by Terri Lackey

I hail from Tennessee, and the subject of peace just wasn’t a hot topic among my circle south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I’m not saying we were right to ignore it — in fact, we were quite wrong — but it’s true. Our conversations tended more toward humidity, barbecue, and smooth whiskey. When I joined the staff of Lutheran Woman Today last August, there was a lot of excitement around planning a joint ecumenical issue about peace with several other Christian women’s magazines. When I heard this, I twirled my fingers in the air in the universal sign for "So what?" (I did this only in my mind, of course.) I had stepped into another culture, one that thinks and talks about peace.

Thank goodness, my understanding has grown. I’ve discovered that peace means far more than the absence of war. I’ve been paying attention to the idea of peace lately, and it’s popped up quite a lot. I liken it to the new-car phenomenon: You buy a red hybrid, and suddenly everyone else has one too. Peace is in the air.

I will emphatically state that I am against the war in Iraq, and my heart breaks for the American, Iraqi, British, and other soldiers, civilians, and families who are caught up in the horror of it. I sport a peace pin on my lapel, flash the two-finger peace sign whenever I can, and wear a peace cross around my neck — but these small things do little to bring about a more peaceful world.

I heard a story on National Public Radio the other day that quoted the eighteenth-century English philosopher Edmund Burke, who said: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Or good women, I thought. That hit me pretty hard because that’s basically what I feel I do, nothing. I think that’s probably because, before now, I didn’t know what qualifies as doing something.

I have learned by taking part in this ecumenical venture that peace comes in many forms. It is found within us (or not), and it can be manifested outwardly by feeding the hungry, offering shelter to the homeless, and comforting the afflicted.

For example: Twelve-year-old Megan Orth  of Salem Lutheran Church, Catonsville, Maryland, traveled to Nicaragua recently to experience first–hand what a life of hunger and poverty is like for kids and their families. She brought that information back home and is telling us how we can help. And 63–year–old Lil Mattingly, a Catholic nun from Maryknoll, New York, is spending time in federal prison for an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. She took a stand against the U.S. Army School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), a military school at Fort Benning, Georgia, that has trained more than 60,000 Latin American security personnel in counterinsurgency, psychological warfare, and interrogation techniques. This girl and this woman are brave and heroic.

But I’m not so bold. I’m not a protester, and I’m not willing to spend time in jail, but I can write letters to lawmakers if I see injustices. And I’m not much of a volunteer, but I can give money to homeless shelters and canned goods to food banks. In this issue, you will find ways you can make the world a more peaceful place — ways you may never have thought of, ways that may feel comfortable for you. Lutheran Woman Today and the following magazines are sharing stories about peace this month: Glad Tidings, published by the Women’s Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church in Canada; Horizons, published by Presbyterian Women in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); and Response, published by United Methodist Women of the United Methodist Church. Together, we will reach an audience of about 200,000 readers.

We started this effort more than a year ago, and since then, a couple of other women’s organizations have expressed interest in joining. Timbrel, the magazine of Mennonite women in the United States and Canada, will offer many of these articles to its readers throughout the year, and the Episcopalians wanted to be a part of the ecumenical peace effort by letting women know how they are working to end poverty around the world and to improve the lives of women and their families. You can read about their efforts at www.episcopalchurch.org/uncsw.htm

We want you to join this landmark event by sharing and discussing the stories on these pages with others. We’d also like you to think about ways to celebrate the International Day of Peace on September 21. Try coordinating an ecumenical dialogue on peace and praying for those who don’t live in peace. Also, from September 2005 through July/August 2006, Lutheran Woman Today will highlight women peace–makers in a special section, Global Spotlight: Praying for Peacemakers. Read more about that on page 40.

We all have gifts we can offer as we work together toward making ourselves, our communities, and our world more peaceful. Let’s figure out how to use them, shall we?

Terri Lackey is managing editor of Lutheran Woman Today.