Got Peace? by Kristyn Komarnicki As Madonna and her underclad cohorts sent out the last vibration of sensory overload at the SuperBowl halftime show last month, the words “World Peace” were projected onto the football field in white lights. I barely stifled a sarcastic snort. World peace? You gotta be kidding me. What do vapid lyrics, crotch-thrusting, and Pharoahesque selfworship (“Y-O-U wanna L-U-V Madonna”) have to do with world peace? Well, maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe it’s not, in fact, an attempt on Madonna’s part to disguise idolatry in the garb of social justice. Maybe the pop star has a genuine yearning for world peace. Who doesn’t? And why shouldn’t we? It’s big and vague and impossible enough to safely join that cheerleading team. It’s a slogan that requires nothing of us because it numbs rather than inspires the imagination. I like to think that I believe in—and even on occasion work toward—peace on a more humble scale. When I moved into my urban neighborhood 13 years ago, I was full of hope and had some pretty nifty plans for reconciliation. But that was before bricks crashed through my window twice in less than two years, both of them narrowly missing my youngest child while surrounding him with shards of glass the size of pizza slices. That was before seeing a woman being beaten by a man in front of our house and discovering not only that none of my neighbors came out to help stop it but that even the cops took a full 10 minutes to make their way over. I’m no Bruce Lee, but I went out myself and ended up taking a few blows and adding my own screams to the night air. (Forgive me, family and friends: I solemnly swear never to try to stop a fight again...) That was before I figured out that while every parent on my block was happy for me to have their kid over (free babysitting is always welcome), none of those parents were interested in getting to know me themselves. After that, I began to wonder if I really did want to make peace with my neighbors. Peace is tedious and trying work, and I’m not as tough as I like to think I am. Building peace is hard enough under my own roof. We’ve got lots of love in my house— it’s like water, unquestioned and available 24 hours a day—but peace is a premium that we seem able to afford only occasionally. With two teenagers, a crosscultural marriage (we still don’t always understand each other’s accents), and the regular familial, financial, and educational challenges of middle class life, peace is more like Dom Perignon—rarely on the table. To be honest, most days I’d settle for peace in my own heart, a labyrinthine place full of dark, hidden corners and more devilish dust bunnies than my bedroom floor.
EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ePistle