What is Peace, really?

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” Pastor Deniece Mason explains what this means in a modern context. She points out that Memorial Day wasn’t a holiday before 1971. And long before that, it’s origins come from women in Mississippi who, while decorating the graves of their ancestors in a cemetery, noticed some long neglected overgrown graves. These were for union soldiers. And they decided to clean these up and put flowers on them, because it didn’t matter that they were men who fought against their own ancestors. Humanity mattered more.

Fast forward a few generations to a time when Memorial Day and Veterans Day have become more about the glory of soldiers and their sacrifice and not about the sacrifices we must all make to bring peace. We must all be able to recognize the human on the other side of a conflict. (Nov 11, like Memorial Day, was co-opted from its global origin as Armistice Day – a day that marks the end of World War I everywhere else – to glorify Power instead of Peace.)

This swords to plowshares passage is found in two Hebrew books, and on the walls of the United Nations. It is the central promise of the Peace-loving Christian faith. Let our holidays be Holy-days again, as we find meaning in the pursuit of alternatives to strengthening the hand of those who accept war. “As Christians when we read about this passage, we think it has little meaning today because we think about Peace as a noun,” Mason says. “It is a verb. It is what we’re called to be, to live into. It is the word Shalom. Shalom is not just Peace, but also Completeness. Everything one needs to live a full life. Back to the garden of Eden. Perfection. Justice. Neighborliness.”