Peas or Peace?

We are officially in the “holiday season.” Yes, the season of giving, the season of love, a season with a reason, the season of clichés.

Clichés? Yes, clichés. Every where you go, someone’s wishing you something profound -- happiness, merriment, joy and peace, blessings and health. And if it’s not being wished upon you, you’re wishing it to someone else. The benedictions are kind, of course, but their preponderance has left them meaningless --- beat up, pushed around and run over by eight tiny reindeer.

Which brings me to the point. After the bombings of Mumbai, I thought about one of the many bruised and battered phrases -- Peace on Earth.

Just like ‘merry’ hasn’t been used in a sentence without “Christmas” since FDR was president, peace on earth seems to be a quaint phrase -- painted on yard signs and written in twinkling lights – but otherwise meaningless. A policeman just told me, in fact, that beat cops are pushed to their limits during the holidays, chasing petty criminals (and worse) right past the twinkling lights.

So why do we expect, joy, merriment, and peace on earth during December?

Here’s how it went: About 2000 years ago, before shopping malls and Wal-Marts, a child was born with the name Jesus, who eventually would be referred to as the Christ, taken from the Greek Khristós meaning anointed. When he was born, the story says, angels appeared to a whole lot of shepherds and said, or sang, or harked something about “peace.”

Some think the angels harked from on high, “Peace and goodwill among all men.” Bing Crosby, the steward of all things Christmas carol, thought the angels sang, “Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.” Even the so-called “official version” is sketchy. Some bibles quote the angels praising, “peace to men of goodwill.” My own bible notes that the angels didn’t hark anything. They just simply said in their angel voice, “On earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”

Now 2000 years is a long time. So it doesn’t surprise me that the message got a little jumbled. But angels don’t show up all that often, so it would be nice to know what they harked, or sang, or said. Did the heavenly hosts wish peace to all men? Or just men of goodwill? And what about the women, particularly the one sitting in a stable, exhausted and cold after birthing the Christ child, wondering what all these dirty men were doing in her labor room? Maybe they said, “peas and grits will feed women,” suggesting that maybe Mary was hungry after all that pushing and the shepherds might like to bring her a little something.

The questions are rhetorical, of course. We don’t know what the angels said. And maybe it doesn’t matter. They cared enough to say SOMETHING about peace. And goodwill. And maybe instead of droning out some clichéd phrase this holiday season, we should remember the singing.

Peace on earth is a far hark away, Mumbai being the most tragic example. But we could wish peace to one man of goodwill. Skip the family squabbles, for example, that seem to come up each holiday. Give someone in a terrible circumstance contentment – a warm meal, perhaps. Find tranquility, maybe. That lurking to-do list wouldn’t have gotten done anyway. And what better time to find serenity – with twinkling lights adorning nearly every second house?

Maybe the angels really said, “peace within each one on earth.”

That’s peace. And it might breed some goodwill. And then we might be downright merry.