Word of Wisdom: Peace
“A bad peace is worse than war.” Tacitus
Armistice Day is celebrated around the world every November 11th, a remembrance of the cessation of hostilities between the Allied Powers and Germany on the Western Front of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles was signed seven months later, officially ending a conflict that killed at least fifteen million people globally.
The controversial peace treaty, which left none of the parties satisfied, famously included the “War Guilt Clause”, placing blame for the war solely on Germany, and required that it pay vast amounts in reparations to the victors.
Only twenty years later, the same parties were engaged in a new war, one that would leave perhaps eighty million dead.
While the causes of World War II were many and complex, the peace treaty that ended “the war to end all wars” is among the most prominent. Though Germany’s struggles and the rise of Nazism were induced by numerous social, political, economic, and technological factors in the ‘20s and ‘30s, the vindictiveness of the Versailles treaty amplified the suffering and contributed to political violence. It was a “bad peace”, and it led to far worse.
As with nation-states, so with individuals.
More than anything in this world, we want peace. We want an end to the continual conflict, the ceaseless spiritual and psychological strife we endure, and we pursue it without pause by all manner of means. Whether through achievement or acquisition, reputation or revenge, secretive gambits or sexual gratification, we are ever seeking something to silence the voices, fill the emptiness, push away the pain.
We are war-weary and want to be off the front line, out of the trenches, finally living in the absence of the relational and emotional armaments we’ve experienced first-hand, no longer diving for cover to avoid the social shrapnel of the explosions around us. And we’re tempted to believe if we can manage to avoid a casualty long enough, or assuage the combatants, or abstain from the theatre of conflict…then we shall have peace for our time.
But peace, it turns out, must be proactively pursued, and requires an affirmative agreement.
Though we often employ them, apathy or avoidance can alleviate the conflict in neither our inner nor outer worlds. Just as something real must occur to spark combat—like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand or that hurtful accusation from a parent or spouse—something real, something tangible must happen to end the state of war that’s been declared. There must be a peace agreement.
This requirement is contained within the word itself. Our word peace is derived from the Latin pacem, meaning “an agreement, treaty, or compact”. It shares a root with the term pact, “a covenant or agreement”. Likewise, the Hebrew shalom is derived from a word meaning “to be in covenant”.
In order to be at peace with that person, that place, that situation, that memory, we have to come to an agreement, we have to enter into covenant to end the conflict. If we don’t, the combat will continue; it may take the form of low-intensity skirmishes, random shellings… even a cold war. But a state of hostility will remain. An agreement—a peace treaty—is required.
But forming a peace agreement, like entering combat, takes courage. It requires us to come to the table, to sit across from the person or thing we’ve been fighting, and engage differently. To not just continue lobbing grenades and firing rounds from a distance, but to listen, and respond, until there is a meeting of the minds.
We can be intimidated by these demands, and it is why many conflicts in life are addressed by an armistice: a temporary truce, but not a peace agreement.
Sadly, when we do seek peace, we’re prone to entering bad treaties. We insist that our adversary suffer, that blame be shifted fully, that our vindictiveness be memorialized even while we ourselves are vindicated in the accord. We write clauses into the pact such as: “They will never change”; “she did that, so I am entitled to this”; “the damage is irreversible and it is your fault”; “I have been uniquely wronged”; “I am uniquely broken”; “there is no hope”.
Such agreements create a bad peace, and like Germany in the ‘30s, we sink deeper into depression and become more prone to tyranny and bondage. We don’t realize it at first, because even a bad peace at least ends the trauma of open war; it allows a momentary escape from the danger and pain. But soon, war returns, and the scale of the conflict inevitably is greater than at the first.
Yet there is hope. The historical record alone reveals this to us. Whereas the U.S. and its allies crushed Germany under the weight of blame and punitive reparations in 1919, a different tack was taken after the second, even more tragic conflagration. Instead of taking from, vast amounts were invested into the vanquished foe, leading to astonishing national healing and growth (and reunification!), while forming a military, political, and economic alliance unique in world history.
As sons, our agreements can also create flourishing; indeed, it is how we lead like the Father.
We, too, can lead like the One who addresses courageously and compassionately those in conflict with him. Who seeks not vindication and vindictiveness, but a new, better covenant of peace. Who enters that peace agreement not for personal gain, but interpersonal growth. Who strengthens the peace over time not by calling attention to the previous wrongs of the old war, but by continual reference to the articles of the new accord.
This peace, this peace-full presence and pursuit, is our calling as sons. To follow in the way of the Son who did not covetously extract from, but courageously poured into ones who were in conflict with him. To not avoid the reality of the past, but to make all things new.
But there is a price to be paid for this peace: our previous agreements. Every clause in our bad treaties that blame-shift, accuse, extract, hold on or add to our demands for reparation. All of these must be let go.
Why? Because only then can we grasp onto the new provisions of peace. Indeed, the ancient, pre-Latin root of our word peace means “to fasten, to attach”. Until, like the Son, we are ready to attach ourself to and embrace the other, our peace will not endure. But, when we do, we will be amazed at how former adversaries are transformed into faithful allies.
This good, infinitely life-giving peace is available. Whether we will partner with the Father in this peacemaking is up to us. Today.
“They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, saying, ‘peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.” Jeremiah 6:14