How to shape peace today

On International Day of Peace, Christine Schliesser counts today’s conflicts, deliberately imagines peace, and recalls an old song.

Christine Schliesser

Christine Schliesser lectures in Theology and Ethics at Zurich University, and is a scientific collaborator with the Center for Faith & Society at Fribourg University.

a dirt barricade blocks a cross roads, behind which stands a roadside cross

A crossroads in Ukraine.

Jonny Gios on Unsplash.

One in four. This is the number of people living in conflict-affected areas on this planet. A record 100 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide. Psychologists tell us that we can only process numbers in the two-digit realm in a meaningful way. Any number larger than that eclipses our capacities to attach a face, a story, an existence to that number. 100,000,000 is simply too large to picture. So imagine the entire UK population on the run, plus the population of Australia, plus that of Hongkong. In 2022, 16,988 civilians were killed in armed conflicts, which is a 53 per cent increase compared to the year before. And as you read these lines, there are 32 ongoing violent conflicts in the world, including drug wars, terrorist insurgencies, ethnic conflict, and civil wars.

Just as we are overwhelmed with trying to grasp the extent of violence, conflict and war, we are equally at loss with imagining peace. When in 1981 the United Nations General Assembly established the International Day of Peace (IDP), it was recognizing exactly this by emphasizing that “it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. Constructing, envisioning, imagining. The tough world of realpolitik, however, seems to leave no place for such kind of romantic games of mind. Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor of Germany, made no attempt to hide his scorn for the imaginary, “Let him who has visions consult a doctor”. This shows a remarkable misconception of reality, however. French philosopher Henri Bergson points to the power of imagination, for to invent “gives being to what did not exist; it might never have happened”. Perceiving and transforming reality thus become mutually supportive forces. And the numbers above make it clear that peace is not the default option of reality, but needs to be envisioned. “Inventing peace”, as film director Wim Wenders calls this conscious effort.

Restoring momentum to the SDGs is a crucial sign of life for global cooperation – and for peace.

So peace begins in our minds, but it cannot remain there. Just as love yearns to be embodied, peace seeks concrete shape. And just as the shape of love is acts of kindness, the shape of peace is acts of justice. In the Jewish and Christian tradition, the term shalom is used to convey this kind of inclusive vision of peace and justice. This year’s International Day of Peace (IDP) coincides with the UN General Assembly. When conceived 78 years ago, a vital part of the United Nations’ raison d'être was the common vision for peace. The experiences of the horrors of two world wars totalling more than 76 million people dead – another one of these unfathomable numbers –united the nations of this world in their quest for peace. Yet the shape of peace is justice. So three years after the conception of the UN, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born, celebrating its 75th birthday this year.

As the world leaders currently convene for the UN General Assembly, however, the nations assembled there will be anything but united. The demand and supply of international collaboration seem grossly disproportionate as multiple challenges, including geopolitical, ecological and economic crises, eat away on multilateral ties. This year’s IDP also coincides with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) summit, marking the mid-point milestone of the goals.

Endorsed in 2015, the 17 SDGs unfold the vision of a better world, including the eradication of poverty, advancing education and gender equality and environmental stewardship. If justice is the currency of peace, it seems only appropriate that this year’s IDP’s theme is ‘Actions for Peace: Our Ambition for the #GlobalGoals’. “Peace is needed today more than ever”, says UN Secretary-General António Guterres. This, in turn, means that the vision spelt out by the SDGs is needed today more than ever. It is a misunderstanding to conceive of the SDGs as an add-on for better times. Rather, restoring momentum to the SDGs is, as Stewart Patrick and Minh-Thu Pham from the Carnegie Foundation point out, a crucial sign of life for global cooperation – and for peace, one may add.

To dispel the ever-prevalent “myth of redemptive violence” as the still predominant paradigm, we need exactly this kind of active imagination.

One would think that the scale of the challenges spelt out by the 17 SDGs requires the joint collaboration of all actors. Yet one factor that is strikingly absent in this equation is religion. This is all the more remarkable given the fact that 85 per cent of this planet’s population profess adherence to a faith tradition, according to the World Population Review 2022. This makes faith communities the largest transnational civil society actors. Now religion – every religion – is inherently ambivalent. But this means that each religion can not only be used to incite hatred and violence, but also contains potent resources for peace and reconciliation.

Many of the SDGs including peace, justice, equality and care of creation to name but a few align with core concerns of, for example, the Christian faith tradition. Just imagine the potential for transformational change towards peace and justice if faith-based actors worked together, among each other and with secular actors! To dispel the ever-prevalent “myth of redemptive violence” (Walter Wink) as the still predominant paradigm, we need exactly this kind of active imagination. Or as the poet of an ancient song once put it:

“Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss”.

