Day Twelve

This was my first draft for yesterday’s post. I abandoned it because it ran too long, and because I’m still not sure I ended up where I was headed. So, yeah... world peace.

What does peace look like?

What do I know about peace? I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and “world peace” was a dream, not something that was attainable. But then... when I was in college the USSR fell apart, communism collapsed, (more or less), and the Berlin Wall came down. It seemed like world would be a more peaceful place in my future, and for my future children. 

Only 30 years later it isn’t. My youngest son, Matthew was born week before the 9/11 attacks. New walls are going up. A joke among my boys is that when they were little and wanted stories to be real, they didn’t mean the dystopian fictional books. We are not living in a peaceful world and they know it. 

What does this have to do with the advent? I don’t know. Jesus was born in a time that wasn’t peaceful, in a part of the world that still doesn’t know peace. I know people of my parents generation advocated laying down arms and just ceasing the fighting. Of course it didn’t happen. Yes, I know it’s so much more complicated than that. 

Here is a thought though. I wonder if the people making decisions, and profiting from continued aggressions were to make decisions with the best interests of everyone’s children, instead of only their own or only their children, might we get there? Is that too simplistic?

It’s said that when the next generation is in charge things will be different. I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, absolutely when the generation that grew up on Snapchat and instaface and the grambook, things will be different, but I don’t know about better. There just seems to be this constant focus on ‘others’ and how they are going to take away our... (insert something you want, jobs, rights, guns, religion).  

Again, I don’t have all the answers. I might not have any answers.  I just have this overwhelming feeling that God didn’t fill the earth with all these different groups of people for the sole purpose of seeing which group comes out on top, or which group is able to convert everyone else to their way. I don’t know where I’m going with all this, except that I grew up believing the world would be better for my children, and it’s not.  I could blame everyone else in the world, or I could look around and see that it’s going on here too. 

Maybe I’m wrong, or naive, or immature to hope for peace on earth. Maybe true peace only exists in heaven and we are good to keep hating and fighting here on earth. Maybe, but how truly heartbreak would that be?

Do me a favor? Reach out to someone who is ‘other’ than you? Maybe make a friend? What is the worst thing that could happen?