Of War and Peace: What Truth Can't Twist

A slow news day today. North Korea is hogging all the headlines with the threat of a nuclear launch. Unfortunately, Papal pleas for peace are routinely ignored by everyone. Pope Francis is no different in this respect. Every Pope make them all the time. These poor men probably get scabs on their knees from praying so hard for peace, as war after war after war breaks out.

As such, it is highly doubtful that the leaders of North Korea will pay any attention, although Catholics in South Korea are asking for help from the Pope. His hands, however, are tied. He doesn't have an army. He can't run maneuvers to prevent this. And that truly is not the Catholic way in modern times, although, in centuries past, Catholic bloodbaths were common during the Crusades and Inquisition.

Why, after all these centuries, must the world still be at war? If I knew the answer for that I'd either get a Nobel Prize or be nominated for Sainthood. Given that neither of them is about to happen, all I can do is speculate, like everybody else. 

And Pope Francis has offered some inspiration regarding that topic. I don't just mean telling the world we need peace. That's too obvious. It's more by example that he directs us to look at a pathway that could lead to peace if it were followed. I'm not even saying the Catholic or Christian pathway. It's more like something that every human being on earth could follows regardless of his or her beliefs.

That is the path of inclusion, of love. Not love in the sense of agreeing with another person or even wanting to live the way that person lives. Not love in the sense of any kind of positive attraction to a person, whether it be romantic or in terms of family or friendship. Not even the love that comes with admiration. This kind of love is what the Greeks called agapé. It's a more generalized love of all humanity, with all its messy warts and mistakes.

This kind of love allows for tolerance. It allows for respect. It allows for differences. It relishes diversity. The only thing it is intolerant of—the only thing it hates—is hatred. It is the kind of love that makes us hold back instead of shouting or raising our fists, or our knives, or our guns, or our bombs. It makes us think before we speak or act. This love makes us feel the blood and nerves within ourselves and realize that the very same things exist within other living and breathing beings. It makes us aware of our connectedness to everybody and everything. We are all part of the whole, so when one part is wounded, the whole feels it through empathy.

When the Pope says that he wants to reach out to Catholics and non-Catholics and even atheists, he is saying that he wants to engage in agapé. When he hugs a disabled boy, his showing his caring. When he worries about people in his homeland experiencing floods, he is empathizing with those people. When he refuses glamor and vainglory, he expresses an identity with people in poverty.

Catholic or not, can we do any less?

How does this answer the question about why there are wars? War, I believe, in part, is a direct result of not feeling part of a wholeness. It's a result of putting one's own egoes above other people. It's a result of shutting down our ability to empathize. There's more. . . . 

As I said, Pope Francis is beginning something to expand our consciousness. This is the kind of expansion that doesn't require any drugs or revelations. All it takes is looking at other human beings and going beyond our boundaries to take in their experiences, thoughts, and feelings. It's opening up a bit and letting humanity in so our own humanity can come out and be expressed.