Forty days of peace? Could we imperfect human beings ever be so lucky as to attain that?
That’s the goal the people at Goshen College believe we should reach for as our winter of discontent continues.
The college has created the 40 Days of Peace Pledge. The days of the pledge began counting down Monday, Martin Luther King Jr., Day. It was a rightful start for such a pledge, as King and other civil rights activists, facing unrelenting savage violence for their simple request to be treated equally as human beings, did not take up arms to fight back or protect themselves.
The peace pledge campaign is interesting in that for each day for the 40 days there is a suggested "act of peace" tied to a quote for the day. Most of the quotes are from well-known people, including John F. Kennedy, Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt. But even rock star Bono, Teddy Roosevelt, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benito Juarez, anthropologist Margaret Mead and author Mark Twain offer up words of wisdom about peace.
So what is the peace talked about in the pledge? It’s mostly interpersonal peace — getting along with co-workers, neighbors and family members. We think that is an appropriate approach as these personal relationships build a foundation in all of us for looking at our city, our state and our nation. Without peace in our personal relationships, there is more space for stress, anger and hopelessness.
This pledge of peace is engrossing in its simplicity. "Compliment at least four people today," is the act of peace suggested for Jan. 27. That may seem such a small thing to do to promote world peace, but think of the joy it brings when someone receives an unexpected compliment. Usually their mood is better all day and they in turn often pass on the good will. While reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world is a laudable form of peace-seeking, a simple compliment gives peace to someone’s soul.
And that is the goal of this 40 Days of Peace Pledge, to bring peace to each and every person in the Goshen community.
We may never be able to rid the world of nuclear weapons, but we must try. We may never be able to stop nations from warring. But we must try. And we may never be able to bring total acceptance between religions, but we must try. What is possible, is to brighten someone’s day, to mend fences with your neighbor, and to stop picking on someone in your school or office. To accomplish these personal feats of peace, all you have to do is try.
On the last day of the 40 Days of Peace, Feb. 25, the quote is from Alexandr Solzhenitzyn, a Russian who was oppressed for most of his life by the Stalinist regime. Why? He had a conscience. At some point in his life Solzhenitzyn paused with his pen and wrote "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart."
He was so very right.
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