Peace, an Ideology

In carnal life, to the victor go the spoils... and spoils is exactly what the victor gets. One reaps what one heaps. Crusader's kill you to save your soul. Loggers cut a tree down to save it. The ideologies of force and hate rule our carnal world. We hate anything that makes us uncomfortable. We hate anything that has no clear and immediate use to humanity, a singular species. I believe we actually even hate ourselves. We certainly hate others of our species who make us uncomfortable. We hate those poor who work for stale bread to keep oil fields active and gas prices low. We hate them because they want a measure of fairness in their pay. We hate those who's God doesn't look like the pictures we grew up with. That makes us especially uncomfortable. We hate those destitute and sick whose need for medicine upsets our own supply and demand, causing our medicine costs to go up... ever so slightly. We hate those who kill with their hands instead of five-hundred pound bombs falling from thirty thousand feet. We hate those who behead with a sword rather than explode a head with shrapnel from a sterile hell-fire missle. We hatefully call the swordsman "uncivilized."

Yes, we find many ways to hate others. Misery truly loves company, so we hate others as we hate ourselves.

Religious and political ideologies come and go. Men, women and children kill and die for ideas. There is no ideology worth killing for. There is, in fact, but one ideology worth dying for and that is the idea of peace. In fact, death's own reward is peace, a final, eternal peace. The killer's reward is hate, no matter the ideology behind the killing. Survivors of the dead, both loved ones and the killers cannot know peace for their souls are as shattered and bloody and dead as the bodies of the murdered.

Peace is the only valid ideology. One can die for its cause but one cannot kill one's way toward it.

Peace must be the ideology of one's heart, mind and soul; it must be all nations' collective ideology if world peace is to be achieved. My imperfect faith causes me to doubt if world peace will ever be, but I can maintain my own peaceful existence. Peace come from within. This is the ideologues' greatest frustration... the ideologue cannot kill my peace. I can extend peace to another but I cannot force peace upon anyone, nor can anyone take it from me.

Should the sum of all peacemakers on earth be destroyed by ideologues, the remaining killer's would inherit a world of hate. Each killer would be their own center of that hellish universe. I say... let those, who value "their personal freedom" more than peace itself, have their freedom and let them wallow in their victorious puddle of hate. When haters have killed all but the haters of peace they will have reaped what they have heaped. Theirs will be a world of hate with no peacemakers to buffer the unrelenting wrath of hate itself.

I would rather be dead than to live a life of victorious hate. In fact, if I hate I am already dead.

I choose peace... so kill me, ideologue, if you must.

Those uncertain of their eternal fate must fear death and seek to create, for themselves, a false sense of heaven on this earth. When I have an eternity of peace to look forward to why must I kill another in order to maintain a false sense of peace for a few fleeting years in this life? My childlike belief in eternity is my source of peace. If I am wrong about eternity, so be it. I will have lived, however imperfect, a life of peace and I will have left a tiny patch of peacefulness on this big blue planet.

I choose peace... so kill me, ideologue, if you must.

Those fearing death and eternal agony feel this overpowering need to win and even kill, in this life, for their own fleeting comfort's sake. More and more our children are being taught to win... at all costs.

Those believing this life is all they have will kill to preserve their self-described finite life. They will kill to maintain their perceived brief moment of comfort. They will kill in the name of saving their children for the same reasons. They will kill, simply to win. They will "stay the course" if only for the sake of winning. They will kill for almost any ideology, except peace... for they cannot kill peace nor kill to achieve peace. It cannot, in any real sense, be done but this fact only frustrates the aggressor.

Those choosing to believe peace is a myth will never find it, yet they will forever seek it. They will kill to find it.

I choose peace, so kill me if you must.

I hesitate to use Biblical passages to make points that may appear political in nature because biblical passages are easily abused and misused and taken out of context by those trying to press a particular point. I guess I am trying to press a particular point but I contend that my point is much larger than politics and religion. My point is, or would hopefully be, universal in nature.

It is said... and written in the Bible, "Blessed are the peacemakers for theirs is the Kingdom of God."

My own country's self-described righteous ideologues command that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public buildings. It troubles me that these "righteous" ideologues possess no enthusiasm that would compel them to command that the following New Testament passages be on public display. Why is that? I must wonder.

Every Christian knows what the "Beatitudes" are? Don't they? Don't devout Christians cherish the list of blessed dispositions given by Jesus Christ in His Sermon on the Mount? I hear so little of these blessings these war-torn days. I guess they sound a bit too girly-manish for our fearless leaders. "THOU SHALT NOT" sounds much more John Waynish i.e., George W. Bushish & Dick Cheneyish!

