The love that bonds a community together

Suzanne M. Nightingale

In my community some time ago, several teenage boys were arrested and charged with a wide-ranging crime spree that ended in the fatal shooting of one of their teachers. Press reports portrayed a gang of youths who felt no bond to family, school, or community. Some observers commented that the love and care that bind society together are disappearing.

Yet there is a way in which each of us can think and pray daily that will strengthen the bonds of community and dissolve the grip of evil. A popular song of recent years speaks of letting peace begin with us. We are often led to think that what interferes with our peace is beyond our control. But the message of the song points to a spiritual law that enables us to pray with authority and so to counteract with the certainty of God's control whatever would threaten peace.

Once I was waiting outside a church in an unfamiliar neighborhood of a big city. Two teenage boys were coming down the street in my direction. One of them, using a baseball bat as a club, was striking at things in his path—trees, fence posts, junk left out at the curb. I began to feel there might be an ugly confrontation between us. In the midst of my terror, I had to make a forceful effort to let peace start with me. Before I could find a common bond with them and feel safe, I had to see these boys in a very different way—spiritually.

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