Legislature assemblyman, each praised the order for its outreach and service in their respective communities. Delfino attributed a decline in the White Plains crime rate in part to Shinnyo-en's youth education programs. Duvall presented Shinnyo-en bishop Isao Ito with a resolution citing the order's many good works throughout California. Shinnyo-en has mapped out yet another path to peace.
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