editorial

It’s the time of year when Christians celebrate the birth of the one they call The Prince of Peace, and when on the modern calendar one year ends and another begins, such that many people of all faiths and philosophies look back on the previous 12 months’ experiences and resolve to make certain improvements in the next cycle of seasons. It’s an altogether fitting time to think about how to make our world --- and our countries, neighborhoods and homes --- more peaceful than has been the case in 2004.

This will be easier said than done.

Peace starts in the hearts of individuals, where a sense of restraint must prevail over instinctive lusts, where a sense of justice must prevail over ambitions and prejudices.

It radiates through a community, when its members acknowledge each others’ humanity and adopt an attitude of reciprocal solidarity, embracing the notion that an injustice to one is an injustice to all.

It takes over a country if its people, notwithstanding their different conclusions about how public affairs ought to be managed, stand united against demagoguery that appeals to the baser, less worthy aspects of human nature.

It prevails across the world to the extent that those nations, groups and individuals who insist on breaching peace and tranquility find themselves shunned, disapproved and sanctioned by the rest of humanity, and to the extent that the world honors those whose courage, ingenuity and sense of decency uplift the quality of other people’s lives as its greatest heroes.

“The Millennium” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and 2005 isn’t the millennium. Let us not raise our expectations too high.

Still, that’s no reason to give up on all human progress. Although history shows that we never advance in a straight line along an unbroken front, we can make things better and we often have.

So let’s move in the direction of peace during 2005.

Thou, O God, dost sell us good things at the price of labor.

Leonardo da Vinci

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.

Dorothy L. Sayers

God hates those who praise themselves.

St. Clement

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