Lesson from a Battlefield of Peace

I adjust my plush reclining movie seat. Feet and back angled at just the right position to ensure a comfortable nearly-three-hours of movie watching. Surrounded in a theatre with like-minds, my partner and I are there to see Ridley Scott’s latest cinema epic — Napoleon.

My reaction to the movie is unexpected.

In light of the real-life horrific war scenes coming out of Gaza now, it felt sacrilegious and shameful to be sitting in the safety of a posh theatre being “entertained” by chaotic war scenes — resplendent with gore, dying, suffering, and terror. Each fought in the name of grandiose land grabs and ego.

What is confusing, is that when I visit battlefields where horrific casualties have occurred , I feel a profound Peace and see a miraculous Light coming up from the ground.

Seeing Napoleon got me to thinking about Peace. Countries around the world search for Peace with guns and mega-weapons drawn and dropped. We’ve even got war colleges dedicated to developing new ways to fight for Peace. All this done in the hope of achieving this elusive human yearning.

While my own life is full of vexations, frustrations, and anything but Peace, I’ve found a place where I can feel and even “see” the Peace I ache to experience all the time.

Ironically, the spot is on a battlefield where the bloodiest single day of fighting in American history took place. September 17, 1862. The Civil War’s Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland.