Most days, especially now, peace may seem like the stuff of fairy tales.

Suicide bombers release their rage in fiery bursts that maim and kill. America still lives in the shadow cast by Sept. 11.

Greg Wade, a member of Unity Church of Lawrence, explains how the phrase may

Even in Lawrence, folks butt heads on how the city should grow, which buildings should be preserved and how tax dollars would best be spent.

In these times of turmoil, city officials and two Lawrence congregations hope that a visible sign of peace placed in the heart of downtown will remind community members that peace is not an unachievable ideal.

A Peace Pole donated to the city by Oread Friends Meeting and Unity Church will be dedicated at a public ceremony at 4 p.m. Sunday. The pole was “planted” last week in the northwest corner of South Park.

“It encourages peace in the most nonaggressive way,” said Oread Friends member Elizabeth Schultz, who will emcee the dedication. “You see the pole and take its meaning into your heart.”

Standing six feet tall, the four-sided wooden pole is painted white and displays, in two of the world’s languages on each of its sides, the message “May peace prevail on earth.”

The Peace Pole Project is an international initiative started in 1976 by the World Peace Prayer Society. Masahisa Goi, the Japanese man who founded the society in 1955, believed in the power of collective thought, said Unity Church member Judy Carman.

“He thought that if enough people focused their minds on peace and believed that we really could create peace on earth, that it eventually would happen,” she said.

With that idea in mind, Goi went on to envision the Peace Pole. More than 200,000 poles have been dedicated in 180 countries around the world.

The languages on Lawrence’s pole were chosen carefully to reflect the city’s character. German and Japanese pay homage to Lawrence’s sister-city relationships with Eutin, Germany, and Hiratsuka, Japan. Spanish, the second most common language spoken in Lawrence, also has a place on the pole. Kiowa, an American-Indian language, was included, Schultz said, not only to honor the presence of American Indians in town but to acknowledge the displacement of American Indians in the settlement of Lawrence. Hebrew and Arabic recognize the crisis taking place on an international level. And animal tracks will “represent all of the living beings on earth who are essentially voiceless,” Schultz said.

	J-W Staff Reports The Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice on Sunday will give people a public chance to express their desire for peace in a time of terrorism and war.The organization will play host to a vigil with the theme “Let Peace and Justice Prevail on Earth” at 3 p.m. Sunday in front of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Mass.The vigil will precede the 4 p.m. dedication in South Park of a Peace Pole donated by Unity Church and Oread Friends Meeting.

The peace mantra also will be depicted on a braille plaque.

Lawrence Mayor Sue Hack will speak at Sunday’s dedication.

“I can’t think of a better time to be concentrating on peace,” Hack said.

In addition, representatives who speak each of the languages on the pole will say, “May peace prevail on earth” in that language.

The ceremony also will include American-Indian drumming and other musical performances, a poetry reading, and an opportunity for community members to step toward the pole and say the peace prayer.

“The great thing about the prayer,” Carman said, “is that people don’t have to be religious to say it and to believe that it would have an effect.”