Or, people decide that arming themselves will keep the peace, and then, quite rationally, get more arms to match what their enemy gets. So, they do, usually in secret and then finally in the open. Disarmament treaties are signed, and then nations, and individuals, decide that it is in their best interest to break them. But when you look at experience, both in your life and as the world has sought peace, you can see that the most devastating violence begins in thoughtful choice. If you believe education could promote peace, you believe that anyone who could think clearly will not choose violence. The hope of ending violence by better education is that if people just understood better, they would want peace and so they would choose it. In that theme, the theme of education, is a key to understanding both the difficulties in most proposed solutions to violence and also the sure way to peace. And so we search for ways for more people to have better educations. But even when shooting stops, usually just for a short while, the meetings and the media move to some other place, because the shooting has started somewhere else.Īnother theme in the search for peace is education: If people just knew more, if they understood better, if they were educated enough to have a better life, they would choose peace. They try to judge whether, because of what is negotiated, the shooting will stop or go on. Always the media is there to tell you how it is going. And so you read about and see pictures of diplomats and secretaries of state and heads of nations flying to Geneva or somewhere else to talk. But there are those, equally sure, who argue that the only safety is to have enough bombs or guns that no one will attack you.Īnother theme is that of negotiation: If we can just get people to talk with each other, then they will choose peace. Those who see danger in bombs or in guns take comfort when any country or any group of people give up weapons.
#PEACE BE WITH YOU AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT CHANGE HOW TO#
Interestingly, the themes remain much the same whether the question is how to gain peace in the world or in your neighborhood. Now, if you listen carefully, in the debates about what to do to create peace, you will hear some common themes. You hope to avoid the violence of other people. Most of you even plan what you do at night, taking your safety into account. But every day the news is filled with more violence, apparently growing violence, across the world and in our own cities. That dividend was supposed to be the money we would no longer have to spend on armaments as a nation because of what was called the “collapse” of the Soviet Union.
Oh, there was and still is some talk in the press and by politicians in the United States about a “peace dividend.” You will notice less and less talk about that.
When you look at your newspaper and your television screen you don’t see much about peace.
Please join your prayer with mine that we might have the companionship of the spirit of truth and of peace. I want to talk with you about peace and about the Prince of Peace. I am grateful for the prayer, for the music, for the kind introduction, and most of all for visiting with you tonight.
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