A Word Called Peace

We hail a new year, sign of hope, and we pray that it will be for all humanity and for our earth a better year. To signify this hope we open up the door of our new year by declaring its beginning World Day of Peace.

Amid the bloodshed, bombings, horrors of our raging wars,

We dare to utter a word called peace.

Amid the poverty, the destitution of the starving billions,

In refugee camps, to the orphaned, the trafficked people,

Those ravaged with the curable and incurable diseases

Amid universal inequities and injustices

Is it a luxury or an arrogance to speak a word called peace?

On a planet, fading and fragile from our plundering ways,

Is it a hope, a dream, a pious sentimental wish

To speak a word called peace?

Days and seasons are ordered by a universal clock.

Festivals and special days we designate and name.

But peace is not a given, just at our desire,

We can neither order it to happen, nor plan for it to come.

Peace is a perspective, an invitation to the divine outlook

Planted in the soul of life.

Peace calms our raging storms of greed and power.

Peace dissolves our crippling fears and hatreds.

Peace is not a one-day declared event,

It is an eternal disposition, made manifest on earth

When at each dawn all created beings can and will express,

I am peace

I am peace

I am peace.

Elizabeth Ferguson, OP