Peace

As is my tradition, every year I include wishes for Peace in our Christmas Card. I feel it's an important wish, right up there with Joy, Love and Hope. In the Methodist Tradition, these four words are celebrated in the four Sundays of Advent.

The kid manning the counter at the photography store* in my hometown didn't see it this way - my card proof was printed without "Peace". When I made him change it, he wanted to challenge me on it. "Do you really want that there? I mean, this is a CHRISTMAS card, right?"

Yeah, I do. I really do want peace. On my card, and in my life, and throughout the world. It's important to me.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent - it is the day of Peace. Today, our preacher gave one of the most beautiful, moving sermons I've heard him give (and that's saying something - he's AMAZING). Mr. Mac and I chose our church because of the congregation, its location, and its children's programs. This church also has outstanding music, as it's affiliated with Emory. Additionally, it's been blessed with a wonderful pair of ministers in this rotation**. Today's sermon talked a lot about Peace, and what it is to wish for Peace, even in the face of wartime. Of course, he mentioned the controversy over the "Peace Wreath" in Colorado.

But, then he took me back to a part of my life I'd forgotten. After my Sophomore year in college, I went abroad to study in Germany. One of the modules we did was on the East/West relationship. This was the summer of 1991, so the East/West relationship was changing dramatically, especially for Germans. The wall had fallen a little less than two years earlier.

This morning, our preacher retold the story of the congregation of the Leipzig Nikolaikirche, who celebrated a Mass of Peace every Monday evening, even in the face of the STASI (police). They marched, peacefully, through the city streets after their service, despite armed men and tanks threatening them. They sang songs of freedom, and peace, even though doing so could mean the end of their lives. Families chose one member to go to worship, and one to stay home and remain alive, to raise the children.

But nobody was ever killed in these demonstrations. These Christians took their message of Hope, Love, Peace and Joy to the rest of the world, without ever raising a finger. More remarkably, not a finger was raised against them, either.

I'd forgotten this piece of history. This moment that was part of the Eastern European groundswell***, clamoring for Freedom not too many years ago. I didn't have this in mind when I wished everyone Peace on my Christmas Card. I don't know if Lisa Jensen thought of it either, when she hung her "Peace Wreath". I know that I certainly wasn't trying to make a political statement on my card.

Why is it, then, that a wishing for PEACE has become so politicized? Why can't we, a citizens of a nation fighting a war, wish that peace would come to this Earth, without being branded traitors or cowards?

Peace, my friends, is that thing for which we should all strive. It's personal, and it's spiritual. And may it come in my lifetime.

* I chose to patronize a locally-owned store in my hometown, paying almost double the price for my Christmas Cards, and take political smack-talk, rather than going to Sam's Club (where I'm sure they would've had issues printing the order correctly, but I'm also sure they wouldn't have questioned my motives).

** As Methodists, we generally get a new team of ministers every 5 years or so. The Wesleyan tradition of the Itinerant Minister has taken some getting used to for me, raised Presbyterian.

*** I will write more about this subject at a later time. Short version - I visited the USSR in the summer of 1989. My dad's Rotary Club sponsored me, and I had to give a speech on my return. They all thought I was completely insane when I said that the Soviet Union would fall in a matter of years, if not months. I told them that the Baltics were ready to secede, and they all worried that I'd gone away and become some idealistic hippie. They were forgiving, though, as I was just a naive girl of 18.