Praying for Peace

On my drive from San Diego to Los Angeles, passing the expanse of Camp Pendleton, the machines of our military hover overhead. Young men and women practicing for war. Saddened by this reality—that in our world experience, war seems to be a natural part of being human. But is it? I'm not here to debate our long history of fighting over things—religion, boundaries, politics, skin color, gender or sexual preference. This is a moment of reflection for which I have no answer, other than to be the peace I seek. I believe Mahatma Gandhi's words have been summarized and tweaked to communicate something similar, "Be the change you want to see in the world." The biggest change I would like to see is the end of war and brutality between humans, globally and domestically.

On the subject of war, most foremost in this thought, the 2005 French film Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas)—nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards—came to mind. Based on a true story, where in 1914 on Christmas Eve a truce and cease-fire was called in one of the trenches where the Germans faced the Brits and the French. As the story is told, the men came out of the trenches, seeing one another eye-to-eye, human being to human being. The men put down their arms to share the commonalities of their life, family and faith. The fallout from this unprecedented event was that the men in the troops were disbanded and punished for their fraternization with the enemy. I can't do this movie justice here, but you get where I am going with this—I hope.

No matter what the war is about, whether it is warring at work, with the person who just cut you off driving and sends an expletive out their window (or vice versa), or the larger ones of global consequence—it's all disappointing commentary on the behavior of our species and it's potential self demise. I sometimes think that we are a genesis experiment gone wrong. If "God" had a human form I imagine both hands coming up and slapping the side of the face with the simultaneous expression, "Oy vey!"

On my drive back from Los Angeles to San Diego, I pulled off at the "Vista Point" to get my view for the day—ocean, blue sky, sea gulls circling above and squirrels burrowing in the cliffside. Pleasant enough! From out-of-view I hear the sounds of heavy equipment, and from around the bend in cloud of dust—military machines, specifically LVTs (Landing Vehicles Tracked), seven of them noisily parading by, piled high with smiling waving Marines—practicing for war. I hope for their sake, they never have to take whatever skills they are learning and put it into "play."

As for me—I'm praying for peace.