Then one is praying for new life. Hope. And everything that can come from it. Joy. And everyone who can experience it.

And justice, health, and wholeness for all.

Praying for peace can be

• calling for calm
• ceasing of conflict
• a sign of hope
• demand for change
• an invitation to compromise
• manifestation of love.

But praying for peace must never be

• avoidance of hard truths
• in support of oppression
• rejection of experience
• seeking passivity in the face of injustice.

All people of faith are called to make peace and wage reconciliation.

This is particularly true of the Abrahamic traditions which are centered around a holistic and comprehensive understanding of peace. A concept most exemplified in Hebrew as Shalom.

Shalom is a positive peace rather than a negative peace.

The peace described by Shalom is the presence of peace. It is something tangible and lived. It must be present.

It is to our shame that we struggle to understand this with our minds, even as we know this with our hearts.

Our minds are convinced of a peace that is defined by what it is not, as an absence. An absence of conflict, war, and violence.

Our hearts know better. They know peace as present. A sense of calm. Safety. Welcome. Hope.

Peace is wholeness —

As hatred creates separation.
It is health — as war causes death.
And hope — as violence breads nihilism.
Justice — as corruption causes oppression.

We cannot, therefore, pray for peace and not also pray for justice, health, and wholeness. It isn’t possible.

Prayer cannot be an excuse to pick favorites or ignore injustice.

Or be the one action we’re willing to take.

Our calls for peace must never focus on the end of violence without also demanding the end of injustice. They must be prayers of a peace that comes to a place, a people, a present moment.

There is no moral excuse for murdering hundreds of people. And there is no moral excuse for perpetrating (or condoning) Apartheid. No moral excuse to starve a people, call them animals, or escalate the horror.

Peace does not allow for the presence of injustice. It may only come when people seek to make true peace present. And the full breadth of wealth and equity that comes with it.