OPINION — As Christmas 2018 arrives, I’m relieved to see that the tradition of “peace on earth and goodwill to all men” is still considered a good thing by many.

The headlines for the past few years have made it seem that genuine peace is becoming scarce commodity in our world.

Authentic peace isn’t just a clinical, geopolitical evaluation that can be measured by whether or not a nation is in an official state of war. Peace is needed at every level of society right down to the individual.

How we get there is something in which each of us has tangible influence. Peace is unlikely to come about as a top-down kind of directive.

It has to be freely chosen by each individual who sees its value over violence in a given situation. Naturally, this is much harder to put into actual practice.

We live in a time when even the most minor divisions are exaggerated and inflated to justify creating conflict between us. Whether or not we allow ourselves to be baited into their contention is entirely our own choice.

We can be conduits for peace or for conflict in the lives of those around us.

Here are some of the things we can do to promote peace wherever we are standing.

Make truth a priority. This means more than simply getting your political talking points down pat.

It means going to the source whenever possible. This means actually talking to those with opposing or independent viewpoints. Don’t rely on labels or secondhand interpretations to inform your worldview.

A small town in Minnesota learned the hard way what happens when someone comes to your community with peaceful demeanor but intent to lie about them. A now-disgraced journalist from a highly respected German news journal was rightly called out for his fabrications, but where do the citizens of Fergus Falls go to reclaim their reputations?

I’ve watched this kind of “gotcha” journalism for the past several years regarding the Bundy family. It’s incredibly unethical.

Anyone who who has been to the source – spoken with the Bundy family in person – knows how distorted the narrative about them has been spun.

It’s so easy to get people wound up and to urge them to hate one another. If all that you know about something or someone was told to you by someone else, then your personal knowledge is likely incomplete. It’s worth going to source and doing your own fact-checking.

It’s one thing to be misled about someone or something, but what is our responsibility when falsehoods are being perpetuated for the purpose of urging violence upon others?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn clearly spelled out how violence and falsehood complement one another:

Violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle.

None of us likes to think ourselves as violent individuals. But far too many of us are perfectly fine with urging violence, primarily through the state, upon those with whom we disagree.

We need to become acquainted with the concept of acceptance without conformity that we already practice in so many of our daily decisions. We all drive different cars and wear different clothes and no one feels the need to force others to accept their choice.

That same deference should apply to the peaceful decisions of each individual. When we set out to cause conflict or to initiate violence against someone, we are in the wrong.

Few things will help us step out of the artificial mindset that celebrates conflict like seeking to find common ground and choosing to set aside the minor differences. It’s possible to disagree without resorting to force.

The conditions under which we’re likely to have this opportunity are far less difficult that the ones faced by soldiers just five month into WWI on Christmas Eve 1914. It’s a story worth reading.

Suffice it to say that, at certain parts of the front lines, soldiers on all sides put down their arms and briefly celebrated Christmas together.

Hunter Derensis summed up what this story portends:

As an event in the history of war, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is barely a footnote; it had no major effects on the fighting or outcome of World War I. But in the history of peace, the truce is a powerful story. This moment, this flash of love, bookended on both sides by destruction and hate, was a triumph of humanity. It’s the closest thing we’ll see to a miracle in this fallen world.

If the Christmas Truce of 1914 could happen, then peace should be possible under less destructive circumstances.

This is a season of peace. Be aware of those needing more peace in their lives and choose to extend it to them.

Bryan Hyde is an opinion columnist specializing in current events and liberty viewed through what he calls the lens of common sense. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @youcancallmebry

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