International Day of Peace - Sean Stillman finds peace on the road

As we rode down the mountains in Norway, the landscape opened up and the early morning light bounced off of the perfectly still waters of the fjord. My travelling buddy and I pulled off the road, switched the Harleys off and walked to opposite ends of the layby and sat – in silence. The crackle of the previous night’s camp fire, the crunch of the snow on the road side and the whirring of the gearbox straining up and down the hills became distant experiences. I could not hear a thing. No distant aircraft, no rumble of farm machinery and weirdly, not even the sound of any birds chirping in the fresh air. It was the first time I can ever recall experiencing the sound of silence. Complete and utter silence. Nothing.

After twenty minutes or so of sitting, breathing in the clean air, marvelling at the beauty before us, and having breakfasted on the wild strawberries close by, the road beckoned. It was time to move on. As I twisted the ignition key one click forward, hit the start button, all twelve hundred cubic centimetres of mechanical thunder exploded to life, filling the valley with the unmistakeable rumble of a Harley Davidson through the unsilenced exhaust system. Never before had I felt this guilty for starting a motorcycle. Silence was broken as the two of us roared of up the valley, leaving whatever contemplative life there was behind rudely woken. Peace was shattered for some poor soul somewhere who wasn’t expecting it.

The noise of conflict, tension, and confrontation can all have a habit of ambushing us – our peaceful lives can be shattered when we least expect it, whether it be at home or on the world stage. Without warning, the air we breathe becomes polluted and we start choking on the fumes of resentment. With a strong leaning toward justice, we might even try to justify holding a loftier moral position and resort to maintaining peace through superior fire power. When peace is shattered however, it takes a different kind of person to enter the arena. It is no stage for egos, glory hunters nor selfish ambition. It is instead, a small dirty track for pioneers.

Being able to do the right thing on a bad day is what the peacemaker holds dear. As character is tested, and a temptation for rash decisions to be made amid scrambled reactive thought processes, the peacemaker is the person who calmly walks into the gap and looks conflict in the eye, drawing on the weapons of a resolute meekness that builds bridges and restores relationships. He does so with an audience looking on aghast as some of his own want to stab him in the back as he takes the lonely walk right across no-man’s land. ‘He must be mad. What on earth is he doing?’

On this International Day of Peace, we celebrate those who have gone before, who we herald as peacemakers on the biggest stages; but we also recognise the conflicts on our doorsteps, in our homes and even within our own heart and mind. I celebrate those in my own life who are the ones who have built bridges that have allowed me to traverse my own troubled waters. I am reminded too as a follower of Jesus that the mark of a peacemaker is also the mark of the person associated as being one belonging to God. I am saddened that when so many consider the church community they are reminded of conflict and division, which is all so far removed from the mandate of the beatitudes of Jesus. But I live in hope as I am also reminded of the servant Jesus, who in the garden stepped forward and kissed his betrayer and healed the wounded victim of Peter’s sword. The Peacemaker stepped forward into the uncertainty of conflict with a love that crossed the greatest of divides and showed us that life can be radically different.

Peacemakers do not become heroes because of the medals they receive, but by the long lonely walk they make. We can twist the key, hit the button and add to the noise, or we can take that brave, vulnerable walk of faith across no-man’s land, look our enemy in the eye and say, ‘Let’s talk. It doesn’t have to be this way.’