PEACE & THE PROPHET’S HEART

PEACE & THE PROPHET’S HEART

If peace is a major focus of the season, it is surely a prophetic task. And if we take seriously the prophetic calling during the sacredness of this season, we cannot help but focus on peace. Consider, then, a prophet’s heart as a distinctly beautiful, four-chambered organ.

One chamber is for righteous anger in the face of injustice.

Rather than an emotion to be avoided at all costs, anger is always one of the purest and most appropriate responses to a violated value.

For example, anger – at our disregard of the earth.

Anger at the abuse of children.

Anger when the earth is soaked in the blood of war and the winds are choking with the stench of disease and the rivers are fouled by indifference.

Anger at the idiotic irony that there is enough food for all people, but not enough political will to see that the food gets to the people.

Yes, anger is one chamber in the four-chambered organ of the Prophet’s Heart.

And there is also one chamber for compassion to the point of sorrow in the face of unthinking cruelty and (even worse) willful evil. Of all the virtues the prophets embody in the Hebrew scriptures – especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, and Micah – compassion is the premier, signal character trait.

We could do with a lot more compassion to the point of sorrow.

Compassion for the most vulnerable.

And compassion to the point of sorrow even for those who succumb to stupidity like xenophobia, or the cynicism that leads to despair, or the hurt that leads to hate and even greater hate.

And then there is one chamber for ecstatic joy in the presence of holiness and the triumph of truth. Peacemakers nearly always seem to possess an impish joy. Consider: the Dali Llama, or Thomas Merton, or Will Campbell, or William Sloane Coffin, or Dorothy Day.

Yes, joy in the presence of holiness, holiness like fresh, warm bread broken and blessed by the words, “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu….”

Holiness like a wise child who laughs out loud because the king has no clothes on.

I treasure the definition of peace that Rev. Veronica Goines provided for her congregation at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City, California, “Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet.”

Finally one chamber in the prophet’s heart is always reserved for hope. Always hope.

Hope is the dynamo at the center of peacemaking that drives the engine of activism.

Hope is the kernel of every faith worthy of the name.

Hope is what moves us forward and raises babies above the flood-waters and shines a piercing light into the reckless rubble rendered by the too-quick earthquake.

Hope, the motivation for every person who wants children to grow, cultures to prosper, music to be magnified, and truth to triumph.

And when our hearts beat in rhythm with one another, we will see that day come ‘round when peace will be at the heart of the world, and anger will dissolve, and compassion will be everything, and joy will color every sky, and hope will be fulfilled.

- Bob Hill

[Selected and adapted from THE COLOR OF SABBATH: PROCLAMATIONS & PRAYERS FOR NEW BEGINNINGS, Hope Publishing House, 2007, pp. 52-56.]