Peace on Earth
Three decades ago, I sketched 50 doves onto 50 cards and mailed them to family and friends. I pulled a cornflower colored pencil from a zippered bag. I began to draw the profile of a bird on the blank, white folded card. I rifled through the bag a second time for a black pencil to form its beak and right eye. In cursive, I wrote “peace” underneath the dove. It was the first December after I had converted from Christianity to Judaism. I was wishing peace to others, but I wasn’t at peace myself.
I’m no professional illustrator. To prove it to you, I draw stick figures if I’m asked to draw people. But doves look easy. Never mind that holiday cards aren’t a thing among Jews. Doves symbolize peace, and peace is a running theme among both religions, so I believed I was striking a balance with family and friends.
You can buy Dove chocolate or Dove soap. Dove is a DC Comics superhero. There’s a Dove, Missouri, plus a Dove crater on the moon. Doves are in the same family as pigeons, which restaurants cleverly disguise on their menus as squab. Food & Wine claims it’s the “tastiest bird you can legally eat”.
“Peace” appears more than 400 times in the King James Version of the Bible. For Jews, the Hebrew word for peace is “shalom”, though shalom is a much broader concept than peace alone, and it’s a central tenet of our religion.
My lack of peace throughout adulthood toggled between niggling and insurmountable. It was rooted in the unresolved pain I felt as a result of my father’s abuse of me as a child. I had attended a few therapy sessions as a child, but those sessions didn’t fully resolve my hurt and resentment.
I grew up. I graduated from college, joined the military, worked, married, had kids and worked even more. It wasn’t until I re-started therapy last year that I began to understand how much pain I still carried.
I share my story with you because, after 18 months of therapy, I have found peace. I feel light and free. I have reframed my thought patterns. I have boundaries. I love myself. I can also more clearly identify people who are in pain, and I look at them with compassionate eyes, not judgment.
If your heart is in pain, I want you to know that I see you. Some of the pain in this world stems from our inability to express our true selves and/or our disconnection from people around us—in essence, the quality of the relationships we have with ourselves and with others. I know that’s true in my experience.
On this Christmas Day, I want you to know there is hope. Your mind is more powerful than you may believe. You can change. You can transform into life lessons any pain you feel for past personal mistakes or pain you feel because of pain caused by others. You can reconnect with yourself and the rest of the world. We have the power to create the peace we want on Earth.