Opinion: Peace on Earth
These are words we have probably heard all of our lives. They can offer the hope of possibility, or they can cause us to despair due to our seeming incapacity to achieve the peace part. These words can motivate us to become our better angels or they can be dismissed as a naïve expectation. We may not even be sure how to define the word “peace,” since we experience so little of it. The dictionary defines peace as “the non-warring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.” However, we can also think about it in terms of personal relationships or as a state of a mind. Maybe it is as simple as silence or stillness. Whatever peace may be, we know it is crucial for the existence and betterment of humankind.
We can better understand war, because we have known for centuries what a world at war looks like. Today there are 110+ armed conflicts being monitored in the world. Some make headlines, others do not. Some are recognized as international, while others are tribal or local. Some are recent, while others have lasted for years. Wars eventually end, but their longevity and relentlessness turn us into skeptics about the prospects for peace. With the new administration, the idea of peace on earth and what it might look like is very much up in the air.
During this Christmas Season, there is one particular story and carol that gives us pause. In 1818 a carol was composed by Austrian Franz Xaver Gruber and titled “Silent Night.” 193 years later, an opera, “Silent Night,” was composed by Kevin Puts (2011) based on a real-life story.
The setting is a European battlefield on Christmas Eve, 1914. This story reminds us that “wars were not fought by forces but by human beings.” Lest we forget, that is still true to this day. That night the troops hunker down in the trenches – 3’ deep and 3’ wide - along the Western Front of the war. They are experiencing a miserable night – cold, mud, hunger, home-sickness, exhaustion, illness, and injuries. British and German troops cannot see each other, but out of the distant dark come the sounds of carols sung in German. A German voice shouts, “Come over here.” A British sergeant shouts back, “You come half way and I will come half way.” The men emerge slowly and nervously into what is called “No Man’s Land.” The rest of the night, they sing carols, talk, help enemy soldiers retrieve their dead, play a makeshift soccer game, trade what goods they have, and shake hands and exchange words of kindness. Then the dawn arrives and they retreat back to their 3’ X 3’ spaces. We know a lot about that night from the diaries and letters of the soldiers. One wrote, “There was not an atom of hate on either side.” Another wrote, “Then Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.” Men were simply human beings, not soldiers in that No Man’s Land. Peace was real for that short time and there were no enemies.
During times of upheaval or crisis, musicians have faced the issue of war and peace head-on with powerful symphonies or simple folk songs. Examples are: Hayden’s “Mass in a Time of War” (1796), Ralph William’s “Dona Nobis Pacem” (1936), Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (1959) and John Lennon’s “Imagine” (1971). Each were in their own way visionaries and dreamers. Lennon wrote, “…I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will be as one.”
Seeger drew from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven,” ending with his belief that there is “…A time for peace. I swear it’s not too late.”
The “silent night” story teaches us that eventually wars do end but at great costs, that war must not be sanitized, that meeting at least halfway is a critical imperative for peacemaking, and that it’s never too late for the world to move toward a season or time, when there might be more days of peace than war. Skeptics tell us it will never happen, but Lennon challenged us to never give up the dream and Seeger assured us that there is “a time to every purpose under heaven.” May our prayer be that the time or the season draws closer. “Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.”
Walter Shelly retired after 40 years as a professor of political science at West Texas A&M University. Linda Shelly retired after 33 years of teaching sociology at West Texas A&M University and Amarillo College.