Why Can’t We Choose Shalom?

From far away

you look like my friend.

If I blur the headlines,

if I mute the speeches,

if I silence the maps

that draw lines like scars across the earth 

you look like someone

I could share bread with.

God did not paint us in one color.

He scattered us like wildflowers  red and yellow, black and white,

languages rising like incense,

hands shaped differently

but made for the same purpose:

to hold.

He gave us oceans wide enough

to marvel at,

skies large enough

to forgive under,

soil rich enough

to feed every child born.

And yet…

sirens scream where lullabies should be.

Missiles fly where kites once danced.

Mothers count seconds

instead of blessings.

Brothers become soldiers.

Fathers become photographs.

Somewhere tonight

a child asks,

“Why?”

and no one has an answer

that does not taste like smoke.

You say it is strategy.

You say it is defense.

You say it is history.

But history is always written

over someone’s kitchen table

that will never be used again.

When Love hung on a cross

arms stretched wide enough

to hold the whole world,

He did not divide us.

He said forgive.

He said love.

He said blessed are the peacemakers.

What happened to that?

Words fail us now.

Writers sit before blank pages.

Singers swallow their songs.

Even the birds fall silent

as if creation itself

is holding its breath.

We left our homelands

for safety,

for dignity,

for a better morning.

Now we watch from screens

as sirens echo

in the streets we once walked.

Family under skies

split open by fire.

From a distance

you still look like my friend.

And I do not know anymore

what is right

what is wrong

who began

who retaliated

who justified

who escalated.

I only know

every uniform

covers a beating heart.

Every “enemy”

is someone’s beloved.

And somewhere beneath

politics and power

and pride and fear

there is a whisper

older than war:

Shalom.

Peace that is not merely absence of bullets

but presence of mercy.

Peace that is not silence after destruction

but harmony before it begins.

Why can’t we choose it?

Why do we keep choosing fire

when we were made

from breath?

Tonight, God,

teach us again

how to see each other

not as borders

but as brothers.

Teach us how to lay down

what destroys.

Teach us

how to choose

shalom.