Understandings of the Power of Peace

Peacelessness Is Profitable

Consider what entertains us most. When two boxers get into the ring the beginning of the contest belies the purpose of the event. The contestants begin dancing on their toes to music with a resonant beat. Before the bell rings the boxers seem to be in a place and time of personal celebration as they raise their arms and flex their muscles. Then one stares across the roped rectangle at the opponent thinking, “I’m going to knock the peace right out of you?” While the onlookers yell for him to do just that. That’s our entertainment?

Athletic events are entertaining because one opponent is about to disturb, even destroy, the peace of the other. Certainly there are rules that limit aggression however the whole purpose is to display superior aggression. That’s our nature, now.

Popular media, television and the Internet are burgeoning arenas proving profitability of peacelessness. Seventy or 80 years ago when television was in its infancy and perhaps the then contemporary society, even if a façade, retained some innocence. Moms and dads slept in separate beds, children were respectable even if mischievous, the good guys always seemed to triumph and the picket fence was painted white. You had to pay to see two people beating each other in a ring or see people being killed on a movie screen.

Today nothing is off limits. The more violence offered the greater the audience. TV dramas and situation comedies hold our interest by maintaining and magnifying the peacelessness and restlessness of society. Incongruities of peace: chaos, turmoil, opposition and adversary capture our attention as they are presented as entertainment. Husbands and wives contend with each other to be the “Survivor” of contrived reality. Show business and sports celebrities vie for who can be the most lawless, disrespectful and outrageously notorious to capture our attention. Our ears and eyes are constantly bombarded by vulgarity while our hearts and minds are injuriously twisted by immorality. Morality has lost its influence to economy.

Television is a business. Advertisers are charged for the time they would use to advertise their products. Viewership of each program determines the cost for advertising. In 2013 these TV shows charged advertisers the following for 30 seconds of space:

1. The Big Bang Theory, $326,260, Thursday, 8 p.m., CBS

2. The Voice, $264,575, Monday, 8 p.m., NBC

3. Modern Family, $257,435, Wednesday, 9 p.m., ABC

4. The Simpsons, $256,963 Sunday, 8 p.m., Fox

5. New Girl, $231,570, Tuesday, 9 p.m., Fox

6. The Voice, $229,167, Tuesday, 9 p.m., NBC

7. Family Guy, $223,145, Sunday, 9 p.m., Fox

8. Grey’s Anatomy, $206,075, Thursday, 9 p.m., ABC

9. Two And A Half Men, $204,176, Thursday, 9:30 p.m., CBS

10. Scandal, $200,970, Thursday, 10 p.m., ABC

Multiplying the number of 30-second segments by the shown amounts per episode profitability is obvious. A few of these “top ten” shows of 2013 are considered “family” shows in today’s culture. Seeping into the mainstream is the enlarged allowable immorality, disrespect and violence produced for public consumption. Why, because it is profitable. Peacelessness is Pervasive

In the workplace it is common to observe tension between employer and employee. In the marketplace one company may contend, by any means, with another for customer loyalty. In the family children lock horns with parents as an untested generation contends with tested generations. In our schools authority and discipline put up with willfulness and apathy. While on the streets of our cities and towns the courts and keepers of law struggle to deal with a seemingly bottomless capacity of people for lawlessness.

In our political system constitutional rights are held hostage by individual privileges secured by laws of the republic. While many politicians camouflage personal agenda in legislature designed to tranquilize public desire while pandering each other for votes and favors. Contracted truces maintained by mutual agreements and compromises are temporary and pregnant with disputations and strife.

We don’t know how long Adam and Eve experienced the perfect peace with God before their fall. We do know that their disobedience walled them and us from that perfect peace. That became the seed of all peacelessness, the father of all wars. Those first peace-less steps of strife and disunity ripple into mighty waves upon us. Genesis 5:3 appoint our restless contention to our earthly father Adam. We are made in his image and destined to repeat his ways.

Every twenty-four hour period in the twenty-first century recorded history demonstrates the despoiling of man’s original nature and purpose. Even as I look for an ending of this chapter terrorists attacks in Paris, France and in San Bernardino CA, Orlando FL, USA and Istanbul Turkey tells of the robust destructive nature of enmity. Most nations around the world have and are establishing anti-terrorist plans of protection and detection. Natural, political and human resources are spent to the point of exhaustion and exasperation.

Street crimes in cities around the world are more than statistics. Outgrowing our capacity for apathy, crimes against person and family are touching every life. Major and minor cities around the world are separated only by their particular nations’ freedom of speech laws. Crime is outpacing ability to report, record and act towards prevention. Every continent on earth, excepting possibly the Pole continents, accumulates statistics of burgeoning peacelessness. Heads of nations face their people tearfully and regrettably frequently, reporting and responding to mass murders of their citizens by their citizens. Personal items of protection, especially handguns, are being manufactured and sold to law abiding citizens at alarming rates presenting to law breakers moments of pause and deterrent. Attempting to keep up with occurrences of peacelessness in books similar to this is impossible and necessary.

Most who contemplate the peaceless conditions of this world are asking themselves and others, why can’t we just get along? Why can’t we just live and let live? Why so much energy, time, money and people wasted on protection rather than peace?