peace

The priest called out for the people to pray for world peace during yesterday's mass. Nineteen years ago, the school priest requested for the same thing from us first graders. Nineteen years. God that's awful long time. It got me thinking - am I really that old? Heh. Seriously though, it got me thinking if peace is really that elusive. Or if it is even attainable at all. Perhaps it's like non-fat ice cream, or instant-beauty-in-seven-days toiletries, or a "good" break-up - something that doesn't really exist but we have been made to believe in. Anyway, I tried to do a mental walk back accounting for the time when this yearning might have begun but all the thinking had me uncomfortable inside the church (read: awfully hot inside) so I stopped when I reached the post-Eden era. In any case, those are centuries piled on top of more centuries of men and their unwavering clamor for that utopia. Although there is no singular definition of peace, it has three requisites based on my understanding - 1) there must be a state of harmony and contentment, 2) there is an absence of hostility of any form and size, and 3) there is justice. In short, attaining peace in its most general sense is an impossibility. However, since it is also a perceived reality, this state of mind may be well within our reach as individuals if we could only be satisfied, fulfilled and more accepting to our limits as human beings.