(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

September 21
International Day of Peace

I'm trying to write about "Peace, Love, and Understanding."

I could be cynical and score cleverness points by mocking the faded peace signs and wilted flowers of latter-day hippies. I could be patronizing toward peace groups that hold sparsely-attended rallies on street corners or fruitlessly wave signs in front of capitol buildings. I could satirize politicians who insist that war is the best way to get peace. I could stop cold in despair at the unrelenting loss of life in war zones. Or I could just dodge the subject by explaining that none of that world stuff matters so long as I am safe and prosperous and have no loved ones in the military.

I could simply give up on the subject, delete this blog post, and write instead about something beautiful or delightful like dark chocolate truffles or the autumnal equinox or Don Quixote. Personally, I find peace in chocolate, love in nature, and understanding in great novels. That works for me because I have such a good life to start with. But when I study the news, from local to international, "I ask myself, is all hope lost?" It's difficult to pursue inner peace when you're struggling with "pain and hatred, and misery." If you care enough about the world's problems to search for "light in the darkness of insanity," your spirit will feel "downhearted, sometimes." If not lots of times.

But it is the International Day of Peace. It's a good day to give credit to people who find nothing funny about working for world peace. And there are lots and lots and lots of them. All over the world."Where are the strong? and who are the trusted? And where is the harmony?" The measure of their success is not in absolutes. If we are waiting to see when "War is over!" and "Poverty is no more!" and "Justice has overcome injustice!" then no wonder we sit down and hide our faces. No wonder we escape to the woods with frosted brownies and a good book. No wonder we think it's a joke to even try for "world peace," and instead buy cynical bumper stickers advocating "whirled peas." But our success is measured in footsteps, while world history evolves by generations and takes shape over centuries. We simply have no way of knowing what our little dab on the canvas will look like someday. But without the peace workers--be they activists or artists or any of the rest of us--conditions would surely be even worse. That is my view.

Elvis Costello keeps on singing that song, keeps on asking those questions, year after year, to crowd after crowd, and though his hair thins and he no longer stands on the sides of his red shoes, the intensity in his eyes doesn't falter.

To anyone who confronts the hardest questions unflinching, working without knowing whether or not it makes any difference, may International Peace Day bring you a moment of hope.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding? Nothing. Not one single thing.


By Nick Lowe. Originally recorded 1978 by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
And as performed on the David Letterman Show, 2007.