Aquene Reed
Reprinted from the January 16, 2006, issue of the CS Sentinel.
When your name means “peace,” it isn’t always easy to live up to it. But here’s one way this girl did…
My grandmother found the name Aquene in a book about the Wampanoag Indians, and that’s what my mother named me. The word means peace in Wampanoag. I love my name-I’ve always loved unique names. On the first day of school, no one can ever pronounce it!
It’s not always easy for me to live up to that name, though. A couple of years ago at summer camp, the girls in my cabin thought a couple of other girls were ganging up on the rest of us and weren’t being very nice. I wasn’t sure what to do. I just kind of let the unhappiness go on, and it built up. There were times when I spun out of control and just cried.
At first, I thought I’d be nice to the girls, thinking that maybe they’d change-you know, kill them with kindness. But that didn’t work. They’d give me the cold shoulder, and I always ended up back in the same place.
I started thinking about their Godlike qualities.
So I tried the spiritual approach. I figured out that being kind just wasn’t enough. I had to change my thought about the girls. And I started thinking about their Godlike qualities, like how they were really funny and caring and sweet, even though they didn’t always act that way. I know that we’re all God’s children, and His children aren’t mean and don’t put people down and make them sad about themselves. So I realized this meanness couldn’t be them-their true self. I had to see past this whole not-so-nice behavior and see the good that was in them.
But when we all left camp at the end of the summer, I still didn’t feel the love I wanted to feel. So any time I started to feel angry again, I remembered that there’s one Mind-God. And since there’s always one Mind, there can’t be anger and disagreements between people-only love and peace. That was pretty hard to do sometimes.
But when I went back to camp the next year, the same girls were so friendly, and we all got along. It was so nice! Now we’re good friends.
I think peace always starts with us.
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I enjoyed the article a lot!! Thanks for sharing.. I also like the title “peace begins with me” it really does–too often I have started by looking at what others are doing wrong, and how they could be bettter without really stopping to see what I too could do better. It’s a good reminder for me to always begin by removing the speckle in my eye before trying to help someone remove theirs.
Wow this is a really awesome article. My friend Aquene Reed is a pretty inspiring girl