If one does not practice nonviolence in one's personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken.
I think this highlights one of the biggest failures of most pacifists: We have trouble practicing nonviolence in our personal relationships. Pacifism is too often projected onto the global scale. The conversation becomes almost exclusively about war between political powers. And no doubt that's an important conversation. But it can get a little abstract and philosophical. And some pacifists can be less than charitable toward others. I call this big conversation heroic pacifism.
Me? I'm a closet Mennonite. I don't think a lot about my pacifism. I probably should, but I spend most of my time attending to my personal relationships, to how I treat people -- my family, people at work, people at church, people in the line at the store, friends who comment on my Facebook posts. My nonviolence isn't heroic. Instead, I practice what I call small pacifism. In short, I try not to be a jerk.
This is why I refrain from all that colorful, four-letter speech for which one of my theological mentors is so (in)famous. That language carries with it an undertone of violence. Sometimes, even, it's not so much an undertone as it is a shouted tone.
That's not to say I'm unconcerned with heroic pacifism. Folks who know me best, know that I'm concerned with the violence in the world. With that violence that's perpetrated in my name -- dropping bombs from drones, for example -- or that violence in which I'm implicated by the sheer virtue of modern existence. (I shop at stores, after all, where products are produced and sold at such low rates that it's at the cost of someone's back and someone's labor.) I even spend a lot of time talking about that heroic pacifism. Even here, on this blog.
But, I'm more concerned with practicing than talking peace-making. (Mainly because debating about war makes me violent.)
This is why I think Gandhi had it right. Start small. Practice nonviolence in your personal relations. Be tender, gentle, warm, kind, welcoming, patient, and merciful with the people in your life. In short, love.
Or, as I'm putting it here, practice small pacifism.
In my experience, it always scales up.