Xerxes' Errata

"O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, harmony.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sorrow, joy.

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

-St. Francis of Assisi

Why is it that no one seems to feel like St. Francis in the world anymore? Everywhere it seems as though the only option to any issue is to fight. The War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and so on. Has the world really become like the world of 1984 where war really is peace?

Now I'm not naive enough to believe that a world without war is possible (though a guy can still hope can't he?), but does it seem that no one thinks that things will ever get better?

My dad's cousin works in Ramallah for the American Friends Service Comittee (a Quaker organisation). Up until this April, she was was the coordinator of the Middle East Program of the Peacebuilding Unit and now is the coordinator of the Friends International Center in Ramallah and the last time I talked with her she was still as passionate and optimistic about her work as ever. But I often feel like asking her (but don't, because I don't want to be a jerk) if her work ever seems at all futile.

I would imagine that images like these would suggest that peacebuilding isn't very easy.