When I was younger and political, there was an inspiring speech I discovered by Ronald Reagan called “A Time for Choosing“. In it he said something which struck me: “There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace, and you can have it in the next second: Surrender.”
Let’s explore this idea for a moment. What are the ways we can have peace? Surrender is laying down your arms and ceasing to fight a determined enemy. Further still, Surrender embraces the enemy as brothers. In war, a combatant who surrenders becomes a prisoner first, and when the war is over is either integrated into society or killed. In the Civil War, the Union had many Confederate prisoners of war, who were pardoned on the condition they surrender their arms. A non-combatant who surrenders simply accepts the new regime as their own. A non-combatant who does not surrender has the choice of either taking up arms for themselves and becoming a combatant, or going underground and becoming a conspirator.
What other ways can we have peace? Another perhaps obvious answer is “victory”. Your side wins, peace fills the land because there are no enemies. War has taken a heterogeneous view and made it homogeneous by way of combat and eliminating opposition.
Peace in both of these contexts involves eliminating opposition, either through voluntary submission or military conquest. We talk about Peace in other ways though: We talk about “making peace” with a new reality, or cultivating “inner peace”. In the former, regardless of a persons interior viewpoint, they have decided to cease opposition. This is distinct from surrender because they may or may not embrace the new regime as their own. In the latter case, a person has ended internal turmoil–has created internal homogeneity of disposition–regardless of their exterior circumstances. This is again distinct from surrender because a key element of surrender is embracing the new regime.
From this we can glean that there is a form of peace that does not embrace the enemy but which does end conflict with them. The enemy doesn’t mind either way, because from their perspective they have achieved victory. This is still in keeping with Reagan’s speech: “making peace” or “inner peace” are hard work and cannot be achieved in the next second.
My point here is not political, though. There is a spiritual combat which is going on around us. We often describe Christ as achieving victory over evil, on our behalf. “We know the end of the story” is the refrain–but between now and The End is a whole lot of time under enemy occupation. This is what I refer to when I named this blog the Times Dispatch of Vichy Earth. Earth is enemy territory, occupied by and in collusion with the Enemy. We know there will be a D-Day style landing at the end of time to liberate us. In the meantime, do we surrender to the enemy, and embrace them as our brothers? Do we “make peace” and accept reality while ceasing to fight? Do we cultivate “inner peace” and bring an end to internal turmoil? Or do we accept the alternatives of becoming combatants or conspirators against the enemy?
As lay-people, we are unable to be combatants in this fight. That is a task reserved for Priests and Religious–they are our front-line soldiers. We can become conspirators–working in concert with our Priests and Religious to help achieve their ends. But again–that is a particular expertise, sometimes it would be better to leave that to those skilled in this kind of conspiracy than to attempt it yourself.
So if we decide we do not wish to Surrender, the only options available to us, the hard work of which we can begin immediately, is “making peace” or “inner peace”.
Making Peace involves an acceptance of powerlessness. It is a resolution to wait for Christ, to focus on the things immediately around us. If there is war in some far off country, I can do nothing to help it nor hinder it; if there is a disagreement between my friends, I can do something to help bring it to an end. Making Peace involves accepting, externally, the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Inner Peace involves an internalization of that exterior peace. If there is war in some far off country, it can still bring me inner turmoil even if I have accepted that I cannot do anything about it. Inner peace is ending that inner turmoil. There are multiple ways to achieve this, prayer perhaps being the foremost. But it will take work, and it will take constant work.
The effort is worthwhile because peace is important to happiness. If I have not made interior peace, I will be internally troubled. If I have not made external peace, I will be agitated and irritable. If I Surrender, I will be living contrary to my nature, and so will be both internally troubled and externally agitated.
To borrow a line from the Order of the Mass: May the peace of the Lord be with you always.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 