Peace on earth?

We wish it in greetings of prose and song this time each year but is it really possible? Is it just a relic of holiday grammar? An empty, outdated hope from a simpler time long ago that we refuse to abandon?

Giving up on peace would be a resignation of hope and I don’t think most of us are ready for that just yet.

But nowadays, fewer and fewer believe peace on earth is genuinely attainable.

It sounds warm, lovely and hopeful like many season’s greeting cards but is just as quickly drowned out by the next hostile report of murder, act of war or mayhem across the globe or in our own backyard.

I, for one, believe peace on earth is still possible because peace on earth isn’t a state but a movement.

What if we abandoned the impossible thought of global peace and viewed peace on earth emergent as a series of individual efforts which, consistent and connected, create the cause of peace and move it forward, if but an inch with each deliberate effort?

By definition, movements move. They gain momentum. They don’t and can’t stop. Those who pay peace forward do so in small, imaginable, deliberate ways. And not because of a season or words on a greeting card.

Peace is the easing of pain, the healing of wounds, the comfort of the afflicted.

Peace is a warm coat, a hot meal, a ride to the store or a touch to the untouchable?

We can do peace. Each of us can be peace to another.

Peace on earth is a sacrifice.

It takes effort.

Selfish people will never have peace because they never give it, leaving it up to the rest of us.

At this time of year, there is more selfish indulgence than at any other. But conversely, it’s the time when peace-full people make the extra effort.

Stories of individual and family gives, rejection of conformity to the commercialization of the holidays and ensembles of strangers uniting for the purpose of sharing with the impoverished abound.

Peace on earth is deliberate.

Peace on earth won’t ride in on the political coattails of a determined leader. It doesn’t take residence in a world of good intentions. It can’t be legislated or mandated and never arrives in waves of mass conviction.

Peace on earth comes deliberately, in one act of goodwill at a time and it’s never bound to a time of year.

Peace on earth is an all-year commitment.

Truth is, when the holiday season ends, so does much of the giving. Corporate giving is least expected to continue when the PR opportunities are fewer and less available and drops in individual giving follow.

People justify their inaction by complaints of being tapped out.

But authentic movements of peace don’t slow or stop simply because the season is over. It never lacks resources. It doesn’t take a break. It continues to move. It has to.

Very soon, the celebration will be over.

But the cause of peace will go on, feeding the hungry, warming the cold and touching the neglected, with or without you, albeit with less momentum, but never lacking intention and purpose.

Peace is a movement.

At this time and at all times, our wish must be: Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

Don’t give up the hope. We can get there. Vow with me to do your part to keep the momentum of peace going all year long.