Practicing Peace

Practicing Peace

One year ago today, the Virginia Tech campus turned into a slaughter house. That same evening, the Rev. John Grace, Catholic chaplain, declared at Mass: I want people to know that in this community there is a thriving, alive faith community . . . that understands that death exists,iolence exists, and the cross exists, but so does hope, resurrection, and life.

Author, Bob Russell, tells this story that illustrates a perspective I’d like to commend to you on this anniversary of the VT massacre.

A Revolutionary War unit bivouacked overnight in a farmer’s field. Tired and cold, the soldiers needed dry firewood to stay warm through the night. The Officer in charge saw a wood-rail fence nearby. That would keep the men warm, but he wanted the farmer’s best wishes. He resolved his problem by instructing his men to remove only the top rung of the fence--if necessary--nothing more.

Awaking the following morning, the officer saw no fence. Angry and dismayed, he discovered that not one soldier disobeyed his command. There was no fence, but no one removed anything, except the top rung.

Today’s Washington Post gave this “Who said it?” quote: You cannot continue mopping the floor while the broken tap is still running. I don’t know the answer to the quote, but I know that “justifiable wars” have allowed removing the top rung of the fence far too long and we will continue mopping the floor until we repair the broken tap.

Almost without exception, wars define deviancy downward. Historians trace humanity’s long trail of conquest, power-grabbing and failed policies while diplomats and dictators plundered and meandered through one crisis of violence after another.

Struggles for political positioning leave a sordid trail littered with failed politicians and unwise legislation. Benjamin Franklin looked at this propensity, this vulnerability if you will, toward violent behavior and human waste and concluded, “After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained by those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace”1

Recognizing this natural humanity, Jesus taught his followers, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mt. 5:9, NASV). He gave His followers a “new” commandment--love one another--adding, “as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34). Clearly declaring peaceful relationships, Jesus specifically instructed His followers to reach beyond past friends to “love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44; cf. Jn. 15:13).

Paul further amplified this with his unexcelled, and universally accepted, commentary on love--I Corinthians 13. That love enabled and allowed Paul [transformed from Saul] to view all of humanity through God’s eyes rather than his own (II Cor. 5:18-21). When he visited Athens and read the Athenian inscription “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD,” he suggested a different view, declaring his discovery that God “made from one, every nation of mankind . . . in whom “we live and move and exist [or have our being, KJV].” For, “even as some of your own poets have said,” Paul reminded them, “‘we also are His offspring’” (Acts 17:22-29).

Love, peace, and grace, rank among the most fundamental core values of our Christian faith. This being true, how is it that we so easily justify loading our guns, rather than picking up our Bibles and rallying around the flag of peace? I appreciate John Wesley’s definition of the peacemaker: “one that as he hath opportunity, ‘doeth good unto all men.’

Peacemakers lower the barriers to community and competitors as well as to friends and family. Peacemakers search for new avenues of sharing. Peacemakers open their borders to friend and foe, to neighbor and stranger.2

While figures lie and liars figure, estimates report the Civil War sacrificed 618,000 lives, the Revolutionary War--4,435; the War of 1812--2260; the Mexican War--13,283; the Spanish-American War--2,446; World War I--116,516; World War II--405,399, and Korea--54,246. Vietnam brought these casualties to 1,214,585 human sacrifices.

Sixty-five million people mobilized for World War One. This cost Germany-Austria, Britain, France, Russia, and Italy $95 billion--8.5 million deaths and three times that number wounded. That same war cost the United States $22 billion, with 4,355,000 mobilized, 126,000 lost, 234,000 wounded, and 4,500 prisoners-and-missing.3 Fox News Network reported an additional sixteen million killed or wounded in the second World War.

The Iraq War now surpasses 4,000 deaths, with somewhere around 30,000 injuries. Many of us listened as Newsman, Bob Woodward talked about his own traumatic brain injury, and the 205,000 returning veterans treating with the Veteran’s Administration. Mental health patients at that time exceeded 72,000; traumatic brain injuries like Woodward’s [TBI] approached 2,000.

Other “co-lateral damages” [to be expected] include civilian casualties, returning veterans that require extensive mental health treatment, and children damaged by absentee parents. Woodward estimated an additional 300,000 potential patients for whom the VA currently lacks available beds. Since then I have listened to media reports of the broken military homes and the suicides--further collateral damage.

The list becomes endless and the numbers crunch into oblivion while cash registers hum happily to the tune of $200 million-a-day--to maintain a conflict the military admittedly cannot resolve. Humanity’s future appears empty and void, unless we adjust our attitudes, structure new political policies, and develop new-and-peaceful relationships.

While preachers and sowers-of-discord rail against one-worldism, technology wires us together in a global neighborhood where our most logical and worthy option [in my humble opinion] is to step outside our box of “hatred, discord, jealousy. . .selfish ambition. . .factions and envy” (cf. Gal. 5:20-21).

Paul, that great Christian Apostle, found his solution in the words of Jesus “. . .love your neighbor as yourself.” If you have ever read a red-letter edition of an old King James Version of the Bible, Paul would have been a red-letter Christian. He concluded, “If you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another” (cf. Gal. 5:14-15, 18-22).

Practicing peace begins with eliminating barriers of confrontation and selfishness. We can heal our violence only when we reject violence-and-war as acceptable behavior. We can prevent further violence only when we build bridges, initiate conversations, and seek relationships. But, before we can build a new tomorrow, we must construct alternatives. To build that new tomorrow, we must make today open to all. Eliminate the profit from violence. Make room for others--intentionally--through moral and ethical living.

Two brothers emigrated from rural Europe to Eldorado County, California--1845. One brother realized he could grow cabbage and make sauerkraut; the other brother had no trade, so he studied metallurgy.

One day, the metallurgist visited the cabbage farmer. He examined the sandy soil that produced the prized cabbages and saw the quartz--yellow gold. He exclaimed, “You’re growing cabbage in a gold field.” That remark unwittingly launched the Eldorado gold rush!

There are people with eyes to see the gold in fields currently filled with murder, mayhem, violence, and war. Hope is audacious, I know, but I choose to work toward a “barrier-free” world, that offers a place of self-determination for every human being under the sun. Practicing peace promises a mother-lode of human values.

Humanity could strike it rich!
Wayne,
Kitway@sbcglobal.net
http://walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
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1 Franklin Brands, The First American, Biography of Franklin. (New York: Macmillan, 2000) p620, “War and Peace.”
2 The Works of John Wesley, Vol. V. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. Co.,, “Sermon on the Mount: No. 3, p. 234.
3 Clement Wood, A Complete History of the United States. (Wash. D. C.: Pathfinder Publishing Company, 1936), p. 488.