This week Peace X Peace launched the We Won’t Wait for Peace Campaign with the We Won’t Wait for Peace Virtual Film Festival. It begins on Monday 9-21, the International Day of Peace, with our own Peace by Peace, Women on the Frontlines. Three more top-notch videos follow on the next three evenings. It’s free, wherever you are, on your very own screen. If you haven’t registered, do it now! You’re certain to see something that fires and inspires you to take your personal peace activism to the next level.

Women around the world have been patient long enough. We have been nice and polite long enough. We need to start getting in the way, whenever and wherever violence rears its head. Each of us is stronger than she thinks, and together we are strong enough to do anything―even end this bad human habit of war. It starts with me and you, together, today. I have made up my mind and planted my feet, and I won’t wait for peace.

Do I understand that peace isn’t simple? Of course. I know that peace has to be sustainable and rooted in social justice. I hear those who say that basic needs like food and shelter have to be met first. But everywhere, around the world, war eats first. Women from Burundi to the Bronx agree that the trillions of dollars the world spends on arms each year could be redirected to house every homeless person and fill every hungry mouth―if only the political will was there.

Here in the US, members of Congress are busily trimming provisions out of the health care bill to make it acceptable to colleagues who believe we can’t afford to keep our children healthy. Yet nobody ever asks if we can afford to fight a war. Do we hate our enemies more than we love our children? And why do we need enemies anyway, in a world where all the most urgent challenges, like environmental destruction and disease, cut across boundaries and borders?

The truth is good things are worth having NOW, not later, and sustainable peace is the ultimate public good. We, the women of the world, declare peace. We take our stand together, here and now. If you’re not already a member of our online global community, sign up now at www.peacexpeace.org – where women who won’t wait for peace are connecting, learning, teaching, and acting together for real peace right now.