Most would agree that we are in desperate need of peacemakers. No need to recount the ever-present conflicts in our communities and around the world. The whirlwinds of turmoil lift dark dust that cloud the future.
COVID-19 vapors and financial troubles hang low, increasing uncertainly, anxiety, frustration, fear and conflict. Everyone seems on edge with hair-trigger tempers. The times are dangerous.
An even more toxic virus is the lack of good leadership that eats away at the body politic. Civic, governmental and religious leaders seem impotent to respond adequately, and those who try are drowned out by the noise of battles. Some even enflame divisions and conflicts in order to enhance their self-interest, influence, political power and prestige inside some warring group. Too many us against them warriors; not enough peacemakers.
Not all would assume that peace is our greatest need. They say, “Peace without justice is not peace.” They rightly argue that true peace cannot exist in the soil fouled by denial of legal rights, oppression of the weak, or a return to an unjust status quo. Forced tranquility is no substitute for peace.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” in response to a letter from sincere pastors asking that he cease Civil Rights efforts because tensions and harm resulted.
How can there be peace in our time? We would be wise to remember and learn three wise men — Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi in India and Nelson Mandela in South Africa — who successfully guided their peoples through terrible times with positive results.
They taught that violence always leads to more violence in vicious cycles. That truth confronts us every morning.
They taught that peace and harmony do not result from destroying enemies, but by transforming them to follow a moral and just path. That is the goal of non-violent action.
They lived non-violent action as the best path toward that transformation, peace and harmony.
They never surrendered to injustice. They placed their entire selves and lives into their non-violent opposition to oppression. They expected other people to rally to their just cause.
Mandela lived to be president of South Africa after legal apartheid oppression ended. He stressed that reconciliation is essential to peace and justice. He supported establishment of truth and reconciliation commissions for individual truth-telling, repentance, reconciliation and communal harmony. He said that reconciliation is more powerful and effective than punishment. We never can punish or destroy everyone’s enemies.
We had better learn from those leaders. I wish we could say they were perfect, fully successful and lived out their lives in peace. No, all three spent time in jail, and two were murdered by violent men who opposed their non-violent goal of freedom and peace.
Being a peacemaker is difficult. It is dangerous to stand as a peacemaker between angry groups intent on destroying each other. We desperately need leaders with the wisdom of King, Gandhi and Mandela. Alas, none of us hopes to stand on a national stage or be famous leaders.
Bill Placher, a well-known professor beloved by many in Crawfordsville, challenged a Wabash College audience, “If you say you love the whole world, you best love some small part of it with great intensity.” Perhaps today he would say, “If you yearn for peace in the world, be the peacemaker where you are.” Let peace float out in expanding circles from your house as a sweet fragrance. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you and me.
Raymond B. Williams, Crawfordsville, contributed this guest column.
