The Price of Peace by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

When you look at the heart of every religious tradition, you see that the starting point in each is the profound limitless sense of belonging. There is no religion in the world that would not subscribe to this.

[Cont. from page 1] ... Now, why do I say that only religion can give us the energy to pay this price? It is because I do not identify religion with religions. If I did, I couldn’t possibly say this. But there must be some relationship between religion and the religions. What is it that makes religions religious?

When you look at the heart of every religious tradition, you see that the starting point in each is the profound limitless sense of belonging. There is no religion in the world that would not subscribe to this. God does not need to be introduced here, but if you want to make this introduction, God is the reference point for that sense of belonging. Belonging comes first. It's not out there; it's something you experience inside, personally. And in the moments in which you personally experience that deep sense of belonging, you experience peace. Religion is peace, because that experience of limitless belonging is one of tranquility and security, and it is experienced in an attitude of non-violence. Violence makes no sense at all in that context.

It is a long way from the religious experience at the heart of every religious tradition to the religions as we find them today. But we can at least indicate the direction that way takes. First, that sense of belonging or peace is interpreted in all its different aspects, and this leads to that part of every religious tradition that is called doctrine. Secondly, that sense of universal belonging, of peace, tranquility, security and non-violence, is celebrated, and this leads to that aspect of every religious tradition that is called ritual. Then there is the willingness to live out that peace, to make it a reality, and this is morality – the commitment to living out of a sense of belonging, to realizing that peace.

The means by which we can measure how close religions come to being religious is by how truly they realize peace. Some of them limit that commitment. "Yes, we live out our belonging, but these people are the ones who belong to us on these and these conditions – and then there are all those people outside." When these limits are no longer drawn, when the commitment to living out of that sense of belonging becomes universal, then to that extent that particular religious tradition is religious. In the course of history, religions have become more religious and then less religious, and then they reform and again become more religious. It goes up and down. We should expect that. If it happens in our own personal lives why should it not happen in the religious traditions?

Now, if we stand in a particular religious tradition, we have both the responsibility and the right to use its structures to bring about the best goals for which those structures have been set up. We can use them to bring about peace, and sometimes the structures do more than one individual can. But before we can mobilize these structures we have to make our religions religious. That is the great task for anyone who stands in any particular religious tradition.

If we are one with all, then we will hurt when others hurt – and then we will be willing to give up privileges. We will be willing to pay the price. We will be able to sing to the end, and we will have the trust and courage and knowledge – deep, ingrained knowledge – that this singing will go on regardless of whether somebody smashes our teeth or our hands that play the instrument.

So finally, I would ask you to address yourselves to four questions, and to commit yourselves to what we have been talking about:

• Do you commit yourself to live from that heart of hearts where we are one with all?

• Do you commit yourself to rise to your responsibility, to go one little step at a time on the road of peace?

• Do you commit yourself to giving up as best you can complicity in exploitation?

• Do you, remembering as T.S. Eliot put it, “A condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything,” commit yourself to the risk of making peace happen?

If you will do all this, we are very well on the road of peace.

-- Br. David Steindl-Rast