PEACE
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Nowadays all that TV seems to show are images of war. We long for how it
used to be. We long for peace. What is peace?
Here's what friends at Opportunity Village said when I asked them what peace means to them: One said, "My definition of peace is quiet." Another remarked, "...where you will be happy in heaven" Wherever you are in the world, people seem to equate peace with faith. From his book This Believing World, Browne says, "...the Egyptians...gods symbolized by animals. The Celts...only unroofed circles of stone pillars...Stonehenge... The Babylonians...brick temples that rose to the very heavens... Greecesang of the gods, they sang of glorified men... Rome...Augustus...by a decree of his own as emperor, he made himself the deity supreme. Buddha...the "Enlightened One" Hinduism...Nirvana was not a place but a state of mind... Confucius... a man who loved the ancients...their wisdom... Taoist..."three jewels" of character...inactivity...humility...frugality... Zoroaster...good and bad struggled for mastery. On the one side was Ahura Mazda, the wise spirit... Hebrews...for other tribes there might be other gods, but for the Hebrews there was only Yahveh. ...their own Messiah, their "Anointed One" would reign... Christians...differed from their fellow Jews only in that they believed that the Messiah had already come... Islam...Mohammed, the "Praised One"... He who had been pious on Earth was translated to a garden of bliss after death... That's really it. Peace is quiet. Peace is happiness. Remember, peace isn't that far away. Just turn off the TV. Close your eyes. Be very still. There you will again find peace. |
Jim Holcombe
Marion, IA