So this week in my peace and conflict studies class we are talking about mutually assured destruction, deterrence theories, appeasement theories, disarmament and on and on toward our ever raised goal of peace and nonviolence. Exciting right? Ok, not really. Especially not when it's a glorious spring afternoon and the LAST thing you want to think about is a bunch of dead guy's approaches to nuclear warfare while the world around you is bursting into life. What relevance do dead guys have to life now? Great question!
Spurred by the nice weather, I decided that it would be a great idea to sit on my porch and do homework in the sunshine. It was. Unfortunately, there is a rather large, ferocious family of wasps who have also claimed my porch as their own seeing as how it really is a lovely spot. My first girlish instinct when I saw the wasps was to grab the can of RAID and try to kill them. My second instinct was to stop and watch them. Bad idea. Somehow in those split seconds I managed to personify the wasps and give them great characteristics. All of the sudden the lead wasp was providing for his family by building them a home in the best spot that he could find: a sunny porch overlooking some flowering trees. He looked absolutely delighted as he scurried around and all of the sudden I didn't want to kill him, I wanted to name him (Stephen!) I came to the compromise that I wouldn't hurt him if he wouldn't hurt me. This proceeded quite well until he noticed that I was sitting there. At first he seemed fine and I felt confident in our mutual agreement to be non-combatants. However, he got increasingly agitated, eventually taking a few swoops in my direction. Now I came to a point of decision: do I stand by my principles and leave my wasp friend to his own devices, or do I kill him to make sure that I stay comfortable and unstung?
Friends, this is exactly what we are studying and will continue to be studying until the end of time in PCS classes. At what point does turning the other cheek become ludicrous? We vow peace, we vow to disarm, we vow to leave the countries around us to their own business, we vow to make the world a better place, but these vows are only as meaningful as the least common denominator, in my case: a wasp. You see, peace is dependent on individual hearts which makes it both the most beautiful thing to behold, and the most tenuous thing to accomplish. I don't have an answer for how to do this, but in the meantime it is a good and worthwhile thing to think about where we stand and what it is that we want to see. The wasp is a silly example, but then, I think that peace and hope start in our ability to see the small things and grow from them.
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