Peacemobile

The Peacemobile came to town! We hosted it at the church as the children from the nearby elementary school came in, two or three classes at a time, to learn about how they can have personal peace, interpersonal peace, cross-cultural peace, and environmental peace.

One of the kids in a group I took through the activity centers lived next door to me. She was completely engaged in each of the activities and took a leadership role in the group. In debriefing at the end of each activity she had a solid concept of peace and some skills in building it.

That evening I got to listen through our far-from-soundproof walls as the adult in her home screamed profanity at her and then hear her painful cries as her body was struck repeatedly throughout the evening.

Did 45 minutes with some activities at the church make her life any better? I don't know. I do know, though, that despite what happened later in the day, she experienced 45 minutes of peace that morning.

You and I meet a lot of people each day. We have no ideas what battles they're in the midst of fighting for their physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual survival. If we really knew what was happening in the lives our our cashier, coworker, supervisor, teacher, waiter, or neighbor who lives across the street we would probably be overwhelmed.

This only amplifies the need for me to be a Peacemobile in my world. A lot of days I am more like a tank crashing through every thing and every one. But if I can lower the guns and get along with the world around me, reach across cultural barriers, try to get along with others, and respect myself enough to actually live this way I might, might, might, might, might provide someone a few moments of respite from the battles that surround them.

Jesus said, "Come to me and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28b) Can we be that place of rest for those we encounter in a war-torn world?

Lord, make me a channel of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, your pardon Lord;
and where there's doubt, true faith in you;
O Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen. ---- St. Francis