It's a great line from the musical RENT written by Jonathan Larson.
I think its true too. War is about violence and death, social disruption, economic destruction. It's authors are mostly politicians and ministers. "It means destruction of innocent lives," as the song goes, "War means tears to thousands of mothers eyes; when their sons go to fight and lose their lives."
No matter how you slice it, war sucks.
It is true that peace is characterized by a lack of violence, conflict and freedom from fear but the $100,000 question is how do we get there?
Let's be honest, much of the time we're at war with the members of our families. Sometimes in literal ways but more often through suppressed feelings, hidden anger and looks that can kill.
Our children can drive us absolutely crazy and we conjure punishments and prisons, stripping them of the things they enjoy so we can teach them a lesson.
Friends abandon us in our worse times of need, tell us things we want to hear rather than the truth and are suspiciously absent when someone should be standing up on our behalf.
My friend Jimmy Cochran wrote a marvelous thing about his mother recently. He was taking her out for lunch and she's old and is having trouble getting out of the car.
"What's happening to me?" she asks in frustration.
And the peace that passeth all understanding hit Jimmy like a ton of bricks.
He remembers a lifetime in a second. Everything she's ever done out of love for him flashes before him, all of the times she created love out of bad situations, unfortunate accidents, or when she pushed him to be more than he was becoming.
Peace is an easily vanishing experience, especially the kind that surpasses all understanding, and they were quickly back to their mortal selves with her asking him what in the hell he's staring at, helping her elderly body out of the car and admonishing him to not put any of this on Facebook, which he did.
You grab hold of peace and it's gone.
In the end, it really is about creating, because when all is said and done, we're either creating the wars or we're making peace with things.
I don't know about you but I "ain't going to study war no more."
I got better things to do.
I'm heading down to the riverside ...
lay my burdens down ...
talk with the Prince of Peace ...
touch the people I love.
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October 2013 ♦ Embracing peace in your life! “You are one of the most tormented people I know,” she said. I was at the height of success, living at the beach, working in a beautiful city, having everything I thought I wanted…but she was right. I was miserable and didn’t know why. Then I decided to take a journey inside of myself. Life is too short and I deserved to happily celebrate my life. As much as I wanted to lay the blame at the feet of others, it was my own fault and I needed to know why I prevented myself from enjoying my life. I needed to find peace. And I did. You can find yours.
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