Monday Meditation: Peace On Earth

 

"Peace upon earth the angel sang, Good will unto men the chorus rang."

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

(2013)

Lynn Bywaters

Painting courtesy/Fine Art America

But that was many, many years ago at the first Christmas time.

We could scarcely hear the angels if they were singing now for the clamor
 of disputing and wrangling which is going on where peace is supposed to be.

In our own country there is a gathering into groups with mutterings and threats
of violence, with some bloodshed and danger of more, and there is still time,
but just now when we are thinking of all the blessed meanings of
Christmastide, it becomes much more terrible.

A great deal is said and written about natural, national boundaries and
learned discussions of racial antagonisms as causes of the restlessness and
ill-temper of nations; and there are investigations and commissions and 
inquiries to discover what is the matter with the world and to find a remedy.

But the cause of all the unrest and strife is easily found.  It is
selfishness, nothing else, selfishness deep in the hearts of the people.

It seems rather impossible that such a small thing as individual
selfishness could cause so much trouble, but my selfishness added to
your selfishness and that added to the selfishness of our neighbors
all over the big round world is not a small thing.

We may have thought that our own greed and striving to take unfair
advantage were not noticed and never would be known, but you and I
and our neighbors make the neighborhood and neighbors make the states
and states make the nations and the nations are the peoples of the world.

No one would deny that the thoughts and actions and spirit of every
person affect his neighborhood, and it is just as plain that the spirit
and temper of the communities are reflected in the state and nation
and influence the whole world.

The nations of Europe are selfishly trying to take advantage of one
another in the settlement of boundaries and territory, and so the
World War is like a fire that has been stopped in its wild advance
only to smolder and break out here and there a little
farther back along the sides.*

At home, in troubles between labor and capital, each is willing
to stop disputes and eager to cure the unrest of the people if it
can be done at the expense of the other party and leave them
undisturbed in their own selfish gains.

Following all the unrest and unreason on down to its real source,
where it lurks in the heart of the people, its roots will be found there
in individual selfishness, in the desire to better one's own condition
at the expense of another by whatever means possible; and this
desire of each person infects groups of people and moves nations.

Here and there one sees a criticism of Christianity because of the
things that have happened and are still going on. "Christian civilization
is a failure," some say.   Christianity has not prevented these things;
therefore it is a failure," say others.

But this is a calling of things by the wrong names.  It is rather the lack
of Christianity that has brought us where we are. Not a lack of churches
or religious forms but of the real thing in our hearts.

There is no oppression of a group of people but that which has its root
and inception in the hearts of the oppressors.   There is no wild lawlessness
and riot and bloodlust of a mob but that which has its place in the hearts
of the persons who are that mob.  Just so, if justice and fairness and
kindness fill the minds of a crowd of persons, those things will
be shown in their actions.

So, if we are eager to help in putting the world to rights, our first
duty is to put ourselves right, to overcome our selfishness and be as eager
that others shall be treated fairly as we are that no advantage shall be
taken of ourselves; and to deal justly and have a loving charity and mercy 
for others as we wish them to have for us.  

Then we may hear the Christmas angels singing in our own hearts,
"Peace upon earth! Good will unto men."

* Many historians judge that the Treaty of Versailles,
ending World War I, so exacerbated poor economic conditions
in Europe that it made World War II almost inevitable.

"Peace On Earth
(December 1919)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer and
author of the "Little House" series of books.
An essay taken from
Little House In The Ozarks
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Guidepost Edition
(1991)