In chapter 12 of Rudy Wiebe's 1962 novel Peace Shall Destroy Many, the young protagonist, Thom Wiens, is reading a letter from Joseph Dueck, a schoolteacher who has left the community to serve in the medical corps in World War II. Joseph is struggling with understanding the concepts of peace and struggling with how to be faithful in a world of hypocrisy. The following reading is a found poem…Wiebe’s words in the voice of the character Joseph Dueck, but with my editing, selection and arrangement.
As for Peace – where do the teaching and life of Christ
come in?
in our glorious opportunities to die
for our country?
what a travesty!
other churches – bound by rigid tradition
as our Mennonite church is so bound – insist on
force to end a war
and we – we hold to peace at all cost
those other positions must be
contrary to Christ, yes?
(but is ours better?)
how great and glib are God’s children
claiming blessed status as peacemakers
for if we don’t know it…how can we make it?
is it enough to hold once’s peace in silence?
to say, ‘if all goes smoothly and i cannot be blamed’
then there is peace?
if we are blessed with good crops and avoid wars,
then there is peace?
a peace that permits us to
squabble and malign our neighbour
or neglect that neighbour entirely
and what of the angels singing…
“Peace on Earth” while
babies are killed – because another
baby was born
explain that Peace!
what did Christ mean?
surely not the peace we
too often aim at:
one to be gained by ignoring
the issues raised
no, he could not have meant
something so static
not some outward quiet and comfort
nor some sham, slothful peace
rather a mighty inner river
that carries all outward circumstances before it
as if they were driftwood
an inward peace in no way
affected by outward war
but quietly overcomes it
on life’s real battlefields:
the soul of me
the soul of you
the soul of all humanity
Mick Friesen teaches high school English in Altona, Manitoba.
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