Peppered Peace

I’m not a religious person, but come from a long line of God-fearing folks, and often misquote, or half remember Bible verses.  This  year my bell pepper crop is outstanding.  I harvested a five-gallon bucket of huge green and red peppers and spent several hours chopping them for the freezer.  It seems only right to sit a few minutes on the porch with a glass of cabernet to toast my garden’s largess.  It’s a very quiet evening without a hint of wind.

Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (I only  remembered part of this and looked it up.)  However, a  misquote popped into my head and won’t leave me alone. “Peace that peppers understanding.”  Most people misunderstand half the messages they hear.

The idea of peppered peace fits our world.  In the past year, there’s been a murder every other hour in Chicago.  The US has been bogged down in war in Afghanistan for more than 10 years, having learned nothing from Vietnam, except not to draft people.

It feels like a war zone at my place of work.  People are layed-off, fired outright, or, if lucky, given a chance to resign or retire with dignity. The targeted folks are hurt and angry.  The injured randomly fire vocal tirades toward those of us who have no power to change anything, leaving us with peppered understanding, and  little peace.

I began this blog before the mass killing in Las Vegas. To continue and follow my analogy, the killer peppered the crowd with rapid-firing bullets, murdering and injuring as many as he could.  People search for an understandable motive, and pray for the victims.  Our society must move beyond this predictable response and make actual changes in the legal system. Do we, as a nation, have the collective will to resist gun lobbyist?