by Joseph Stoutzenberger
I have been reading a book co-authored by two peace activists, a Palestinian and an Israeli, both of whom recently lost family members in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was struck by the hopeful title, The Future Is Peace. Given the war-torn devastation in so many parts of the world, how can a peaceful future be affirmed in such an unambiguous statement: the future is peace? Most of the book recounts horrible stories of torture, destruction, and death. Is that all going to stop sometime in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later? Then I came to a stark realization. The future depends on there being peace and cessation of destruction. Otherwise, there will be no future. Not even a dystopian one, such as some novelists and movie makers have depicted for over a century now. Remember the constant state of warfare in Orwell’s 1984, or Jules Verne’s Time Machine, where the future is ruled by bloodthirsty Morlocks who feast on childlike, powerless Eloi. Endless warfare leads to the death of our species. Peace is the only future there can be. Unless we human beings find a way to renounce warfare, there will be no place for us in the future. The universe will continue to unfold without us.
One of the peace activists in the book, the Israeli Maoz, writes that people in the Middle East have been told for centuries that one more war would bring about peace, but it never does. Only the painstaking process of dialogue and fostering the well-being of all people offers hope for a peaceful future. I was curious how the authors were going to end their book, focused as it is on the current disastrous Israeli-Palestinian state of affairs, especially after giving many more examples of violent incidents than peacemaking programs. The book ends with the two men attending a Vatican-sponsored program on peace and justice in Italy, overseen by Pope Francis. When they were invited to speak, they simply said who they were: a grieving Palestinian who had lost a beloved brother murdered by Israeli soldiers, and a heart-sick Israeli whose parents were murdered during the October 7 attack on a kibbutz. Pope Francis motioned to the two men to come up to him, despite his frail condition, and embraced them. They asked Pope Francis to do all that he can to help the situation in Gaza and Israel. The Pope said that they should not rely on political leaders to bring about peace. Only everyday people, such as themselves, who meet each other, share their stories, and dedicate themselves to peacemaking will make a difference. After that encounter, every day until his death, Pope Francis called the pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza to inquire how everyone was doing amidst the turmoil and violence happening around them.
One example with a positive, hopeful message recounted in the book was the experience the two authors had in a Gaza hospital. Aziz talked about his battle with cancer, which was treated at Holy Family Hospital there. He had both Palestinian and Jewish doctors, Muslim and Christian caregivers. They were all dedicated to healing and care for the sick, regardless of their nationality. That struck me as a future-oriented oasis in a land being devastated by constant bombing. People throughout the world need to heed the same message: We are all in this together. In 1624, English poet John Dunne wrote about a realization he had while recovering from an illness: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” We need to dedicate whatever gifts and talents we have to serve the good of one another. That’s what hope is: the only path to a future. The title of the book states a stark reality: No peace, no future. That’s not doomsday thinking. That’s reality, not imaginary dreaming. The message for believers of all faiths is that God expects nothing less from us than to be peacemakers. All people of good will have a stake in creating the future, and that future can only be a peaceful one.
Joseph Stoutzenberger 