Next year on this day, 7 December 2016, will mark the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We still remember. Yet, Japan and the United States of America are now friendly nations and have been since the end of World War II. Friends become enemies become friends.
Like personal relationships, enemy nations need not be destined to always remain so. There is always hope for peace.
We need not forget past harms in order to move forward with present healing in broken relationships, be they personal or national. A vision for change, a faith in its possibility, and the will to make it so, is all that’s often needed to make that change.
We could be talking about Israel and Palestine, the U.S. and Iran, or Iraq and Afghanistan and the principle still stands. We need vision, faith, and the will to see positive, constructive, and workable solutions for peace.
Vision: We need to see things differently, visualize anew. We need to visualize our enemies becoming friends. What does that look like? Can we see the possibility? What would it take for us to turn our enemies into friends?
The first step might be something as simple as re-humanizing them. They, our present enemies, are not monsters or sub-human critters to be stamped out, wiped out, and/or otherwise extinguished, as if they were alien creatures with no right to life on earth. They eat, sleep, and play as we do. They have family dreams, love their children, and wish to prosper and enjoy life as do we. They are, after all, only human, as are we. The second step might be something as simple as listening to their cry: Why the hatred, why the anger, from whence is the pain and hurt that makes them make us their enemy? How did we become so hateful to them? How do we begin to see our enemies in a new light? Can we see a future where our enemies become our friends?
Faith: Do we believe it’s possible, enemies become friends? Do we believe that people and nations can change? Do we believe in reconciliation? Do we believe in the possible healing of wounded hearts and wounded souls, in mercy, compassion, and forgiveness? If so, there is hope. And there is evidence for such hope: Healing, forgiveness, mercy, renewed trust, and reconciliation—it IS possible and it is something worth believing in. It CAN be. This is no pie-in-the sky fantasy dream. These are real, tangible, workable, and attainable possibilities. We must believe this, believe in its realism.
Will: Believe, envision, and then do. Action is born out of conviction, behavior out of belief. We do what we think. We live what we believe, and move toward what we see as worthwhile goals. Possibilities are then made real. We choose to will. And we will into reality what we choose to believe is possible, investing our time, our resources, our energy, and our gifts and talents to make it so.
“Peace in our time” is often looked at as a nice but naïve peacenik slogan—shallow, unrealistic, even childish.
Notice how much easier it is to arouse the WILL to fight than it is to muster up the WILL to make peace? The spirit of vengeance and retaliation, anger and hatred, is so much easier to arouse than the spirit of mercy and forgiveness or peace and reconciliation. Sure, there are reasons for this, doubt and distrust, betrayal and deception, to name a few.
For that reason we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, when seeking peace. The choice is ours. We can choose to lock ourselves into a state of perpetual hatred, violence, and war. Or we can choose to be innocent as doves and seriously seek peace. It takes will, vision, and faith. It IS a choice. We must believe in it and see its real possibility. Oh, one more thing: Beware! We often see only that which we CHOOSE to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment