4/3/16, KJS, DC

Theology classes, the news ticker across our lives, and raising two young children in America has had me thinking lately, a lot more than I ever have, about this all-elusive, all-inclusive concept called peace. Constantly running into questions about peace, I now realize I don’t understand it. I find it most approachable with kids, but beyond that hardly logical in today’s context. Still, we mount our lives hopefully advancing toward it, like one side of a magnets force.

So lately, underlying it all, there’s been this question: what is peace. Not how to attain it or make it per se, or where has it gone but more tactically: what is it?  Some notes:

There’s been an almost tenfold increase in the number of deaths from violent extremism and terrorism from 3,329 in 2000 to 32,685 in 2014. We’ve been at war in ‘small’ ways since WWII, so what is peace when we are always fighting?

What was peace before we ever had freedom? (And when was that?)

What was peace before there was war? Is peace even the opposite of war? Catholics have the concept of a just war, which gives parameters and guidelines for aggressive action. But the eradication of nuclear weapons, elimination of poverty, religious freedom, human rights and equity – aren’t these as important as war when thinking about peace.

Jesus, Martin Luther King and Gandhi, in their times peace had a certain context. In our time, what is its context?

A recent study shows that the 85 richest people on the planet hold the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people in the world. Is peace equity?

A most generic version of peace is the normative, the comfort state, in physical balance. After a busy and anxious day sinking into a comfortable routine and breathing. Peace and quiet.

1960s peace meant a lot of things and was a slow awakening before it was political and cultural activism. That was when we all saw that government pretty much does whatever it wants. Still, a peace movement gathered, bringing forth a new paradigm when equity and aggressiveness were national conversations.

New age peace is evolving. Ideally, it is rested, mindful, balanced, in its healthy default mode and with positive energy and intent trying to infuse peace into the larger community.

An obsessive version of peace could be a zero waste environment, a tidy efficient home quietly recycling wastewater, perfectly clean; and yet, a hoarders version of peace are stacked rows of collectibles. Is peace what calms our angst or opposes our anger?

Peace is suggestive and subjective then. It is contextual. Is it an unattainable illusion?

Are there higher forms of peace and lower forms, and, in higher forms are we happier living on just the basics, letting it all go because we know nothing is permanent, all there is is the now.

Can one be at peace with terrorism if one can be at peace with a moment?

When there are 60 million refugees running from intense conflict around the world, in a world of organ trafficking, slavery, pedophilia, children dying from diarrhea, can there be peace anywhere?

Do we chase peace? What are we chasing? Can we have it or make it?

It was written on a wall somewhere: is love where peace is? Seeing peace in love seems easy whereas finding it in life is hard. Trying to be kind when you can’t pay the bills; keep a whole heart when you’ve been crapped on. It does feel like an unattainable allusion, to be honest but worth chasing for some reason we can’t explain.

It’s been said that if you practice kindness all day to everyone you’ll realize you’re in heaven right then. But still I say love is a part of peace unless of course we love the whole world and the whole world loves us right back.

Even with a daily life full of righteous loves and restful balance, there is still this extremist world. Where MMA fighters die on ESPN practically, our own genders are bending, mass shootings just happen, this bubble of Islamophobia, antisemitism…hate. Desperate Housewives + technology obsessed cultures has us give away our faculties, our powers and like sheep we pine for shiny new toys. For me anyway, its all so very extreme thus, peace feels planets away

Tolerance is being called into question everywhere. Rage and reason rip at one another inside of us. The time of terrorism, the profound introduction of fear, innocent carnage and apocalyptic visions has permeated our nerves.

This challenge above all others presents the complexity of peace. How do you stop suspicion, fear and hate from growing in an extremist world? On the one hand you want terrorism gone, eradicated with the same venomous zeal of a jihadist; on the other hand, war against fear has no end.

Fear is the opposite of peace.

Should we all be in protest; creating humanity-inducing moments, connecting heroically day in and day out in real hearts and minds? Would such actions super-cede policies, undercut media-created perception, replace fighting in the field…

Having the battle at the cellular level, and winning — yes, that might be where peace is…

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