Most of my attention and effort -- as a person, as a citizen, and as a partner with God in the work of creation – has focused on my fellow citizens, especially children. The question is: how can we be good people, good citizens, and good to each other?

There is a Hebrew and Arabic word I like, “shalom”, or “salaam”. I understand that it means “peace”, but not merely in the sense of there being an absence of conflict. More important, “shalom” or “salaam” indicates the presence of a spirit that binds our wounds, individually and as a people, and makes us healthy and whole and debt-free. The last element is important: peace has a price, and – in shalom or salaam – peace is enduring because the price has been paid by each person who is a participant in shalom. In salaam, peace is not distant, or for others. It is immediate and persistent because we pay to create it and maintain it.

M.K. Gandhi said: “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry peace against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

I don’t like to speak without recommending at least one book. Today I have three recommendations.

I have just read a fascinating book, called On Killing: the Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. Lt. Col. Grossman draws this conclusion, boldly stated at the beginning of the book: despite an unbroken tradition of violence and war, man is not by nature a killer.

What is unsettling -- the subject of his lengthy book -- is that we condition (classical and operant conditioning) and teach people (social learning) to do violence and to kill. Grossman writes that for millennia we limited this conditioning and teaching to adolescent boys who society was preparing for war. For the last 40 years or so, we have been instilling the message in younger and younger children, we have implicated girls and women in the message, and we have enlarged the theatre in which violence is acceptable – from the theatre of war to the schools, and work places, and the streets, parks and homes of every community. We have been perverting the sense of belonging, removing it from the sphere of the family and community to the decision of cliques and systems, and we are well along a process that makes all our relationships self-centred and otherwise impersonal, entitling each of us – if we feel strong -- to exclude, and disregard or punish with impunity. Entitling each of us – if we feel weak – to be dependent upon – to be a victim of -- someone else.

Think of that in the context of children and the behaviour we increasingly see displayed.

Barbara Coloroso makes complementary arguments in her recent book Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide. You may know that she has spent her adult life concerned about raising children, self- discipline, and school yard bullying.

She illustrates something we all know in our hearts: there is a thick solid line that connects the way we act in the presence of our children -- and the way we treat children -- with the behaviour of children toward each other – and adults -- and gang violence, and child soldiers, and killing, and genocide.

If we are going to have peace we should look at Darfur or Afganistan or 100 other places around the world as cautionary tales, but not as the places where peace will be won or lost. Peace – for ourselves as well as for the world -- will be won or lost right here in Edmonton, in our home, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our parks, and on our streets.

We have too many children who are excluded or neglected or abused in one way or another. (Exclusion and neglect are the most perfidious forms of violence: they lay the groundwork for all the others.) Too many adults are being bullied, and by example we are teaching too many children to bully or to submit to bullying. Too many adults are being marginalized or stracized, because they are recent arrivals, or mentally ill, or dependent, and by example we are teaching our children that it is acceptable to marginalize and ostracize. Too many decisions are being made on the basis of adrenalin, without pause or reflection, and by example we are teaching our children to be reactive instead of proactive. We are teaching them to be victims instead of creators.

Peace is not complicated or expensive or remote, but it is complex, and dear and impermanent, because it is the work of human hands and hearts.

Jill Jackson and Sy Miller wrote a song titled "Let There Be Peace on Earth, and Let it Begin with Me."

A.J. Muste was a famous American pacifist. His words were: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

Martin Luther King said something very similar: “Peace is not a distant goal that we seek, but the means by which we arrive at the goal.”

Robert Fulgham wrote a great book called: All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. He made at least one important statement beyond the covers of the book. He said: “Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away.”

This International Day of Peace is sponsored by the United Nations, and others. The General Assembly and the Security Council are a long way away. The world is a big place. We can honour peace in this place, at this moment. We can pray for peace half a world away, and perhaps support an army or a group that will go there and try to make peace. In the meantime, we may return to our home, our school, our work, our neighbourhood where we may quietly submit to neglect or exclusion or other forms of violence. We may condone violence, sow violence or visit violence on others, knowingly or unknowingly.

My prayer for each of us would be this. As you and I go home, and for as long as it takes, let us think about one act of neglect or exclusion, or abuse that is played out around us with some frequency. Think about how “I” can act or speak to inject some peace into the situation.

Can I ease the tension, relieve the fatigue, spur a sense of enthusiasm, improve the sense of belonging? Can I increase the spirit of cooperation and mutual regard? Can I model peace, for one moment, in one place?

Especially, can I do this unselfconsciously in front of a child? Can I do peace, and show peace, and life peace, and give peace to another – especially a child.

Remember Gandhi’s words: “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry peace against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

Remember Muste’s words: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

Remember that All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Remember that: “Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away.”

Remember the song: “Let there be Peace on Earth, and Let it Begin with me.”

Shalom, and Salaam.

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