Treetop Angel

Throughout Christendom today we are celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace.  What hypocritical creatures we are!  According to Wikipedia, on this very day there are thirty-nine on-going wars throughout the world.  Some began as early as 1918.  Many involve us.  Or maybe that’s playing with words and statistics.  A headline on WashingtonsBlog last May said “U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars… That It Will Publicly Admit.”

I don’t really care about the numbers, just like I don’t care about how many murders there are in the world on any given day.  One is too many and, while we give lip service ad infinitum to gun control efforts and to ending global conflict, we continue to embrace our culture of violence.

Christmas Eve Entree

It’s not just the video games and the movies and the books – fiction and non-fiction – that laud violence and savagery.  What about our love-affair with contact sports?  We are past-masters at finding “acceptable” ways to maim and obliterate one another.  And what about our insistence on honoring “those who have served?”  Can we not honor them for better reasons?  We are experts at doling out guilt and beating the drums of patriotism in the guise of protecting our homeland.

Christmas Morning

I do like the story of the Christmas truce of 1914.  That year Pope Benedict XV had suggested a temporary stop to the Great War (the “war to end all wars”) for the celebration of Christmas.  The warring countries refused to create any official cease-fire, but on Christmas day the soldiers declared their own unofficial truce, climbing out of the trenches and walking across no man’s land to shake hands with the enemy.  Some troops exchanged presents of cigarettes or plum puddings and actually sang carols and songs together.  It was probably one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare.

So here we are on December 25, 2013 looking at a world that we’ve put on the fast track to obliteration.  It’s hard for me to offer Merry Christmas wishes and yet… I very much want to believe that eventually we’ll find an answer to what seems to be a genetic flaw.  I’m thinking maybe some peace-loving scientist will locate that ubiquitous ‘violence gene’ in our human DNA and find a way to neutralize it.  Or maybe an inoculation in early childhood?

Meanwhile, I offer you a gentle hug, my hand to hold, a smile of welcome and wishes for a peace-filled day with friends and family.  As my almost-cousin Father Tom Williams always says, “It’s the least we can do; it’s the most we can do; it’s all we can do.”  Blessings all!