A New Rhythm of Living

What is Peacemaking?

This, too, is real. The phrase Artisan de la Paix serenades me. The term illicits both contemplation and action, and it is wildly relevant. Artisan de la Paix is French for Peacemaker. But the term literally translates to craftsperson or artisan of peace, connoting action, responsibility. To be a peacemaker is to bend low and write in the sand, touch, feel, sweat, bleed. There is nothing passive about this kind of peace. And the term has inspired a diving in and exploration of what peacemaking is.

I reflect. I have sat at the bedside of the dying, held the hand of the victim, spoken as friends with the perpetrator. I am convinced all sides must be welcomed to the table if peace will be possible. The table, the great equalizer, where none are first, and all are treated the same. Can we begin to converse around this proverbial table? And can peace be more than a philosophy? I hope and believe so.

Peace with God, peace with man, peace between man, peace with creation.

These are the components.

This is what we will build.

I am convinced that there has never been a more ripe time to place our hands to the plow of peace and start pushing, allowing the patient process of growth and season to bring to life that which lies latent.

I long for peace because we are designed to know and live in peace. I long for peace because I know the opposite. I long for peace because until we can cease our warring with words as well as with our fists, we will never understand love. I long for peace because I know the children that suffer in its absence. I long for peace because Jesus, the greatest Peacemaker, is already turning weapons into sand, pain into healing, destruction into life.

The greatest threat to national security or personal security is not the presence of hate but rather the ultimate love of self. Until we can love the other more than we love ourselves, we will forever be imprisoned to search for peace where it can not be found; at the point of the gun.

Our hope for life rests on our ability to love. If we can not love, we can not know peace. If the highest form of justice is mercy, than the fastest path to peace is found in how we love.

These things compel me. This love moves me.

Artisan de la Paix. Perhaps this is a new rhythm of living.

// Photograph taken in the Chalbi desert, Northern Kenya

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.