‘For the first time in the assault, strikes targeted the crowded Shiite residential neighborhoods in south Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah’s leadership.

An initial wave before dawn hit near Hezbollah’s security headquarters and targeted roads, damaging two overpasses. The facades of nearby apartment buildings were shorn away, balconies toppled onto cars and the street was littered by glass from shattered windows. Firefighters struggled to put out several blazes.

A young man with blood pouring down his face was shown on Lebanese TV walking out of a damaged apartment building.’

‘Israel hopes the fighting, which has killed more than 40 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, eventually will lead to a broader cease-fire deal.’
- AP news excerpts: read full article here

Some of you, especially those in Hong Kong, notice that I say “peace” a lot…it’s usually my goodbye greeting Honestly I prefer the word in Hebrew: shalom–the english word “peace” sounds kind of weak for me.

Now, it may be strange to hear somebody say that peace is NOT weak! Peace connotes weakness and fragility; temporality and unrealism. War is strength; fighting is concrete; conflict is realistic. Peace is a dove, War is a gun. Peace denotes weakness of conviction; war, by contrast, denotes faith–strong belief, self-sureness, and stability of mind. Which is stronger: the barrel of a tank or a white flag?

Peace. When I utter this word I make no reference to a peace of weakness and convictionless compromise. I refer to the shalom that infused Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day. This peace is highly aggressive, perpetually on the offense, its weapon its own body, willing to suffer death rather than take up death’s weapons. It refuses the terms of kill or be killed; it gets in the way of conflict, absorbing hatred into itself and returning, by grace alone, good for evil. It chooses dialogue over the gun; love over revenge; it takes the step back when pride can only push humanity farther toward the brink of self-extinction.

Peace. Ghandi said that violent courage was always preferable to cowardly apathy. Nonviolent peacemaking ought not to attract cowards who had never picked up a gun, but militants who were willing to lay their guns down. “I would pick a violent, courageous person over a nonviolent coward anyday,” he said. “A coward cannot be taught courage, but out of a violent person I can make a nonviolent one.” Peacemaking takes courage; to walk into battle, gunless, with the same dedication as the soldier–to fight and lay down one’s life–is strength. Che Guevara railed against this idea. It was nonsense to him. To a world that has known only war, it is totally illogical. Yet Ghandi, MLK, and countless other movements and movement leaders have found that it is miraculously practical, delivering both the oppressor and the oppressed from evil, and less costly–yes, in terms of human life–than war.

Peace. I began saying this as a political utterance, a reminder to myself of the coming reign of God, the city of God, the city of Shalom, and the coming judgment on seemingly impervious and blasphemous powers. It is a rich word for me, and I took it up as sacrament rather than fashion. I have said it once and I will say it again: peace is not at ALL just the absence of conflict. It is not a name for a negative state of being, a minus sign. On the contrary, it is the full, abiding, overflowing presence of justice and love. Peace is not just “harmonious.” To the world that is all it is. Frailty. Temporality. Compromise. Absence. But God presents to us a better peace than that. Shalom. Shalom is love and justice to the hilt, diffusing throughout society like yeast in dough.