Yearn for Peace
“There
is a longing for peace deep within the human soul today. It is a
yearning within us and between us in the most important relationships
of our lives.”
J.
Philip Newell (Christ of the Celts)
Technology
has caught up with war. In past wars, we could clean up the scene,
bury the dead, and hide death camps from prying eyes. Now everyone
within eye-shot becomes a war correspondent with their cell phones.
We don't need a Walter Cronkite or Tom Brokaw on the evening news
telling us what happened. Now we can post the gruesome reality
directly to Facebook or YouTube and have it shown around the world in
minutes. It causes those of us who are geographically distant to feel
the closeness of battle, see the utter destruction and gaze into the
faces of the innocents who are desperately trying to hang onto life
and loved ones. We are background in every scene—observers who
cannot bear to look and yet, cannot take our eyes away.
And
it doesn't end at the battlefield. We watch as men in uniform build
fences and string razor wire; while they pepper-spray the crowd and
little children and pregnant women are blinded by the fumes. We watch
as people are herded into buses or train cars and trundled away to
camps. It's all too reminiscent of another war, another terror. Only
this time, we observe it in real time.
I
think, as horrible as this tragic scene is, it is good that all of us
see it. We cannot be removed or sheltered from the realities of war.
This is it—war is madness. It is human insanity on a grand scale in
which no one wins, but everyone loses. No wonder we are yearning for
peace in our hearts. We want reconciliation in our families, between
races and nations, and in our stewardship of the Earth. We pray, we
hope, we cry for the people caught up in battle. We must now turn our
attention to how we may be part of making peace in the world. We must
dig down to that place in the human soul where peace alone is the
answer; beyond personal interest, beyond ideology, religion,
nationalism, cast, creed, or tribe. We must seek leaders who believe
in peace, not war, and we must find our own way to contribute. Prayer people stand for peace, and they become part of the solution.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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