Putting On Hip Boots of Peace

An e-devotional that I receive had Ephesians 6:10-18 as the scripture the other day.  I have never much liked this passage.  It is the one about putting on "the belt of truth" and "the breastplate of righteousness."  I don't much care for the militaristic language.  It seems to me, Christianity has a history of using such language to some pretty horrific ends.  At the least, such language has a tendency to promote "us and them" thinking.  As in, "us" are the good guys and "thems" are the ones who should be struck down or condemned.

But, then I noticed something.  In addition to the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith, we are to put on shoes for proclaiming the gospel of peace. Kind of shoots the militaristic language in the foot. Sorry, couldn't resist. But, it does make this sound a lot less like an aggressive "if you're not for us we should probably do away with you" sort of scripture. So we arm ourselves with the gifts God has given us and then we set out to try and make peace happen.  Notice also that it is the shoes of the gospel of peace. It's not the bullhorn of the gospel of peace. This is not so much about what you say as what you do. The more I learn about the peace movement the more I learn that there is nothing passive about it. There are amazing stories about people who make tremendous sacrifices and work hard to bring about peace in our world. Those better be athletic shoes of peace because there is work to be done.  I had hoped to insert here some of those inspiring stories of peacemakers.  Unfortunately such stories aren't so easy to find.  I guess it is not exciting enough news.  But, bellow are links to a few sites that I did find helpful.  I would love to hear from all of you about stories you have heard of peace makers in our world.

I did find this book of photos: "Where Children Sleep" by James Mollison . It vividly illustrates the injustices in the world. On second thought maybe we need hip boots of peace. The roots of war and  hatred,  (things like greed and self-centeredness,) run deep. We will need hip boots to wade into this mess.

Injustice abounds in the world, our military is stretched thin.  Surely it is evident that creative solutions need to be sought.  Pull on those hip boots. There is work to be done.

http://blog.onbeing.org
http://cpt.org
http://www.israelvsisrael.com/film.html