War & Peace

War & Peace

If you pray – pray for peace.

If you don’t pray – pray for peace.

War is an opportunistic disease. It is the outward expression of mankind’s own self-hatred. Yet selfish at the same time it says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine also.” It is based in the primal fear that there is only so much to go around and that is in short supply.

War is the antithesis of life. It will not be satisfied until it destroys it. The only joy in victory is the end of conflict. Tranquility knows no enemy. True peace knows no foe. When the battle is over we are all wounded. When we stop trying to understand each other we are doomed to war again.

Kindness that is not shared freely is no kindness at all. Love that is meant for only a few is not love, but self-preservation. Hope that sees only the filling of the storehouse instead of the bellies of the hungry has no humanity in it. Prizes in and of themselves are empty and hollow. Ownership is merely a claim on something that we only hold temporarily. If, in that ownership, we are not heart-free and spirit-free enough to share it with those who need it then we are spiritual gluttons of obese proportions. This is true whether in regards to material or spiritual matters – for wars have been fought for both reasons.

When we move to war we enslave ourselves to hate and fear and all the things that rip and tear the nature of God from our hearts and souls and minds. It not only kills the body, but it destroys all that we are meant to be in the fullness of the One who calls us to be truly alive in Him.

Go, therefore, in peace. Be merciful to all for the sake of love, which leads to Life.

by Kris Hillenburg (from Quaker Life and Thoughts, http://www.workhorsegraphics.com/war_peace.htm)