To be peacemakers
A necessity for today’s saints
1st of November is celebrated as the All Saints day, a day where we commemorate all the Saintly persons, thanking God for their witnessing life. The readings of the day speak of the beatitudes. I am inclined to reflect on one of them, which I feel is extremely significant in the contemporary social and political context.
Even after the devastating experiences of world wars, wars in piece-meal between different countries and with all the talks of human rights, we still occasionally fall into the clutches of war. Some geographical habitats are eternally in the state of war. Here, it is not a time to discuss in details and to put blame on someone (though those in power and in super-power have much blood on their hands); but this day invites us to pray for the peace in those troubled areas. Probably many of us, don’t even see that flint or spark of hope for peace; I can’t speak of the state of people living such atrocities daily; but still we need to hope. We need to try all efforts to make peace. All efforts to reduce tensions, reduce sharing of news items that aggravate the polarizations existing in the society. We may not able to affect world wide decisions, but we can start small. May be a first invitation on this feast day is to make a conscious decision to fact-check before sending sensational news. Its a small step towards being a peacemaker.
I hear about many families struggling with relationships; occasional instances of various kinds of violence within the family even at the age of so much talk of equality and consent. Relationship struggles do exist between friends too. I don’t want to point the blame on one particular situation; but one aspect which I find quite upsetting is our difficulty to deal with anger in life, and these unsettled, unresolved angers leading to further relationship struggles. Again anger is many a times connected to our stressful working conditions. So I see a link in many cases (not a generalized correlation) between stress and anger and struggles in relationships. Being peacemaker is also an invitation to help oneself and the others to deal with anger and stress in an appropriate manner, that relationships are not damaged.
