Sowing peace as I travel

Antos has faced, for over 25 years, the problems of drugs and crime on the streets of Charleston. As a journalist and part of the Catholic Worker community in Albany, I was often overwhelmingly aware of the problems of poverty and homelessness in Albany and of injustices around the world. Neither Antos, nor I, thought this planet was even close to "world peace" on Sept. 10.

Now, I'm not saying I was walking around thinking about solving the world's problems that Monday before the suicide plane attacks. On the contrary, I was quite consumed with my own worries. I had some good friends coming for dinner at Emmaus House (the Catholic Worker center) that evening. My biggest concerns were whether the naan (Indian bread) was going to burn and whether I'd made enough rice.

I was also worried about my life decisions: Should I be writing more? Am I doing what God is calling me to do? In the middle of it all, my father called to say he wasn't going to be visiting me that week, which was a disappointment as much as it was a relief.

A friend, Diana, gently asked if I wanted to discuss my father, and it was all I could do to keep from crying. Another housemate, Fred, asked for the third time the names of my friends who were coming over, and I snapped, "Just ask me when they get here!" (I'm sorry, Fred.)

And yet, dinner was great. The kids had a blast. I enjoyed supping with my journalist friends. My boyfriend came over with a few gifts for me. We all had some great laughs that night. It seemed I'd found peace as the evening progressed.

The point is that peace -- whether in the world or in a person -- is a tenuous and fragile thing. It was not here in fullness before Sept. 11, and it was even more obviously not here the next day. With each postman who dies, with each Afghan target that gets hit, it becomes even more inescapable that peace is a long row to hoe.

As I write, it's just before 7 a.m. in Tahoma, Calif., a woodsy town off the west shore of Lake Tahoe. I'm visiting a friend's log cabin; and through the window, I see dim light beginning to shine through the redwoods and sugar pine trees. It is peaceful here; yet, only a few hours ago, we could hear the coyotes shrieking outside, a sign of the conflict and tension that has always existed between human development and the wilderness. Peace is tenuous here, too, even as I vacation, and enjoy the beauty of the West.

In the weeks after Sept. 11, I listened carefully to the words of wise and holy women and men. A friend, Monica, who is a Franciscan nun, reminded me that not even in the best relationships are all problems ever resolved. How can we expect world peace if we can't even get perfect harmony between two people? It's a mystery, but I think we've got to keep trying.

A professor speaking at a forum at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany one evening talked about religious tolerance not going far enough. Tolerance means only "I'll put up with you, even if I don't like you." It's a place to start, he suggested, but it doesn't go far enough. The message should be, "I need you; I need to work with you to establish peace."

An imam at the same forum said that jihad (holy war) is not seen as a call for violence among most Muslims. Instead, it describes the internal struggle we all face to find peace within ourselves. The imam also related a story of a woman who apparently won her own "jihad." The woman, who works in a Price Chopper, approached him and said, "I just wanted to let you know that I don't hold you responsible for what happened."

Let us never forget that peace begins with us. We must work to create it in our own lives and among people we will never even meet. It can start in a family, in a grocery store, in a place like the Catholic Worker, or on the streets of Charleston.

My hope is that it can also start on the Southwest planes and Amtrak trains I'll be riding for the next six weeks on a pilgrimage to reconnect with friends and family, to increase peace in myself. My hope is that peace can flower here in a friendship in central California.

The thing is never to forget that peace is not yet here, that we need to sow it and make it grow. Let us pray those words attributed to St. Francis: "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

And let us work together for peace.

(11-08-01) [[In-content Ad]]