MEET LADY PEACE

By Edwin Cooney

Label the following pronouncement any way you must, but I encountered “Peace” last week and she’s very much a lady.

No, I’m not suggesting that women are peaceful and men are warlike. The female of many species, especially when protecting those she loves, can be quite fierce. Taking it a step further, peace has far more to do with one’s values than it has to do with a state of war. Peace is about immeasurable strength, a nurturing strength that’s about
self-assuredness and moral certainty. Peace speaks in many, many ways and through many media.

I’ve probably met peace many times but simply didn’t recognize her. Suddenly, there she was in a place I never suspected. The fall of 1983 was, to say the least, an unsettling time in international politics. Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov sat at the apex of the world’s two foremost nuclear forces. The Soviets had recently shot down a Korea bound plane that had strayed over Soviet territory. Now President Reagan was opting to station American nuclear cruise missiles in Europe and I was very, very frightened.

One day, I was visiting a friend in San Francisco and for some reason we took a bus to Ocean Avenue from where we proceeded to the beach. There was a chilly breeze (although not overwhelmingly so) and the waves were up. Standing there as I did for about 15 minutes, I could feel the immense power of “mother nature.” The smell was primitive but by no means unpleasant. It was an environment of wind, water, plants and the very seed of all living things. One could feel, simultaneously, birth and death. The waves were loud but not raucous. Their rhythmic beat spoke of a power greater than nuclear force. As nature overwhelmed my senses, my anxiety dissipated and for the first time in days, perhaps weeks, I felt reassured. I suddenly knew that if the world situation got out of hand, I would bring my little family to the apex of God’s awesomeness where, whatever happened, there would be a sense of eternal belonging.

As I’ve observed on a couple of occasions in these writings, peace (as author Herman Wouk points out at the beginning of “The Winds of War,” one of the best historic novels I’ve ever read) “is not the absence of war. Peace is a state of mind.” Nor, as I see it, is real peace the business of world politics. World peace is allusive because, ultimately, it’s not the statesman’s business, it is our business.

As I define it, peace is a sick child singing. Peace is a little boy showing you his frog. Peace is a man sharing his popcorn. Peace is a newly minted Boy Scout. Peace is a little girl who announces that she wants to become a nurse. Peace is a mother reading to her daughter or a father playing catch with his son. Peace is a lady baking cookies. Peace is a curious little boy or a wondering little girl. Peace is a couple being silly together. Peace is a gentleman who admits that he is in love. Peace is a lady’s tears of joy.

I recently reencountered peace and this time I did recognize her. She’s the best lady I ever knew. I met her for the first time when I was seventeen where, calmly and with incredible poise and dignity, she nurtured a dormitory full of anxious and sometimes rowdy teenage boys. From that venue, she invited me, homeless and sometimes both a little rude and crude, into her family. There she taught me tact (well, okay, what little tact I possess), that heroes are peacemakers, and, most of all, that as long as we allow for it, love can appear in one’s life when one least expects it.

As her wondrous life came to its close a few days ago, though suffering from the infirmities of great age, an aura of serenity surrounded her. Although she suffered from diminished hearing, one nevertheless knew that she was still listening. Not even faltering eyesight and nonfunctioning legs caused her to lose her dignity or made her afraid. Her insight into the future always brought forth only calm.

Just as the power of God’s awesome Pacific Ocean did for me so many years ago, Edith Rachel (Meek) Gassman’s presence soothed even the most nagging or heart-wrenching fears. Her legacy is serenity, the main ingredient of peace. Her way of life demonstrates that peace on earth is a living reality. All we have to do is insist that it must prevail.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Edwin Cooney