The Way of Peace

Sometimes things have been the way they are for so long we think that is the way it is supposed to be. In the last fifty years these places have suffered from war, unrest and military violence. The last century was the most war torn and violent in all recorded human history.  The Society of International Law in London states that during the last four thousand years only 268 have been free of war.

Sometimes things have been the way they are for so long we think that is the way it is supposed to be.

War, unrest, and violence: tens of millions of lives sacrificed on the altar of human greed, political and religious strife and overall failure of human kind to find a better way.

But our human experience to the contrary notwithstanding, it is not the way it is supposed to be.  War may be the norm, but it is not God’s design.  Scripture is filled with rich images of peace, which is more than the absence of war. It is about deep well-being, or shalom. Though the promise of peace seems remote most of the time it still reaches to us in a place of deep yearning, like water washing over parched earth.

One of my favorite images of peace from the Bible is from Isaiah 2. It is a reference to God’s people streaming uphill…and there will be peace. It’s a reminder that peace is an uphill journey. It comes when we are more committed to the ways of peace than the ways of just about everything else. That’s what makes it uphill.

As in Isaiah’s time, our mountains of nationalism and economic security are higher than the mountain of faith. It’s called idolatry. If you ever wondered why prophets were not usually welcome in their home towns, this gives you a clue.

Another thing about the way of peace is that it often starts with a solo voice. The way of peace often begins with one person who speaks truth to power, one person who journeys uphill again and again.

We are so often caught in powerlessness, thinking that our little actions will not make a difference, and thinking or perhaps fearing either irrelevance or failure, what is ours to do we do not do.  Isaiah’s witness is to the power of one and that becomes more than one. As the old folk song goes, “two and two and fifty make a million.”

Margaret Mead said it best, “Never doubt that a small, committed group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The uphill journey does not ask if one person can really make a difference, it stands as a witness that leaving things undone is a resignation to despair. By speaking truth to power, we refuse to collude with evil and insanity. Breaking silence is one of the most powerful things people do. It challenges the assumption of consensus.

Peace is an uphill journey that we choose to make, or not make, every day.  A deep commitment to peace means we live out individually what is needed collectively.  We stream uphill, even if we are the only ones.

It’s not about whether or not we change the world, it’s about whether or not we are transformed, it’s up to God what happens after that.  Thich Nat Hahn said it best:  There is not a way to peace, peace is the way.

It begins with what we do or fail to do every day. Peace in the world depends on peace in the country, which depends on peace in the community, which depends on peace in our homes, which depends on peace in our hearts.  That is the uphill journey.  We make it again and again.

The myth of Sisyphus is not simply a statement that life is absurd, but rather that meaning is to be found in the journey up the hill each time, not in the hope that this time we shed the rock forever.

Each time we venture uphill we shed a bit more of the violence that is as much a part of our world as air.  Each journey up the hill yields instruction and we learn a little more of the things that make for peace in our hearts, homes, communities and world.

When all is said and done, what will people say was your purpose in life? Usually the comments are about being a good person, and loving your family. But will they say of us that we loved the poor, spoke up for justice and peace, took risks for the sake of the Gospel?

We need not look far to find the causes for conflict.  We are in the midst of a global pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people are dying, the jobless and poverty rates are soaring. Suicide rates are on the rise. Fewer and fewer Americans can afford health insurance. More and more people are food insecure and it doesn’t show signs of changing for the better any time soon.

And still, the rich are getting richer. CEO’s earn at least 400 times the pay of the average worker. What is true here is played out in countless countries around the world, proving that there is not enough for everyone’s greed but there is enough for everyone’s need.

Just because things have been the way they are for so long doesn’t mean it’s the way they are supposed to be.  Peace is the promise, peace is the journey, peace is the goal, and peace is the work.