Speak to Me Sunday: Choose, Create, Give

Once Upon a Time there lived a king who offered a prize to the artist who could create the most beautiful painting depicting peace. Many great painters from across the kingdom sent in their finest works. One painting in particular caught everyone's attention. It was a painting of a calm lake surrounded by majestic, snow-capped mountains. Overhead, the blue sky was dotted with fluffy clouds that were mirrored on the lake's surface. Everyone agreed that this painting, more than any of the others, portrayed peace.

But when the king announced the winner, everyone was shocked. He awarded the prize to a different painting, one which featured mountains that were rugged and bare; instead of a crystal blue sky, the heavens were dark and angry with flashes of lightning. The overall effect was stormy rather than peaceful. 

The people gathered around the painting, trying to understand. And then they looked closely. In the corner of the painting was a tiny bush growing in the cracks of a rock, and in the bush a mother bird had built a nest. The entire painting was an angry swirl of grays and blacks, and yet the mother bird had created a place of peace. 

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Chances are you know someone who voted for the opposite candidate; chances are that a cashier, dentist, pastor, or neighbor had political views opposite of yours; chances are that this election cast seeds of dissension among friends and even family members; chances are that someone made a sweeping judgment based solely on party affiliation.

Chances are you are tired of it all. 

For months we have been living in a heavy atmosphere of accusations and lies coming at us from every direction; for months we have been caught up in a pulsing, breathing riptide of discord and strife; for far too long we have thought in terms of Us versus Them. 

Maybe it is time to take a deep breath and decide how to move forward, no matter how you voted. 

Maybe it is time to create a place among the angry swirls of black and gray and choose a peace you create. 

And from that place, reach out to friends and members of your family; reach out to the cashier, dentist, pastor, and neighbor. Reach out to all those who, before the storm, used to matter and show them how to see color even among the angry swirls of gray and black. 

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that it is not enough to talk about peace, but to believe in it; that it is not enough to believe in it, but to work at it.

And it is hard work. You will have to do it despite people calling you weak, or a traitor, or naive, or gullible. But what those people do not realize is that you are simply choosing to do things a different way. 

Peace. Do not wish for it.

Choose it.

Create it.

Give it. 

*story is adapted is from All Time Short Stories