Friday Focus: Peace On Earth

 

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

Worship of the Shepherds

(1539)

 Agnolo di Cosimo Bronzino

(1503-1572)

Italian Mannerist painter

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 war
and threat of war over most of the world.

This would be bad enough at any 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 boundaries and
learned discussions of racial antagonisms as causes of 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 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 neighborhoods make the
 states and states make the nations and the nations are the people 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 had been stopped in its wild advance only to smoulder and break
out here and there a little farther back along the sides.*

At home, in the 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 hearts 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 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 on earth!  Good will unto men!"

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Image courtesy/Literary Ladies Guide

"Peace On Earth"
(December 1919)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer and pioneer girl.
Author of the "Little House" series of books.

Essay taken from the book,
Little House In The Ozarks
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
 By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Guideposts Edition
(1991)

* 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.