We hear the cries from our strife-torn streets: “Give peace a chance!” and “Can’t we all just get along?” But you cannot give peace a chance if that is all you give a chance. You have to do the things that make peace possible and actual. When you listen to people talk about peace, you soon realize in most cases that they are unwilling to deal with the conditions of society and soul that make strife inevitable. They want to keep them and still have peace, but it is peace on their terms, which is impossible.
And we can’t all just get along. Rather, we have to become the kinds of persons who can get along. As a major part of this, our epidermal responses have to be changed in such a way that the fire and the fight doesn’t start almost immediately when we are “rubbed the wrong way.” Solitude and silence give us a place to begin the necessary changes, though they are not a place to stop.
They also give us some space to reform our inmost attitudes toward people and events. They take the world off our shoulders for a time and interrupt our habit of constantly managing things, of being in control, or thinking we are.
— Dallas Willard
Cited from Dallas Williard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperOne, 1997), 358.
Dallas Albert Willard (1935-2013) was a Christian, philosopher, teacher, and writer. He held positions of professor and director at the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California (USC). He also held positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was well published. His writings on spiritual formation are unparalleled.
Willard’s insight on peace in the above quote gets to the heart of the matter. Slogans like “give peace a chance” resonate well with just about anybody. It is the right thing as many can figure. But being the peacemaker is far different. Not just feeling at peace but emulating peace in thought, word, and deed is a monumental mission. We are practically bent on doing the opposite. Fighting against our rivals is a dirty inclination within us all. Letting that inner dark passions take control to drive our body and mind into fits of rage. This rage leaves brokenness within and without. Giving peace calls for inner change. A spiritual rearrangement, transformation, or metamorphosis must take place. Spiritual disciplines like silence and solitude serve as a genesis point for our inner change to becoming those who make peace.
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