For God, "Protest" is another word for Prayer

How Eight Faces of Peace Inspire Peacemaking Today

I first came to Sacred Heart Church in Camden, NJ to hear a famous speaker and local artists talk about art and spirituality. It was a beautiful gathering of people and the first time I ever saw the painting in the image above.

At one point, I gazed across the room at the people and the painting mounted above them, and I began to cry. Perhaps the painting drew my tears, or the diverse group of kindred spirits beneath it. Whichever it was, that painting has intrigued me ever since and I stare at it every time I’m there.

It holds Eight Faces of Peace – men and women from all over the world, four are Catholic, one is Jewish, one Muslim, one Baptist, and one Hindu - all of them united in the cause of Peace. They are Katherine Drexel, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Oscar Romero, Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Martin Luther King Jr.

This New Year, I find myself wanting to follow their examples now, more than ever. Recent years have taught me how damned angry I can become with the violent direction that our world and our country have taken. It’s nothing new, really. The world has been a violent place since before Cain killed Abel. But it frightens me that so much anger can be stirred within me as I witness injustice escalating at a startling pace.

I know that Anger over injustice is not a bad thing. Neither is Outrage. They are appropriate responses to when people are treated unjustly. The Exodus story in the Bible pictures this well. It says that God hears the “Outcry”of the Israelite slaves in Egypt. And it uses a cluster of Hebrew words within the context of that story to hold layers of meaning for readers like us. These layers include: Anguish, Protest, and Outrage. God hears their anguish, outrage and protest, and God hears ours too. For God, “Protest” is another word for Prayer.

So, what frightens me about my anger and outrage? My fear is not so much at anger and outrage in and of themselves, but at the danger of my Outrage becoming Out-and-Out Rage. Losing control of my emotions scares because I am committed to Peace and Peacemaking, which means I am committed to Nonviolence, and Nonviolent Resistance. Wait! I may have just stumbled upon the solution to my problem.

Despite feeling startled by my anger, I have a clear hope! I have hope in my Desire for and Commitment to Peace, which outgrows my inner anger, with its vulnerability to temptations like violence and hatred. I have hope in my Desire and Commitment to be at Peace within myself and to be an agent of Peace within my world. My Desire and Commitment to Peace are clear signs to me that God is at work within me, and that God’s work of Peace within Peacemakers will genuinely prevail for the Good of the World.

I Believe it! I Pray for It! And I Give Myself to Participate in cultivating God’s Dream of Peace in our world!

Or, as Isaiah called it, “The Peaceable Kingdom”, where the Creation embodies the Shalom of the Creator. (Isa. 11:1-9)

May it be so! May it be soon! May it be Now!

Amen.