One benefit of having grown children in far-flung places is that we sometimes get interesting letters.  Our daughter Katie wrote one such letter when she made a visit to one of the four hundred small islands in the San Blas Territory off the coast of Panama.  The Kuna Indians on these islands have maintained their traditional lifestyle in spite of the pressures of modern society.  She described their religion as follows:

“They believe they are God’s chosen people and that God wants them to live in peace and harmony.  Any time anyone in the clan causes a disruption, the entire tribe is in jeopardy of not going to heaven.  They don’t have jails.  They don’t need them.  They frequently have town meetings where people talk about any problems.  It is just like a big group therapy session.  Over the years several different missionaries have come to the island.  However, since the missionaries fight among themselves, which the Indians know goes against God’s plan, they prefer their own faith to ours.”

In the first months of the year, we honor those who have struggled for our freedom, peace and unity.  Beginning in January with Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of brotherhood, through Abraham Lincoln and his speech at Gettysburg, we dust off our most hallowed ideals and hold them up, hoping once more to make them a reality.  We honor our heroes and renew our commitment to their visions.  Even as we keep faith in our hope for peace, the reality slips away, always just beyond our grasp.  Peace has become the Holy Grail of our modern civilization.

This is especially painful for us as Christians.  In Christ’s name we try to offer forgiveness, peace and unity in our broken world.  Yet, sometimes we can’t even avoid arguing among ourselves.  Would the “natives” of this world come closer to accepting what we have to offer if we did a better job of being peaceful and forgiving to other believers?  At times, lasting peace seems even further from our grasp than it did two thousand years ago in the time of our Lord himself, or even than it did in the days of Abraham Lincoln or Dr. Martin Luther King.

Isn’t it ironic that with all of our wealth, technology and sophistication, the peace we yearn for escapes us while it shines brightly among a little-known people on some obscure islands in a remote corner of a tropical sea?