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inevitable, the last and often first resort in conflicts. If agod is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainlyfunctions as a god. What people overlook, then,is the religious character of violence. It demands fromits devotees an absolute obedience-unto-death.”A full article can be found at www.biblesociety.org.uk/exploratory/articles/wink99.docThe consumer cultureThe disease of consumerism has eaten deeply into oursouls. The more we have the more we crave and themore we crave the more we have to make room for.These things are so precious to us that they have to beprotected and guaranteed to remain ours. This is onlyone step away from reasoning that is justified to havean army to protect what we have acquired. We begin tofeel threatened by those who have less. The desire forsecurity takes over. Then it is easy to let go of theGospel of peace for the sake of security.—Siegfried Bartel, The Challenge of Living withConviction, Alternative Service for PeaceThe language of warAs a peacemaker, I’ve begun to notice how the languageof war is interwoven into everyday conversation.We declare endless wars—on drugs, poverty, corruption,crime, rust.We shoot down ideas, attack a problem. We search formore ammunition for the argument or talk of magicbullets.We combat illness and launch endless campaigns andcrusades for the issues what we believe in.Making PeaceA voice from the dark called out,“The poets must give usimagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiarimagination of disaster. Peace, not onlythe absence of war.”But peace, like a poem,Is not there ahead of itself,can’t be imagined before it is made,can’t be known exceptin the words of its making,grammar of justice,syntax of mutual aid.A feeling towards it,dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we haveuntil we begin to utter its metaphors,learning them as we speak.A line of peace might appearif we restructured the sentence our lives are making,revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,questioned our needs, allowedlong pauses…A cadence of peace might balance its weighton that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,an energy field more intense than war,might pulse then,stanza by stanza into the world,each act of livingone of its words, each worda vibration of light – facetsof the forming crystal.Denise Levertov, Women on WarWhen our teenagers fail at something, they say thatit bombed. We are urged to arm ourselves againstignorance, insurance fraud, termites…We aim our sights higher. We fight for justice. We speak of being in the trenches or doingbattle with our kids. We charge into a situation, ideally armed with the facts. When thatgoes badly, we take the flak for it.What does it mean to live among the metaphors of war?Does language move us toward becoming a sponge, soaking up the violence of society? Ifit does, then our words will surely contribute to lack of shalom.We know that Jesus was surrounded by heavily armed occupation forces. Yet his languagedidn’t take on the warlike imagery of his times.Digging Deeper28