“There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.” — Kofi Annan

This morning’s post comprises a series of short and – hopefully – encouraging features.

The first is the children’s choir from Tarboro’s Stocks Elementary School (pictured above), directed by Katie Schultz. The kids shared a lot of fun songs but most poignantly they sang about the need for peace here on this good Earth.

It was moving, and I wondered about what we, the adults here in this community, are teaching our children about peace? We can be so cavalier with the things we say and the political gamesmanship we support. But when you see row upon row of children singing their hearts out… well if that does not give you pause then I wonder what will?

Then this next photograph featuring our grandson “Mr. T.” placing an ornament on the family tree in Poland.

Regular readers understand that Mr. T’s. name and face are still restricted from exposure on social media. So it is a treat whenever I have an image like this that I can share.

Having turned six this year, Mr. T. is at that magical Christmas age… and he is also in a magical place with the cold Eastern European winter turning medieval Krakow into a scene from a holiday greetings card this past week.

Meanwhile, here at our house on Saint Patrick Street, Rebekah has completed her current refinishing project and the dining room table looks amazing.

I am seriously impressed with everything Rebekah has accomplished in the way of research and implementation and attention to detail – from planing to learning to stripping to sanding to sanding again to staining to even more sanding to more staining to fine sanding to applying a wax-based hand-rubbed final finish.

Christmas instigates Peace:

The Lord is my shepherd;
    I have all that I need.
He lets me rest in green meadows;
    he leads me beside peaceful streams. – Psalm 23

As we begin to hang lights and develop the holiday theme around our home, I can’t help but think of how the Christmas story does so much to promote peace. Maybe not just promote, but also instigate.

Because real peace is not the absence of conflict so much as it is the active presence of love and grace. The best way to achieve peace is not by forcing an end to fighting but by promoting – and instigating – things that are incompatible with hostility.

When I was a teacher working in exceptional education I had colleagues who would use threats and force to “maintain order.” But promoting an uneasy truce is not peace!

In my classroom I found it far more effective to love generously, to facilitate cooperation and respect, to encourage sharing, to build relationships and to model grace.

It turns out there is freedom in real peace, not restraint.

The Jesus quality of peace is proactive, inclusive, reaching out and welcoming in. Christmas peace does not guard the feast with masks and guns, it opens the doors and invites our enemy in.

The peace Jesus invites us to practice is generous, and the grace of it spills over, and it is rooted in self-giving love.

You prepare a feast before me
    and I sit down to eat with my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life… – Psalm 23:5-6

Peace in every way, and more peace – DEREK