PEACE ON EARTH
Like so many timeworn sayings, Peace on
Earth, Good Will Towards Men, seems to have evanesced before our eyes. While
the media focuses on the attempt by some to abolish the word "Christmas"
from our holiday lexicon and as a culture we struggle with the divisions
between the religious and non-religious, what more opportune time to step
back for a view of the big picture. Christmas is a time to enjoy family, to
respect our diversified spirituality, and to reflect on our blessings. This
Christmas finds me somewhat melancholy as I see so much of the world, and
our own country, in strife. It is a time to think of our servicemen and
women in Iraq, and all over the world, who are away from their families. For
all of those who have come home missing limbs and body parts and who will
spend this Christmas in hospitals. For all of those along our Southern
Coast, still without homes and dealing with the ravages of Katrina. One does
not have to look far for relevance when weighing our own blessings.
What seems absent, and it stands out this
time of year, is any dialogue regarding the pursuit of Peace on Earth.
Regardless of your religious affiliation or whether or not you're religious
at all, it is hard to argue with the Christian tiding of Peace on Earth and
Good Will. It causes me pause to think of a world where police officers are
barely necessary. A world where the infliction of violence on another is
unthinkable, where there are no wars or threats of war. This utopia where
the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives laid to waste
throughout history were instead spent on our own betterment. Education,
infrastructure, science. It seems loony to even think about it and yet, were
these simple admonitions a credo of the human race, think of how the world
might instead be at this very moment.
Many feel, and not without merit, that
religion is the cause of all disputes between nations and cultures. Look at
the Middle East and it is hard to argue that belief. Increasingly, in our
own country, it is drawing lines in the sand. Yet it is not religion,
really, that causes the strife. It is the apparent inability of individuals
and groups to suffer any disagreement between beliefs. As Americans, for
most of us, this seems ridiculous. Imagine Episcopalians and Catholics
bombing each other and blowing up cars over territory.
I am always amazed at the crowds that
turn out in these other countries to demonstrate angst over religious
beliefs. We have all seen it on the news. Tens of thousands of people
chanting and stomping, wound up like a clock spring all over.....what? A
different opinion about God. It has become so engrained in our history, as
a planet, and like all repetitive events it has a numbing effect on the
masses. We have come to expect it. Imagine that tomorrow, and for the next
week, none of that happened anywhere. We wouldn't know what to do with
ourselves. Newsmen and journalists the world over would be standing in
amazement, like the Grinch as he looked down on Whoville on Christmas
morning waiting for the cries of despair he was expecting, puzzled at the
unexpected outcome.
And so, at this Christmas in 2006, I will
dig deep to find hope that someday soon, the word "Peace" will be
re-introduced into the world dialogue as a goal we should be striving for. I
look at my children, innocent and thoroughly immersed in the excitement of
Christmas, and I hope for their future, a better world. I hope for a day
when the "War on Terror" is no longer a daily battle cry. That somehow, we
wind back the clock to a simpler time, that Nations find Wisdom, and that
our blood and treasure will be spent on more noble causes. But we cannot do
it alone. We cannot stand, as a Nation, vulnerable and unarmed in a
dangerous world. It is a global effort and I pray that it will be considered
by someone, someday, as the only pragmatic solution to the way in which the
World conducts itself now. That the desire for "Peace" no longer conjures
up images of hippies and headbands, but instead, of world leaders who sought
to bring it to fruition.
In the meantime, like the Grinch, I will
stand in my red tights and tiny pointed shoes. My green fur matted and my
tiny heart ready to grow three sizes at the sound of happy children on
Christmas morning, and family and friends gathered once again. Merry
Christmas...Peace on Earth...Good Will Toward Men.