When Pope Francis visited the United States two weeks ago, the whole world was watching. And the whole world watched as a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian embraced during the 9/11 multi-religious prayer service. In that windowless room, in the basement of the 9/11 museum, the urgent call for peace was reverberating off the concrete walls.
Yet some say that these cries are futile, that world peace is a romantic, unreasonable idea, a hopeless life preserver crashing amidst the waves, clung to by hippies and pacifists. I’m not quite sure if I’m either one of those things, or perhaps both, but I will venture out into the swells to say that world peace is possible. I say this not with utmost certainty, but rather, with a feeble, yet deep-rooted hope that I am right. By stating this claim, I am not trying to brush aside the terrible atrocities of this world, and I also understand the very real propensity towards hatred that, at times, seems to be almost human nature.
While my belief may not seem realistic in the fallen world that we are currently in, I think that it is the only choice we have. To trust in the possibility of world peace is to do justice to all those that have suffered under the hands of inexplicable hatred. This summer, I took twenty high school students to Japan on a three-week Japanese-American cultural exchange program, one that I had participated in myself three years earlier. While there, we had the incredible opportunity to travel to Hiroshima and listen to the last English-speaking atomic bomb survivor. It was hard to believe the words that spilled from her mouth, words that tried to make us understand the horrors of that day, August 6th, 1945. But they were just words to us. Only after, when we walked through the museum and saw the images and artifacts, did I understand what she meant when she described the skin falling off of people’s faces, like the outer skin on a roasted tomato being pulled clean.
As I wandered through that museum for the second time, I did not want to be reminded of the hatred that haunts our world. I did not want to be reminded of the effects of war upon the innocent. I did not want to be reminded that the fighting didn’t end, that this atrocity is only one among many more. Yet we must force ourselves to face these facts if we are going to be realistic about world peace. It is not something to blindly follow, but rather, something that we must struggle with and remind ourselves daily.
We can no longer block out the news and shield ourselves from the hurt that surrounds our world. We must listen to the stories of survivors with renewed fervor and passion, instead of despair. We cannot desensitize ourselves to the hatred, but rather must glimpse the brilliant bits of raw humanity within all of this mess.
Somberly, we exited the building and were guided through the Peace Park, marking the area surrounding the epicenter, through green tree groves, and over rivers in the golden afternoon light. Slowly, the pit in my core unknotted itself as I saw a small child trying to match her stride with her father’s long gait. And it began to grow into a seed of hope as my students discussed how they could tangibly bring about peace in our world.
Now, when I think of Hiroshima, I see a beauty that eclipses the pain. I see thousands of paper cranes fluttering in the wind – an offering of dedication and hope to restore peace in our world. I see the deep, smiling eyes of the hibakusha, atomic bomb survivor, framed amidst a scarred face.
So, for her sake and the sake of others, I will cling to this life raft of peace. I will close me eyes and urge my soul to believe that a world like this is indeed possible, that she did not endure the excruciating pain of radiation for naught. They said that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for seventy-five years after the bomb, but that fall, flowers were blooming. Who are we to say that world peace is not possible?