Sabbath Devotional: Ultimate Peace is Not Only Possible . . .

On Saturday morning I woke to the news that my country had bombed another country which was notorious for its determination to bomb still other countries. I have spoken with enough armed dissidents to believe that war and bombs are complicated things. And, indeed, this news felt very complicated. 

Because I really hate violence. The prospect of bullets or bombs being turned against real, breathing humans is so horrible. But last year, my husband interviewed dozens of people involved in the negotiations to end Apartheid and The Troubles for a film project we’ve been working on. I’ve listened to those interviews, hours and hours of good hearted, sincere, and imperfect people talking about their involvement on opposing sides of armed resistance. People who were proud of their participation in what they truly considered a just war. People who sincerely believe that without armed resistance, Apartheid would never have fallen. Oppressive regimes would carry on unchecked. The IRA or the loyalist militias would have killed so many more people. 

I have never lived in a warzone, so I can’t say if that’s true or not. And I certainly don’t mean to suggest how you should obviously be feeling about the most recent news cycle. What I do mean to say, however, is that every person we spoke with, every single one, talked about the work of peace as so much harder, so much more complicated, so much longer than armed conflict.

Because there are real humans injured and killed, and that leaves deep wounds that can so easily become infected with grief, anger, and hate. Wounds that don’t just disappear when a treaty is signed.

It’s been decades since the peace negotiations ended in Northern Ireland and South Africa. But the work never stopped. Both countries are fraught with division and mistrust. Almost every single person we spoke with is neck deep in peace work still, healing wounds, building bridges, strengthening ties.

“Peacemakers believe ultimate peace is not only possible, it is sure.” I am, for the thousandth time this week, astonished by the confidence of this proclamation. And I have wondered a thousand times again if humans are actually built for peace. I don’t know.

But I do know this: my boy is deep in his “I'm a Jedi/Narnian King/Newsie/Roman fighting off bad guy stormtroopers/white witches/scabs/Celts.” And honestly, it's been a little startling how taken he is with violence. He'll tell me he likes pretending this toy is a gun or that a bit of wood is a sword or a bag of marbles is a bomb. He'll tell me how fascinated he is by Roman imperial tactics, and how they were so successful at conquering enemies. “Veni vidi vici!” he cries. I'm told it's the nature of young boys. And maybe it is. 

But so is this, I know this, too: when his brother falls on his face, my boy rushes to his side and rubs his back until the crying subdues. When the infant screams from being too long in the car seat, my boy sings a lullaby and smooths the baby’s hair, even when the crying, frustratingly, continues. When my boy comes home from school, every day, he tells me one way he noticed someone being kind. When Charlotte died and Wilbur returned to the farm alone, my boy sobbed with all the tenderness of a broken heart. When my neighbor had a crawfish boil, my boy ate a crawdad, eyes and all, because he didn’t want my neighbor to feel unappreciated.

I guess this is all to say, I don’t really believe peace is inevitable. It’s not automatic. It’s not guaranteed. It’s work. Hard work. Boring work. Occasionally soul-breaking work. Work we pass along from generation to generation as we fail and fail and try again.

But I believe it is possible. I see good women and men striving towards it every day, going to the places no one wants to go, doing the work no one actually wants to do. Mending wounds and divisions, rebuilding communities and relationships, healing bodies and hearts.

And sometimes, I see my boy choosing to be gentle, making peace even though it’s supposed to be antithetical to his nature, to all our natures, and sometimes then, I feel sure.

. . . . . . . .

(Image is of the author’s son, entirely bedecked in his weapons of war)

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Sarah Perkins is the peaceful root director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.