It’s the time of year, when a frequent catchphrase is “Peace on Earth.” A primary message symbolized in the Nativity narrative is that peace. Not simply a cessation of hostility among humans, but an absolution of God’s wrathful justice against human sin, and a means to healing human hostility.
That sin is not simply a matter of doing this or failing to do that. Those are mere symptoms. Even on the purely human level of things, we understand justice is rooted in a human commitment to equity. It is an equity not in outcomes, but in seeking a natural path, the best possible path, letting people follow their own inclinations so long as such following does not unnecessarily transgress someone else’s opportunities.
So we can explain it, but if we have to enforce it, we haven’t accomplished much. That’s because justice, and the resulting peace on earth, is a matter of voluntary self-enforcement.
Living as I do with a foot in two worlds, it’s not news to me we don’t have much voluntary compliance in this world. It’s bad enough on the individual level, but it really screams at us in the broader scope of human activity. That’s because when humans are conscious of banding together, it is often in the wrong spirit, the spirit of fear. Communal fear is not just the combination of fearful individuals, but an exponential magnification of fear. It becomes the excuse for horrific evil, all the worse because it’s called “good.”
When I wrote my fictional series on training peacemakers, Sanity Subversive, I pushed the idea peace can only come from within the individual. There is the sense it may well be futile, but that it was the only way at all. As much peace as we are going to have in this world will arise from the tiny select minority who find the call of peace too strong to ignore. The problem is, we have too little calling out to the slumbering spirit of peace in those who should have it. That is complicated further by too many of those feeling the call having such a poor understanding of what it means.
Because of that failure of clarity, we have a vast sea of useless, and even harmful, action in demanding peace. It is demanded as if there were some power capable of enforcing peace. That is simply and utterly contrary to what peace means. The only sort of peace possible with enforcement is killing everyone, since peace is not our natural inclination, even if it is a fundamental wish.
Frankly, there is a sense in which Peace on Earth is not possible. That is, impossible if we seek only the sort of peace which can be quantified and enforced. Simply stopping hostile action doesn’t mean peace, and it’s simply not going to last very long. Peace on Earth is an offer made, knowing precious few will actually look beyond the mere words, much less seek to accept the offer.
It won’t matter what your religion is; there is something fundamental about peace which appeals to a desire in all of us. A few of us will actually have a concept of peace which is big enough to warrant some commitment to making peace. We know, in that place inside where doubt cannot abide, peace is only what we make of it. Peace is our own, something no one can take away. When we hold it forth to another, we cannot compel acceptance, nor would we want that. We know it is rooted in the voluntary mutual reaching, touching each other’s existence with the same desire to erase hostility, to find a common ground. We want a negotiated live-and-let-live, not for itself, but as the means to opening things to that higher plane.
Peace.
