As an older Sikh man rewrapped my free turban they provided, he gushed over me wearing it all day long the day before and marveled at how peaceful, understanding, compassionate and engaged everyone was.
And he said it could be like this everyday and everywhere. If only we wanted it bad enough. If only we dealt with push back, differences and even contempt with curiosity, compassion and understanding. And a longing to connect rather than divide.
Everyone I met was a disciple of God. Let me clarify that; Pride seeks to prove who is right, humility seeks to prove what is right but disciples of God seek to put it right. They seek to right wrongs, to bring about the justice God wants in the world.
They seek to build up the kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Around Christmas time in 1914 a widespread out break of peace, fraternization, Christmas caroling, gift exchanging, bartering for cigarettes, for food and for drink happened among the WW1 troops on the European front lines.
It was not universal among all the troops in all areas but it was one for the history books as it was unprecedented at least in range and scope.
People are fond of saying war is a necessary evil or even inevitable but it is always evil and even if it is inevitable it, as was done in 1914, can be stopped in its tracks over night. And if the gears of war can be clogged for a day they can be stopped for as long as we desire.
And if we can stop war cold we can stop the propaganda that dehumanizes groups, nations and races that are the processes that always prelude conflict.
Conflict over religious differences have been at the root of most of humanities conflicts. But if the gears of war can be stopped dead in its tracks because of Christmas then arguments can give way to understanding long before propaganda dehumanizes and scapegoats Jews, Muslims, Mormons or any group that would then result in internment camps, concentration camps, killing fields and ethnic cleansing.
We can have peace of we want it bad enough. We have to want peace more than we want to be "right." We have to want justice for all rather than the superiority of our own nation, race or faith. Action without vision is chaos, vision without action is fantasy but the two are meant to be complimentary. So that we are capable of accomplishing what so many have said is impossible. Because the only people who have ever changed the world are the only ones who were crazy enough to think they could.If world peace and the end of wars were easy it wouldn't be heroic. Plato said: Only the dead have seen the end of war. But God's word says this:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6 KJV 4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:4 KJVWho do you believe more?God's word had predicted work peace or maybe it's just God's ideal or dream for His children. But we have it within us to achieve it. Those who say they can and those who say they can't are both right.We can't do it alone but we can do it together. Making peace is hard to do but making war is hard to live with at least for those who fought it.Would we rather be Kings of a graveyard or pedants in the kingdom of Heaven? The choice is ours. We Americans could end poverty by ourselves, worldwide, within a generation or we could keep fighting wars but we cannot do both. We can serve but one master.Who do you serve?
