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Make peace this holiday season

  • Published
  • By Chaplain (Maj.) John Painter
  • 315 AW/HC
Charleston AFB, S.C. --  We often hear the word peace used in the rhetoric of world politics. Though peace seems evasive in the Middle East, ethnic and religious differences continue to interfere with peace in southern Europe, and political wars rage in Africa and South America, interesting 'politically safe' terms have arisen throughout history that hint of oxymoron. For example, there are peacekeeper missiles, and there once existed an aircraft with nuclear capabilities called the B-36 Peacemaker.

Peace, it seems, will never become real as long as we attempt to "force" it. When a false peace is created through the use of threat, in our homes or in our world, anger, hurt, and hatred remain suppressed yet strong among the parties involved. At the first opportunity, the fight erupts again, and the cycle continues: people get hurt - or die - and the world becomes a tenser place in which to live.

Moshe Dyan, an Israeli military leader, once observed, "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies." So often, when we encounter someone whose philosophy of life is different from our own, we make no attempt to better understand them. We might make efforts to avoid them or, if we are angry, we might confront them and attempt to impose our personal views upon them - we tend to talk or fight, and not to listen.

For the Christian, Christ was born to reconcile humanity to God. Consequently, Christians are compelled to reconcile themselves to others. The Christmas season can serve to remind us all to strive for reconciliation. As we celebrate this holiday season, we will likely find ourselves in contact with someone with whom we have had a conflict this past year - maybe a co-worker, a family member, or other acquaintance. May our goal be reconciliation, which, on an individual level, is the most basic building block of world peace and may reconciliation one with another be the lasting memory of this Christmas season.