Soldiers, who would have hours before killed one another given the chance, halted battle and joined forces in a friendly game of soccer, shared chocolates and cigarettes, and lifted their voices in unison to sing a touching rendition of “Silent Night”.
This wondrous event took place during World War I, in No Man’s Land on Christmas Eve, 1914. Unfortunately, it was back to battle once their short and impromptu Christmas celebrations were over. British and German soldiers soon found themselves again shooting and being shot at, but this time it was to hurt or be hurt by people they knew, people with whom they had shared a remarkable evening of peace. Many an account of this Christmas truce has been told, my favourite being the song, “Christmas in the Trenches”, as performed by local singer-songwriter Paul Rumboldt.
Stories like this show that our ability to live peacefully with one another, no matter what our differences or circumstances, all comes down to one simple act — the act of choice. It is a choice to wish others peace, it is a choice to pursue a life of peaceful harmony with our environment, our community, our family and friends.
Our industrial and technological abilities have brought us to a time of reckoning, a result of our ever-increasing rates of natural resource extraction, population increase, societal complexity, and impact on the environment. We are now living at a time when all of mankind is being asked to make a decision that will shape the rest of our history. Do we want to live in peace, or not? To put it another way: Do we want to live in love, or fear?
Either way you phrase it, it’s a simple enough question. Yet the answer, no matter which one we choose, will likely plunge us into a state of transition involving a lot of effort. I guess it depends on which outcome we think will be worth all the hard work ahead.
As for me, I choose peace. I choose love. I’ve lived in fear before, and believe me when I say I wouldn’t want to wish that on anybody, not even my worst enemy. But several years of fear-based living have taught me this: that doing right is far better than being right, and that doing right is far stronger than any amount of might.
Being as kind and generous as we can, and taking an honest and sincere approach with others will always win out over fear-based beliefs and behaviours, especially those associated with the unknown, or harm caused by ill will, deceit, demonizing, or just plain ignorance, although the latter is hardly an excuse in our Internet age.
So, how does a person go about creating a life of peace, a life of love? It’s easier than you might think. The first thing you have to do is recognize that it’s yours for the choosing. It doesn’t matter what your country is doing, or what your family and friends are doing. It only matters what you are doing.
If you make the bold decision to opt for love instead of fear, to opt for peace instead of instability and war, you can then start building a life based on all those values that your mother taught you growing up. You know the ones — share with your friends, be kind to others, tell the truth — those sorts of things. I feel privileged to know several young adults who hold strongly to these types of values. As I write this, they are shaping their lives based on this worldview through their consumer choices, their votes, and their willingness to learn about unfamiliar ideas.
If you want to spread the message of goodwill this holiday season, please join me in my journey of choosing peace. Know that we may, at times, get sidetracked by a rigidity to old, fear-based ways of behaving, or that the powers-that-be might want to stop us. But, I believe, and I hope you will, too, that a new world order, one where caring comes first, will be worth the struggle and hard work.
The soldiers of the 1914 Christmas Truce chose peace, and probably would have continued to do so were it not for their generals and politicians. Choosing peace for the holidays and the years ahead — now that’s in our best interest.
