Hello, bloggers.

During my most recent trip to Argentina, there were four times in a one-day period—once by a mother with a little child, once by a television news reporter, and twice by students—I was asked to define peace.  I can’t remember the last time prior to that, that the question was asked to me.

I thought about it, and I answered that one manifestation of peace is finding a way to coexist between you and another person, animal, insect, or any other creature that inhabits your world but is completely different.  You could probably say that’s peace.

Another definition for those four questions that day was:  As we stand under the umbrella—black and white people, orange people, purple people, male, female, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist—all completely disagreeing, arguing and debating, never coming to conclusions, actually hating and detesting some of the things the other people stand for, but nonetheless accepting the reality that they could have their opinion that might be different than outs—and that even though I may hate them, I must love them.

It sounds impossible but it is not, because if we all stand under the umbrella, if we believe there is a God, then that God must love all of us in one form or another.  And if we’re not made by God, then we all come from the same universe and are made from the same stardust, so if we’re condemning someone, we’re really condeming ourselves.

No matter how you rationalize it, we’ve all got to get along together.  That’s what peace is.  No one has to change if they don’t want to.  We just have to accept and honor each person as an inhabitant of this great planet. 

Matt