Blessed are those who make peace
First thoughts on illegal war
Last night, Donald Trump launched an illegal war against Iran, circumventing both the will of the American people and the United States Congress.
You all know how bad this is, and how immoral.
When I woke to the news, I could only think of one thing: Blessed are the peacemakers.
I urge you to embrace Jesus’ calling to make peace. And because I am at a loss for words, I share with you two thoughtful reflections, one from a prophet and the other from a poet, that are framing my prayers today.
A prayer ends this post.
Daniel Berrigan, from “A Wedding Sermon on Peace” originally preached in 2003, at the beginning of the war in Iraq
Our country is at war. One of the beatitudes, “Blessed are the makers of peace,” touches closely on our situation, which hovers between predicament and holy opportunity.
What indeed can it mean in such days as we endure, to be ‘peacemakers’? Not ‘just war’ theorists, not ‘pacifists,’ not, surely not war makers. But ‘blessed are the peacemakers,’ ‘the makers of peace.’
The term in the original Greek, is disturbingly concrete, physical. One makes peace in somewhat the way one makes a table or a building, a school or a hospital, something useful or beautiful or both. We make peace in somewhat the way two people make a child. Makers of peace. The task is untidy, unfinished, laborious, always to be started anew. The task may involve crossing a line, getting in trouble with a law that protects war and weaponry, law that makes peacemakers liable to legal consequence.
“Blessed are the peacemakers…” There is a summons here, a calling that reaches out and out… I mean something quite simple. Our country is bleeding. A wasting horrid war is claiming lives by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those who die are innocent; they are children, the aged and ill, bystanders, non-combatants. The victims include American soldiers, most of whom are young, most from minority families — a familiar story.
Denise Levertov, Making Peace
A voice from the dark called out,
‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
O God, who dwells beyond all our names for you,
we pray for the will to be at peace with one another.
We remember this day those who find themselves thrust into war;
We pray for light in the darkness, and hope amid despair.
We pray for peace in ourselves;
help us to breathe in peace, help us to breathe out love;
help us know and accept ourselves as your beloved.
We pray for peace in our families;
help us to speak the truth to one another in love;
help us to respect and value one another.
Let there be peace in our communities;
help us to create a peace born of justice and equity;
help us to honor and serve the common good.
Let there be peace in our nation;
sustain our hope; grant us wisdom;
empower us with courage.
Let there be peace in our world.
Help us to love the earth as our mother;
help us to see other nations as our neighbors;
help us to wage peace.
— from a Litany for Peace by the Reverend Kay Sylvester
Rector, St. Paul’s, Tustin – Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.
— Etty Hillesum
I love Berrigan’s comment that peace is something that is built like a table or a building. It’s intentional. It’s built by crafting one piece at a time. Humanity has done a good job in building war machines. We need to put in as much effort in building a peace machine. Salam alaikum. Shalom. Peace be upon you.
Thank you so much for words of comfort this morning when we awoke with more heartbreaking news.
Let there be peace on earth...and let it begin with each of us. Let us stay awake and love one another.