Blessed are the peacemakers

 

The English are rioting, and other nations are now warning their citizens here to take extreme care.

Human beings tend to have a few fairly predictable responses to fear. These are often summarised as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. They are survival mechanisms, and they serve us more- or less- well when we face genuine threats. They serve us less well when we are exploited to imagine real and present danger. Various dynamics in our own personal histories can cause us to overly rely on particular tactics, but there is nothing deterministic about this, though we may have little choice in the moment.

Becoming a refugee and crossing land and sea to seek asylum is an example of the flight response.

White British communities rioting, and British Muslims rioting, are both examples of the fight response. Both communities are afraid, whether for questionable or demonstrable reasons. Sadly, Muslims rioting play into the hands of White Nationalist rioting, and so fear is perpetuated, to the delight of those who stoke it. But their fear is real and should not be lightly dismissed.

What we need is to learn to face our fear and choose love. Because we were created to bring love into the universe, as surely as the sun was created to bring light and warmth. But we struggle to believe it, to believe that we are worthy of love or capable of loving.

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.’

Peace, here, means wholeness. Heart and mind and strength and soul resting in love.

To work within a community to foster peace, to build bridges between ‘others’ such that we can find common ground of humanity to stand on, is so precious as to be considered divine.

But peacemakers are exactly what we need.