What If the Monks Worked for ICE and ICE Walked for Peace…

Lately I’ve been sitting with an image that won’t leave me.

What if those who are trained to enforce boundaries walked for peace?
And what if those who have devoted their lives to peace were asked to stand inside systems of power?

Not to mock either role.
Not to collapse them into each other.
But to let each one feel what the other carries.

Imagine ICE marching for peace — not as a gesture, but as an experience.
Walking through city streets where people of every culture, age, and story line the sidewalks. Cheering. Smiling. Holding signs that say thank you for being human. Feeling, for once, what it’s like to be met with appreciation rather than fear.

That kind of energy does something to the body.
It softens defenses.
It quiets the nervous system.
It reminds a person that they are more than the role they perform.

And then imagine the monks — those who have trained their hearts and minds in stillness, compassion, and presence — stepping into the structures that carry authority. Not to overthrow them. Not to sanctify them. But to hold them from the inside with awareness.

What would enforcement feel like if it were guided by calm rather than adrenaline?
What would boundaries look like if they were rooted in clarity instead of threat?

We live in a time when the word other has become dangerously easy to use.
It allows us to forget that every person inside every system is still a human being — someone who was once a child, someone who is carrying fear, someone who wants to belong.

What makes it easier to dehumanize others is not ideology — it’s disconnection from ourselves.

When a nervous system is chronically activated, it loses its capacity for nuance.
Everything becomes threat.
Everything becomes about survival.
And from that place, it becomes frighteningly easy to reduce another person to a label, a role, or a danger.

This isn’t about politics for me.
It’s about what happens inside the human body when fear becomes a constant companion.

When people feel unseen, they harden.
When they feel hated, they protect themselves.
When they feel valued, something else becomes possible.

I don’t believe peace will come from everyone becoming the same.
I believe it will come when we allow different roles, different stories, and different histories to meet each other without collapsing into enemy lines.

The monk and the agent both exist because the world is complicated.
What’s missing is not function — it’s presence.

And maybe the quiet revolution of our time isn’t about tearing systems down or pretending they don’t exist.
Maybe it’s about letting humanity walk through them again.