Article May 5, 1986 Issue

City of peace

BRYAN G. POPE

Jerusalem has sometimes been called the city of peace—yet that world-renowed city could be among the world's most fought-over places. It has been besieged many times, taken numerous times, and more than once razed to the ground. It is thought sacred by Jewish, Islamic, and Christian people. Relatively few, however, can rationally believe peace or even holiness resides in its earth, rock, and walls. If, as He must be, God, Spirit, is infinite, His love can be felt in one place just as much as another; all space is holy ground.

If asked, most people would readily agree that insistence upon a point of view different from that of other is no reason for bloodshed. The great majority of humanity is desperately tired of war, sectarian squabbles, and vicious terrorism.

Efforts to establish some kind of international agreement that would diminish the danger of a nuclear holocaust often founder on mutual animosity. Even a great-power peace pact, though lessening the threat of war, will not produce real peace on earth. Real peace is a quality of God. Although Godlike, spiritual man—our true identity—eternally expresses peace by divine mandate, still, that peace is realized only as individuals awake to claim this true identity. Therefore peace on earth can appear only as there is increase in the sum of that love which the world's millions find in their hearts to bestow upon each other.

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