We live in a complex world where people are hurting people, and yet it is one world, our world – God’s world. 
Peace is about fighting – or lack-there-of – but even more it is about life and relationship, with others and with God. The Hebrew word “shalom” is a far bigger word than the English “peace” meaning: peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. We are peace makers – or can be, but also we are to embody peace to be peace in all that we do, to be Shalom.
A Christ-centered community, sharing Jesus' love with each other and the world.
Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. —St. Francis of Assisi
… there are lots of times when you cannot not think a certain way. … This is why all healing and prayer must descend into the unconscious where the lies we’ve believed are hidden in our wounds. – Rohr
“It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace, show little of that belief in actual practice.” – Gandhi
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. – John (1 John 4:17-18 The Message)
Jesus’ teachings seem to have been understood rather clearly during the first few hundred years after his death and resurrection. Values like nonparticipation in war, simple living, and love of enemies were common among his early followers. – Rohr
If you overcome your enemies, you’ve failed. If you make your enemies your partners, God has succeeded. – Thomas Keating
… when the imperial edict of AD 313 elevated Christianity to a privileged position in the Roman Empire, the church increasingly accepted, and even defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war, money, and class. – Rohr
When people use violence in the name of God and religion, they are forgetting that God’s greatest wish for us is compassion. “When I look at a fanatic I am not reminded of God. Instead I am afraid…of the rage, the power. Fanaticism takes our attention away from God and brings it instead to human beings who are trying to usurp the position of God. They want to be the arbiter of truth. They want to be the ones who declare God’s will. They want to be the judges. The moral authority. The ones who bestow reward and punishment.” – Susannah Heschel
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. – John (John 3:16-18 The Message)
If you look at texts in the hundred years preceding 313, it was unthinkable that a Christian would fight in the army. The army was killing Christians; Christians were being persecuted. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian, and Christians were killing the “pagans.” In a two-hundred-year period, we went from being complete outsiders to directing the inside! Once you are inside, you have to defend your power and your privilege. – Rohr
This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God. – John (1 John 4:13-16 The Message)
Jesus did not just give us textbook and transactional answers, but personally walked through the full human journey of both failure and rejection—while still forgiving his enemies—and then said, “Follow me” and do likewise. – Rohr