PEACE

Peace is the focus this second week of Advent in churches that follow the Christian calendar. On Sunday, December 7, 2025, at my church, we sang the hymn, We Wait the Peaceful Kingdom and heard the words from Isaiah, “…prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight…”. On the day that we remember as a Day of Infamy, we sang and heard words of peace.

Now, our country’s path is rutted with greed, authoritarian actions, and political violence. Too many people are more concerned about acquiring pieces of gold rather than creating peace. The National Security Strategy issued last week concerns me. Changing the direction of our country that has been followed all of my lifetime toward alliances with authoritarian governments is frightening. I vividly remember times when I lived in places that were not peaceful. When I was a child, my family lived in New Orleans during the Cuban missile crisis. I remember practicing bomb drills hiding under my school desk in October, 1962. Then, as an adult with my own children, living in New Jersey on September 11, 2001, we shared a horrific day with our nation. In December, 2001, I remember attending a poignant piano recital in our community, listening to the music played stoically by the children of a Port Authority police officer who died while working to save people at the World Trade Center. We should be working to create peace by facing the reality of the damage that political violence is doing to our world and strengthen alliances with democratically led countries.

Our pastor in New Jersey shared a childhood memory of being at the train station in his Indiana hometown during World War II when German prisoners of war (POW) were arriving to be taken to a POW camp. People in the crowd were jeering and calling out hate-filled words at the German prisoners. Our pastor’s mother shared her thoughts with him: “Son, that’s not right. We’re to treat everyone with respect.” She taught him the importance of love for one another and peace.

We can work to teach the damage that racist violence has done in in the past in our country. For example, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center is working to restore the barn where Emmett Till was murdered seventy years ago in Drew, Mississippi, to create a memorial to the teenager and teach the importance of justice. I have visited Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, where during the civil rights protests, white supremacists bombed homes of Black citizens. And, we must stop political violence directed towards people who hold different values. Now, people are attacked online and experience physical threats to their families and homes by angry people who are consumed by hatred of “the other”.

I saw a report this week that a currently popular baby name is Truce. Yes, to truce and peace. Let’s work together for all children of all names in all lands and create peace. In the last two centuries, British Prime Minister William Gladstone, musician Jimi Hendrix, and spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy have each shared similar thoughts that “the world will know peace when the love of power is vanquished by the power of love.”

Let’s work to smooth out the ruts in our roads and make the paths straight so that in our future, we can all celebrate liberty and equality together peacefully.