Inner Peace, World Peace

Inner Peace, World Peace: Blessed Are the Peacemakers

n this enlightening episode, the Good News team - Lynn Shematek, Lauren Welch, and Jon Shematek - discuss Jesus' beatitude about peacemakers, highlighting the significance of achieving internal peace and extending it to our relationships and communities. They explore the complexities and labor involved in being a peacemaker, emphasizing self-reflection, listening, and spiritual alignment with God. The conversation delves into the importance of fostering peace within oneself before effectively spreading it to others, painting a hopeful picture of a world where everyone recognizes each other as Children of God. The team also reflects on societal changes and the role of the Christian life in bringing hope and light to a divided world.

00:00 Introduction to Peacemaking

00:23 Defining a Peacemaker

00:55 Peacemaking in Personal Relationships

01:32 Inner Peace and Self-Reflection

02:14 Challenges of Achieving Peace

03:49 Childlike Peace and Trust

04:37 Peacemaking in Society

05:32 The Christian Blueprint for Peace

06:00 Practical Steps to Foster Peace

08:34 The Contagious Nature of Peace

09:12 Conclusion and Next Steps

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Episode Transcript

Dolores (00:00):
No matter how much we yearn for peace, it seems to be elusive.

(00:03):
These days more than ever..
In one of his beatitudes,Jesus speaks about peacemakers,
calling them Children of God.
So let's join a conversation withour Good News team Lynn Shematek,
Lauren Welch and Jon Shematek.

Lynn (00:16):
Blessed are the peacemakers.
They shall be called children of God.
what is a peacemaker?

Jon (00:26):
The first thing that came to mind for me, today, actually had, it's more in
the political arena and people that, are,trying to resolve issues between nations
diplomatically rather than by violence.
Not everyone's called to be a diplomat,the kind that will broker a peace
agreement between warring factions.

(00:50):
That's the first thingthat comes to my mind,

Lynn (00:52):
What about you, Lauren?

Lauren (00:55):
The first thing I think about when I think of peacemakers
are people who are bridge builders.
they help connect people even in familiesthey help build bridges between people
who are struggling with an issue, with anillness, with how to deal with a parent,

Jon (01:18):
as you said that, it made me think, Lauren, about all the different levels
of personal relationships, that needpeace it is work to be a peacemaker.
we could start, a very intimatepersonal space by talking about being

(01:39):
a peacemaker within your own self.
I don't think I've everthought of that before.
until you raised that just now forme, thinking about being in families,
I was thinking of Peacemakers asbeing on a bigger scale, but it isn't.
you've often said we need to loveourselves first it does start at

(02:01):
the individual heart and soul level.
so I think there is A Peacemakerrole for internal peace.
I'm not sure exactly how that works.

Lauren (02:14):
I think the word work is instrumental because peacemaking, takes
a lot of work, to find, peace withinyourself or to help others, the work
that has to be done is getting ouragenda out of the way so we can see more.

(02:38):
to become peaceful myself, Ihave to be still and listen.
listening to people around me,listening to hopefully the divine.
it takes a lot of work, to be peaceful.
It's not something that comes easy.
It certainly doesn't come easy for me.

(03:00):
I'll speak for myself.

Lynn (03:01):
I
think that most of us find it veryhard to be at peace with ourselves.
It's very tumultuous times.
We're all very busy.
to become at peace means thatyou need time to reflect.
stop and really tune yourself with God.

(03:24):
Become a child of God.
And that's hard.
That's very hard to do.
I didn't even think about that,being that to be at peace yourself.
before you can become a peacemaker.

Lauren (03:41):
maybe that's why the last half of that, Beatitude is for they
will be called children of God.
Children, are naturally peaceful.
until they learn, what's mine andwhat's yours, But as Jesus said,
you need to become childlike.

(04:03):
He didn't say childish, Hesaid childlike, which is
thinking the best of others, trusting,believing, in others, in yourself.
Jon, when you said, how do webecome, peaceful within, I think,
we have to trust ourselves.

(04:23):
We have to believe in ourselves.
as Lynn says, know the divine within us.
when we put all of thattogether, I think we're peaceful.
children have that naturally,

Jon (04:36):
Yeah, that's a great perspective.
I think one of the things that strikesme about this is when it says they shall
be called children of God and I love thatbecause I think it's really showing that,
they shall be called a child of God, butchildren of God emphasizes this sibling

(04:57):
ship that we have with all of humanity.
if we are, working to be peacefulwithin ourselves, working to establish
peace beyond ourselves, within familymembers where there's discord, gosh, we
have not hard to think of examples of.

(05:18):
Disagreement, discord, what'sthe most common word we heard
in 2024 probably polarization.
it's a fact of our lives thesedays in our society, in our world.
there's plenty of work to be done.
One of the key tasks of carryingout the blueprint of the Christian
life is to be a peacemaker.

(05:41):
think of how wonderful life wouldbe if everyone truly saw the
other person as a child of God.
would be heaven on earth.
Yeah, to me, that's what it would be.
it takes a lot of work to be a peacemaker.
Lauren, you talked about thisinner sense, that you can achieve

(06:04):
through, listening, praying, beingopen to God's working within you.
Are there other aspectsof being a peacemaker that
are helpful to think about?

Lynn (06:18):
One of the things I think is that the Beatitudes certainly are different.
They are provocative, but they allcome back to the major thing, to
treat your neighbor as yourself,or as you would like to be treated.

(06:39):
if you are at peace with yourself,people will like to be with you because
you're peaceful, gentle, in tune withthings, you'll listen to them, I
would ask that the people watching orlistening to us, try to figure out how
to become more peaceful in their heart,or whatever part of their body needs to

(07:05):
be peaceful see if they can actuallytake that and go to someone else.
See if they can give them the abilityto be peaceful within themselves.
it starts from one little seed and keepsgoing We could change society, really.

(07:28):
Saw an interesting article at the NewYork Times, about a man who has been
writing for the op ed for 25 years, itwas his last article, and he said he
thought the whole fabric of the Americanpublic has been so changed in those

(07:52):
25 years, before We were optimistic.
We thought that if you worked hardand did your due diligence you could
lift yourself up into, a good life.
And he said, now everyone is so surethat everyone is out to get them.

(08:16):
I thought that's probably true.
And I think that if we, all becomepeacemakers, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Jon (08:26):
Yeah, I think that example, if it is true, underlines the need for the
Christian life to bring hope to the world.
As we've been talking about this,Lynn you were saying, peace is almost
something contagious I was thinkingabout, almost in a liturgical way, how we
have services at different times of yearthat involve candle lighting and passing

(08:48):
a candle from one person to another.
it starts out to be a very dark place, butthen eventually the whole place is flooded
with light from all these little candles.
The candle in itself doesn't do much,but a room full of candles is amazing.
I think peace being a giftthat we can give to others.

(09:09):
That's good news to me.
thanks for being with us today.
we've got, One more Beatitudes to go.
It's a tough one.
Stay tuned.

Lynn (09:20):
Lauren is up to it.

Lauren (09:23):
Until next time,

Lynn (09:25):
Take care.