...and for what it is worth, one can substitute person for "man" in the passages below. Please do not let the patriarchal bias of the times ruin the message. All must understand man is the equivalent of person when spoken by Jesus.

If I must, I present evidence:

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Now, the Beatitudes... or as my childhood sunday school teacher used to say, the "Be Attitudes."

Matthew 5:3


"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


Matthew 5:4


Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.


Matthew 5:5


Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.


Matthew 5:6


Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.


Matthew 5:7


Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.


Matthew 5:8


Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.


Matthew 5:9


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.


Matthew 5:10


Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


Matthew 5:11


"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.


Matthew 11:6


Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."


Matthew 13:16


But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.


Why do not leaders of this self-described "Christian Nation" command that its beloved Beatitudes be on public display? Could it be that they foster:

Humility?

Sobermindedness?

Meekness?

Faith amidst want?

A spirit of Mercy?

Pure heartedness?

Ah... Peace?

Strength to endure condemnation for one's "struggle" toward, not acquisition of, righteousness?

Endurance of false accusations?

Persistence in maintaining these blessings?

Resistance to self-righteousness?

And finally, Christ implores his followers... See the beauty in these dispositions. Hear the message in these attitudes.

Why again, I ask. Why do my country's leaders seek to place Old Testament commandments in courthouses and not New Testament Beatitudes?

Do they not see?

Do they not hear?

Is peacefulness too difficult a command for our leaders? Does the notion of peace and peaceful attitudes choke the life out of their arrogant ideology of force. Do the Beatitudes undermine National Security?

I choose peace. So my "righteous" leaders can kill me if they must.

Peace transcends religiosity. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi understood this. He died at the hand of one frustrated with Gandhi's sense of peace that surpasses all understanding. Yes, the ideology of peace transcends, but does not necessarily parallel religion especially given a flawed humankind has manipulated it. I understand this. Many understand this. Anyone can understand this if one chooses to understand.

Those who die for peace find peace. Those who kill to find peace find hate.

Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.

One of our nation's leaders, one who lived a meek and humble childhood - sometimes in a car, has proposed our leaders come together to create a Department of Peace. He has been mocked by them; shunned by them. He smiles and continues promoting a national attitude of peace. His name is Dennis Kucinich. He will continue to be mocked... but his will be a legacy of peace and humility. His web page does not blast his face at you as do most leader's. His face is found among a gathering of his constituents. I mention one of my country's leaders for peace, and there are more, to remind myself and you we are not entirely alone in our efforts to propagate an ideology of peace.

The propagation of peace can be done so with vigor and enthusiasm. Peacemakers needn't be cowards or shy. Meek does not mean weak. The peacemaker's cause is not only noble, it is the only ideology worth dying for.

My country is one driven by an ideology of force and a sense of manifest destiny; that it is Christ's "Holy City on a Hill." Perhaps millions around the world have died for my country's belief in this lie. Christ came to save the individual soul, not a given nation. What nation has a soul? What corporate anything has a soul? Adolph Hitler, second only to George W. Bush, exploited the easy misappropriation of spirituality to his nation most effectively. This treacherous form of spiritual misappropriation works, perhaps because to bring a God, any God, as close as to one's own soul is frightening to many individuals. Perhaps one feels an omnipotent God could not possibly be interested in a single soul... surely not my pathetic, sick soul? But God just might be interested in the collective soul of my countrymen! The latter, perhaps, seems more plausible to the faithless. Whatever the reason, our leaders are compelled to hold God/Christ at arms length from the individual. They propagate the myth that Christ came to save the world via the nation they happen to be leading. God, I believe, will judge these godless actions.

My country will fall. It is falling. My supposed Christian country will not see. It will not hear. My country's leaders, most of them, mock peacemakers.

My nation will lose its brief role as the world's only superpower, not because God hates gays, but because of it's arrogance and need to win; to be number one; to consume itself to death. Self-hate and fear of peace is what has already begun to topple my country's honored status among nations.

My country's leaders foster hate. They have become experts at managing hate to pacify their insatiable lust for power. They studiously move pockets of hate as pieces on a chess board. They abhor the ideology of lasting peace among nations. What, then, would be their power? No more fear. No more hate. What would they do? They would melt into a sea of shared prosperity and good will. But where, to the power-monger and warmonger, is the glory in that existence? No. My nation will not see or hear the message of peace.

But then, it is not my nation's place to see or hear the message of peace... it is mine.
I see and hear messages of peace because I choose to... and as I often state, choice is the only thing I ever really possessed.

I am Duane Short.