The Guiding Star

If I’d written this post just a few hours earlier, it could have been an entirely different read. As it is you, my readers, get the benefit of the two hours in-between. See that’s when I got my hope back.

On Friday, I hopped (well you don’t really hop as much as you trudge) aboard a C-130 airplane to fly south, down to southern Kandahar.  The colonel in our office was holding a “Shura” or the Afghan version of a meeting with community leaders. To discuss “Peace and Reconciliation” in Afghanistan…

For the past two months, I’ve developed more and more those tingly goosebumps you get when something just can’t be coincidence. You see two months ago Afghanistan experienced something that hasn’t happened here in over 40 years – peace. Don’t get me wrong it was just a tiny moment, a blip, in fact it came in the form of a ceasefire. For three incredible days the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and the Taliban agreed to a ceasefire.  They spent those three days putting their guns down, and instead taking selfies with each other and eating ice cream.

Then we all went back to war.

So here it is, this past December as our church prepared for Christmas, I was away on a Navy Reserve drill weekend in Florida when our congregation came together for a special Christmas fellowship meal. During the service our Pastor at the time, Pasto Ben, passes around a basket filled with paper stars. On each start was printed one word. Pastor Ben told everyone there to pull a star and let the word on that star guide them for the upcoming year, much like the star that guided the wise men to a small baby in a manager.

Later once I was back from my trip he shared with me what the moment had been, the beauty in it the Holy Spirit, the love and fellowship in the room. He described how various members of our congregation – a congregation that is so close with one another – that it is a family more so than a congregation. How one by one they pulled words that could only have been meant for each of them specifically. So he offered me the opportunity to pull one of the few remaining words from the basket.

I remember laughing. We all knew at this point that I was headed to Afghanistan, and I remember saying – what word in this basket would be meant for me. I asked him if he had included “war.”

I was still smiling when I pulled out my star and it read “Peace.”

Yesterday, I sat in a room, more like a large air-conditioned garage with beat up old sofas, mismatched folding tables, three sheets of white paper, markers and a head scarf. And it was the word “peace” that was most prevalent.

Our small team of U.S. service members was joined by senior leaders and spokespeople in the Afghan city of Kandahar – both men and women, government, military and religious leaders. We had gathered to talk about the messages of peace and reconciliation that they could share with their communities.

After hours of dialogue, I realized it was past lunchtime and we’d talked only about the tools we could use to convey the message and not really about the message itself. The more they talked, the more I thought, “They don’t know what the message is, and they don’t know what the message is because they’ve never experienced peace.”

So, what is peace? Do we Americans take it for granted? Do you experience peace? Can you define it and describe it?

I desperately wanted to know what peace means to Afghans. We didn’t quite get to that in the Shura yesterday. But from our conversation what I heard was TRUST has to come first. There was and is little trust. The Taliban don’t trust that if they reconcile the police won’t immediately throw them in prison and torture them (described by an Afghan defense attorney). There is little trust for the people in Kabul receiving money from the international community, but without the little to no knowledge about what is needed in communities like Kandahar. Over and over I heard the pain that resulted from this missing element of trust.

When I arrived back in Kabul, it was with a heavy heart and a hopeless soul. I’d heard stories in Kandahar – once a base that held over 30,000 people, now a mere fraction of that – it is really more of a ghost town. I heard about the period in 2012 as the United States starting scaling back and the service members were burning everything, containers full of medals that were never awards, printer ink that had dried out in the sun, and a container full of school supplies that couldn’t be handed over to the Afghans.

Sitting back at my desk I turned to one of our cultural advisors, he is from Kandahar, and I asked him what is peace for Afghanistan? He hesitated, and I asked him to just tell me what comes first to mind.

He said equality for all people – everywhere in the world. And then he added freedom of speech. People in Afghanistan are smart and have ideas of what they want the future to be for their children, but they are afraid to say it.

It was at that point the last bit of hope started to float out of my soul. So I went where I know to go when your soul is low on hope – to the chapel.

I walked in and everyone was singing the hymn I’ve been humming to myself for weeks. It was like God was holding me in the palm of his hand from the moment I walked in the door. And then God, through
the message tonight, reminded me very clearly that when your soul fills with hopelessness that prayer is the answer.

Ah, my readers, and who knows peace better than the peace of the Lord.

I pray tonight for peace in this country. For days ahead when the children don’t know others in their life who have dies in brutal ways. For days ahead when smart and passionate leaders can speak freely in ways that will improve this country and enable the people here to flourish. I pray for equality here amongst the tribes, the men and women, the rich and poor, the old and young. I pray that the people’s hearts are open to trust one another, and pure enough to earn that trust. I pray that we the international community that seeks so desperately to enable and evolve the nation of Afghanistan can do so with the utmost humility and good will. I pray that as Americans we value the peace we live in. I pray a prayer of thanksgiving Lord that I have experienced peace and know the beauty of such safety and plenty in my life. I pray most of all asking that you allow me to be an instrument of your peace.