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[Please bear with me in re the tone and the length of the following post. Perhaps I should have saved it up for a Sunday sermon instead. But the gist of it has been rattling around in my widdle otter haid for quite some time now, and after all, it's not like there's any extra room in there to spare...]

W.W.L.D. -- what would lennon do,
Otter

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"As the Good Book says..."

Well, okay -- so I don't know about you, but I myself am almost auto-reflexively suspicious of any post, speech, or sign that starts out by saying "As the Good Book says..."

It's not that I'm anti-christianic or anti-religion and especially not anti-spiritual -- it's just that in my old age I know that I definitely am very much anti-dogmatic, in any format that I find it.

Not without cause, mind you; and it's taken me well over four decades to come to feel as strongly about that as I do. But that's neither here nor there, nor is it relevant to the comments I'm about to make.

Still, as *a particular* Good Book says... or, more specifically, as one of many authors to whom are attributed the words in at least one translation of one of a number of significant and undeniably Good Books said, lo those many years ago...

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9)

Now, I can make a pretty strong case for saying that we are *all* children of God, or Goddess, or Allah, or the Supreme Being, or the Great Mystery, or however you want to phrase it in terms of whatever spiritual connection works best for you.

But that's also neither here nor there.

The most important part of that quote, that phrase, that concept, are the first five words:

"Blessed are the peacemakers."

The peace *makers* -- not the peace breakers, or the peace takers, or the peace shakers, or the peace fakers.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Now, I don't know exactly why this is -- although I have some personal ideas on the subject, they're also neither here nor there at the moment -- but over the last few weeks I have been intensively and increasingly becoming re-aware of how powerful that concept is, and of how strongly it drove my feelings and my actions when I was so much older then (I'm younger than that now).

And it's also not that one particular set of current events in Iraqistanetnam has brought that phrase to mind again after so many years for me -- although I'm sure that you all know to which particular subset of events I am referring.

And I surely do hope that all of us are praying to your God and my Goddess and their Allah and whatever other Great Mystery exists that one particular group of four Peacemakers that is still at high risk in a far-away country be permitted to come home safely to their loved ones.

But, once again, that is neither here nor there, at least not in terms of the point I'm trying to make in this particular post. I've been meaning to write more about this subject for longer than that particular set of events have been current.

I find that I've been ruminating greatly for many weeks now on the entire concept of peace as a noun and peacemaking as a verb -- and, most importantly, peacemaking as a conscious activity that can and should and must be performed as early and often as possible, by us and everyone around us, as far and wide as our influence can be felt.

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

We are all of us children of what Matthew chose to call God, though some of us may not realize that consciously.

We are all of us blessed, whether we know it or not, though many of us seem determined to prove otherwise.

And we are all of us peacemakers, should we choose to be so.

And it is a choice, make no quibbles about that. It's a choice, and a decision, and a call to action.

We can all be peacetakers, and peacebreakers, and peacefakers, anytime and anywhere. It’s easy if you try.

But we can also, each of us separately and all of us collectively, be peacemakers instead.

And I can think of no higher calling, no greater honor, no nobler action or intent -- and, yes, no more meaningful exercise of what it means to have a heart and a soul -- than to be well and truly called a peace *maker*, in the most active sense of the verb.

Yes. Indeed. Just so.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

And may all of us choose to be so blessed, and each of us take action to prove it, in every case and in every place.

It is, after all, the least that we can do. We owe it to ourselves -- and to each other.

blessed be,
Otter