We Look to Headlines for Direction. Let’s Make Them True

You’ve heard it before: “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” Whether viewed as prophecy for a hopeful future, as rebuke to a fallen world, or as the deep aspiration of many human hearts, these words invoke wonder still today, especially at a time like 2020. I believe these words point towards legitimate reasons for great hope in humanity’s future, even in the midst of our current distress. A closer look at their meaning provides a glimpse into bright possibilities. The modern-day enshrinement of these words was penned by the hand of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during a time of deep personal sadness and grief in his 1863 poem “Christmas Bells.” Subsequently, these words have been sung by millions as the hymn “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.” Sadly, few choirs will sing this popular carol during the Christmas season this year as many of our most cherished traditions are disrupted by the continuing, unprecedented epidemic.  Notwithstanding the familiarity of these words in the modern context, their first recorded rendering came anciently in a most unusual setting. It was one of the few instances in all of secular or religious writings where an entire host of heavenly beings—angels—came to deliver a message to a few lucky ones on earth. Their entire message as recorded in Luke 2:14 of the New Testament was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” If there was more to the message or not, we don’t know. But this was the message that was recorded and handed down over thousands of years since that momentous event.  It was this short heavenly song of praise that Longfellow was referring to when he lamented that “hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth goodwill to men.” Then as now, we join Longfellow in observing a world stricken with contention, tragic death, and human suffering with no clear end in sight. As a bold counterpoint, however, his poem and the hymn conclude with a resounding proclamation of hope that indeed there will be yet “peace on earth and goodwill to men.” Is it possible to find for ourselves this same hope of which Longfellow wrote so long ago?    Some might assume that the author had somehow arrived at more pleasant circumstances and material conditions. Yet in describing his world that Christmas morning in 1863, Longfellow was feeling the weight of personal tragedy in the death of his wife and the strife of a hot civil war spreading devastating carnage across the land. In such a heavy time, he couldn’t help but underscore how much the surrounding hate he saw in the world seemed to mock the idea of peace and goodwill – a word that suggests to “tease or laugh at in a scornful or contemptuous manner.” The hate he was referring to, and which has the power to infect us in our own day, was between groups of people and between individuals who looked at each other with scorn and contempt. In an environment that fosters hate, any suggestion that feelings of scorn and contempt might be replaced with feelings of peace and goodwill can seem to be almost laughable (another reason it’s powerful to have a heavenly host delivering this message to the world).   We sometimes think of peace and goodwill as synonyms. They are not. In fact, they represent very different human conditions – either one by itself being incomplete. But together they weave a social fabric of heavenly dimensions. There are many examples of one without the other, but relatively few of both existing and being sustained for any great length of time.  In its simplest form, peace could be defined as the absence of conflict. When this kind of peace is voluntary, due to an underlying feeling of goodwill toward all, it is a wonderfully satisfying human condition.  However, a “peaceful” absence of conflict can also be achieved through coercion, even in the notable absence of goodwill. In that case, it comes at the obvious, and dear price of freedom and liberty and represents a most cruel form of the human condition. Coerced peace is usually a political construct as it requires overwhelming use of force to constrain human behaviors. There have been modern examples of peace without goodwill in the recent past. One can reflect on Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, and other nations. For example, Yugoslavia was created after World War II as a federation of six different ethnic regions. A strong central governing party ensured that conflicts were resolved emphatically and quickly. There was “peace,” but without the underlying goodwill among the different ethnic groups. Under Josip Broz Tito the country experienced an extended period of prosperity characterized by enforced peaceful interaction among the various ethnic groups. In many ways, it was considered a model of economic success.  But after Tito died in 1980, the ability to continue the peaceful climate through coercive means declined, and the unresolved conflicts among the different ethnic groups emerged with frightening consequences in human suffering for the whole country and region. In a relatively few years, the region completely lost both its peace and prosperity.  Similar events have unfolded in other countries where peace was enforced despite the absence of “goodwill toward men.” As the power to enforce coercive peace diminishes, people are subsequently often subjected to tragic suffering that can take decades and even generations to overcome to a point of regaining a semblance of stability. In short, peace without goodwill has a terrible historical record for producing great human suffering in the end.  Unlike “peaceful” conflict suppression, goodwill to men cannot be coerced. It is almost by definition an innate feeling of each individual human heart. It can be contagious, and it often seems to be either in large supply or in short supply in a particular family, community, or nation. It would seem that goodwill to other human beings is something that would be a universal good. However, once again we find that