For more information on the role of religion in the SDGs, read the Open Access book series “Religion Matters. On the Significance of Religion for Global Issues” (Routledge), edited by Christine Schliesser et al.

Article

Awe and wonder

Comment

Holidays/vacations

Monastic life

Psychology

9 July 2025

5 min read

You can find the awesome in the everyday not just on holiday

The sources of awe are not scarce, but we do overlook them

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Awesome in Singapore.

Swaroop Satheesh on Unsplash.

Are you starting to think about holidays? Have you heard yourself trotting forth the old clichés?

“We’re looking forward to getting away from it all.”

“We’re planning something special to take us out of ourselves.”

“Well, it might not be that relaxing with the *kids/dogs/relatives* – but a change is as good as a rest!”

Even if going for the budget-friendly ‘staycation’ this year, there is something about stepping out of our everyday busyness and chores that we find distinctly appealing. We hope that a change of routine, if not a change of place, will afford us some kind of renewal. On holiday we are freed to move to the edges of our lives, even if we can’t escape them entirely, and gain the view from the terrace over the box-hedge-maze of all things quotidian.

But would it help us to visit that terrace a bit more often? This has long been the recommendation of scientists, poets and prophets alike. Most recently, a 2025 study from Yale University researched experiences of “awe” in the everyday. They recruited Long Covid patients and instructed them over a three-month period to slow down several times a day, paying attention to something that they valued or found amazing, whilst breathing and noticing any tangible responses or reactions in their body. The researchers called this process “awe”: Attention, Wait and Exhale. Amongst the participants in the study, the practice of AWE induced a measurable improvement in mental health.

Of course, there have always been people who pause multiple times per day to turn their thoughts away from the mundane. In the Sixth Century, an Italian monk known as Benedict devised a “rule” for those living the monastic life, wherein brothers were required to pause for prayer eight times in every 24 hours – including in the middle of the night! This connected the members of the order not only with God but also with each other. Even if a brother found himself temporarily outside the cloister, going on a journey or working with the poor in the wider community, he was still expected to “join” his community in prayer at the regular hours, stopping whatever he was doing to pray in solidarity.

There are still Benedictine orders today, and others who seek to “pray the hours” based on brother Benedict’s rule. But for most of us, our lives are far from this monastic ideal of community and regularity, even if we do practise the Christian faith. Within a busy schedule, stopping once or twice per day to pray can be a challenge, let alone eight times and regardless of convenience! No matter how much the scientists tell us that it will lift our spirits and do us good, such timefulness is the medicine that the modern life denies. But perhaps this is where the poets can supply deficiencies?

In her great work, Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes—
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”

It’s a brilliant reminder that sources of awe are not scarce, even if we are prone to overlooking them. In speaking of “he who sees” Browning suggests that there are some people who see the world in a way that anticipates moments of wonder, and that such people are willing to “take off their shoes”. This is an allusion to the story of Moses in the Bible, who, when he encounters the miraculous mystery of the burning bush in the desert, is commanded by God to take off his shoes because the ordinary desert has now become sacred and holy ground – a place of awesome encounter.

Perhaps we should take our cue from brother Benedict, and simply stop and kneel where we are, by the side of the path, in amongst the box-hedge.

This type of atunement is available to any of us, no matter how full the schedule. Even as I write – and you read – this article right now, any of us might pause to take in our surroundings and be able to find something to value and find amazing, a little bit of heaven crammed into earth. It might be a large thing, like the view from the window, or small thing, like the curling steam rising from a cup of coffee on the desk. Anything can become meaningful if we choose to observe its meaning; anywhere can become holy ground if we make it a place of encounter with all that is awe-inspiring and that transcends our daily lives.

What stops us, I wonder? Is it that for me writing this article, and for you reading it, this is just another task that we feel we must finish so that we can hurry along to finishing something else? We must keep pressing on, threading our way through the box-hedge-maze today, because the time for visiting the terrace is not now, it’s later – in a few weeks’ time, when the schools break up and we can finally “get away from it all”.

Perhaps we should take our cue from brother Benedict, and simply stop and kneel where we are, by the side of the path, in amongst the box-hedge. If we look closely, we might even notice that it is made up of a thousand million tiny leaves, each with its own little leafy life to live, each patterned with tiny, intricate veins. Beautiful, and for no obvious reason. Most people will never notice this – but we have seen it now. In the middle of all things quotidian, here is a common bush, and it is afire with God. There is nothing to stop us noticing this, and when we have done so, we can get up, take off our shoes, and continue to walk.

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