Building Peace

Following every violent period in a society's history where fear and hatred are the dominant emotions there is a moment of exhaustion and bewilderment as people catch their breath. And there is that unspoken question: Is this a temporary pause or is the storm finally over?

It is during periods like this that insightful leaders and the builders that follow them must focus on binding up wounds and creating a society that has learned from the flaws that drew them into that pit they just emerged from--or most assuredly they know they will fall back into it.

The words of Lincoln's second inaugural address are worth remembering:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

The martyred Lincoln of course did not live to see these words fulfilled, and the unquenched bitterness that followed remained like a poison in our system. We have great work yet to do. As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday period and the election year that follows, let us pray and work to ensure our nation will once again be blessed with the kind and quality of leaders we need to find peace and to accomplish our yet unfulfilled mission on earth.