Inner Peace, World Peace

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No matter how much we yearn for peace, it seems to be elusive.

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These days more than ever..

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In one of his beatitudes,

Jesus speaks about peacemakers,

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calling them Children of God.

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So let's join a conversation with

our Good News team Lynn Shematek,

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Lauren Welch and Jon Shematek.

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Lynn: Blessed are the peacemakers.

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They shall be called children of God.

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what is a peacemaker?

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Jon: The first thing that came to mind

for me, today, actually had, it's more in

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the political arena and people that, are,

trying to resolve issues between nations

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diplomatically rather than by violence.

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Not everyone's called to be a diplomat,

the kind that will broker a peace

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agreement between warring factions.

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That's the first thing

that comes to my mind,

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Lynn: What about you, Lauren?

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Lauren: The first thing I think

about when I think of peacemakers

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are people who are bridge builders.

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they help connect people even in families

they help build bridges between people

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who are struggling with an issue, with an

illness, with how to deal with a parent,

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Jon: as you said that, it made me think,

Lauren, about all the different levels

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of personal relationships, that need

peace it is work to be a peacemaker.

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we could start, a very intimate

personal space by talking about being

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a peacemaker within your own self.

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I don't think I've ever

thought of that before.

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until you raised that just now for

me, thinking about being in families,

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I was thinking of Peacemakers as

being on a bigger scale, but it isn't.

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you've often said we need to love

ourselves first it does start at

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the individual heart and soul level.

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so I think there is A Peacemaker

role for internal peace.

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I'm not sure exactly how that works.

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Lauren: I think the word work is

instrumental because peacemaking, takes

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a lot of work, to find, peace within

yourself or to help others, the work

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that has to be done is getting our

agenda out of the way so we can see more.

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to become peaceful myself, I

have to be still and listen.

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listening to people around me,

listening to hopefully the divine.

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it takes a lot of work, to be peaceful.

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It's not something that comes easy.

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It certainly doesn't come easy for me.

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I'll speak for myself.

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Lynn: I

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think that most of us find it very

hard to be at peace with ourselves.

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It's very tumultuous times.

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We're all very busy.

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to become at peace means that

you need time to reflect.

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stop and really tune yourself with God.

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Become a child of God.

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And that's hard.

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That's very hard to do.

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I didn't even think about that,

being that to be at peace yourself.

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before you can become a peacemaker.

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Lauren: maybe that's why the last

half of that, Beatitude is for they

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will be called children of God.

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Children, are naturally peaceful.

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until they learn, what's mine and

what's yours, But as Jesus said,

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you need to become childlike.

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He didn't say childish, He

said childlike, which is

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thinking the best of others, trusting,

believing, in others, in yourself.

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Jon, when you said, how do we

become, peaceful within, I think,

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we have to trust ourselves.

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We have to believe in ourselves.

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as Lynn says, know the divine within us.

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when we put all of that

together, I think we're peaceful.

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children have that naturally,

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Jon: Yeah, that's a great perspective.

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I think one of the things that strikes

me about this is when it says they shall

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be called children of God and I love that

because I think it's really showing that,

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they shall be called a child of God, but

children of God emphasizes this sibling

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ship that we have with all of humanity.

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if we are, working to be peaceful

within ourselves, working to establish

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peace beyond ourselves, within family

members where there's discord, gosh, we

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have not hard to think of examples of.

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Disagreement, discord, what's

the most common word we heard

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in 2024 probably polarization.

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it's a fact of our lives these

days in our society, in our world.

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there's plenty of work to be done.

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One of the key tasks of carrying

out the blueprint of the Christian

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life is to be a peacemaker.

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think of how wonderful life would

be if everyone truly saw the

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other person as a child of God.

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would be heaven on earth.

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Yeah, to me, that's what it would be.

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it takes a lot of work to be a peacemaker.

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Lauren, you talked about this

inner sense, that you can achieve

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through, listening, praying, being

open to God's working within you.

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Are there other aspects

of being a peacemaker that

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are helpful to think about?

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Lynn: One of the things I think is that

the Beatitudes certainly are different.

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They are provocative, but they all

come back to the major thing, to

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treat your neighbor as yourself,

or as you would like to be treated.

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if you are at peace with yourself,

people will like to be with you because

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you're peaceful, gentle, in tune with

things, you'll listen to them, I

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would ask that the people watching or

listening to us, try to figure out how

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to become more peaceful in their heart,

or whatever part of their body needs to

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be peaceful see if they can actually

take that and go to someone else.

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See if they can give them the ability

to be peaceful within themselves.

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it starts from one little seed and keeps

going We could change society, really.

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Saw an interesting article at the New

York Times, about a man who has been

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writing for the op ed for 25 years, it

was his last article, and he said he

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thought the whole fabric of the American

public has been so changed in those

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25 years, before We were optimistic.

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We thought that if you worked hard

and did your due diligence you could

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lift yourself up into, a good life.

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And he said, now everyone is so sure

that everyone is out to get them.

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I thought that's probably true.

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And I think that if we, all become

peacemakers, wouldn't that be wonderful?

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Jon: Yeah, I think that example, if it

is true, underlines the need for the

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Christian life to bring hope to the world.

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As we've been talking about this,

Lynn you were saying, peace is almost

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something contagious I was thinking

about, almost in a liturgical way, how we

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have services at different times of year

that involve candle lighting and passing

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a candle from one person to another.

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it starts out to be a very dark place, but

then eventually the whole place is flooded

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with light from all these little candles.

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The candle in itself doesn't do much,

but a room full of candles is amazing.

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I think peace being a gift

that we can give to others.

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That's good news to me.

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thanks for being with us today.

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we've got, One more Beatitudes to go.

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It's a tough one.

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Stay tuned.

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Lynn: Lauren is up to it.

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Lauren: Until next time,

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Lynn: Take care.