In the West we associate our various winter holiday traditions with kinship, friendship, camaraderie, charity, and peace. We go to great pains and travel immense distances to be together in the waning days of the calendar year. We are prone to spend more time thinking and acting on the needs of the less fortunate. We are more likely to pray and hope for a more peaceful world. Humorists argue that of course this is the case. It's what happens in northern latitudes when diminishing daylight and bitter cold force people into parched, cramped spaces--either you love one another or go to war. As a member of a large family who has oft spent holidays with rowdy relatives, the truth, I suppose, mostly falls somewhere in-between.
Of all our aspirations, peace is the most essential and ephemeral. There can never be too much peace. Old soldiers know this to be true. I speak not of the trivial kind of peace that fits neatly on a card, that is mindlessly uttered in passing, that is mythologized in a pew, that blinks from a nighttime window, or that reeks of political intent. In the words of Jack Kennedy, "Peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.”
I long for peace in material and spiritual terms, when all humanity is afforded assurance that they will rise in the morning, that their tomorrow can be better than today, and that their children will be honored as equal among all others. I speak of a peace where old wounds are rightfully tended and put away, and forgiveness reigns. I speak of a peace where we truly accept ourselves and others for who and what we, and they, are. Kinship, friendship, camaraderie and charity, practiced in equal measure, are a good recipe for peace, a starting point.
Human history, unfortunately, is a story largely devoid of peace. We are prone to disunion and violence, prone to push when we should listen, prone to take when we should share. We tend to see the world's problems, to channel Maslow, as nails, our only solution a hammer. But, as Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Over the past seventy or so years, efforts have been made to ensure fewer wars, at least those of the greatest magnitude. This is little consolation to they who greet war at their doorsteps. There has also been significant progress towards a greater social equality, but not for all, and certainly not everywhere. If this truly is the season of peace, then let us redouble our efforts towards this end beginning at home, with our children, in our own families, here in our own communities. Indeed, blessed are the peacekeepers.
So, peace unto you all. May you have a joyous holiday season full of love and family. May we awake in a new year, a better tomorrow for all.
Happy Holidays
James