Pieces of peace

There is a section in the UN headquarters that tells stories of men and women who worked and perished in their quest for peace. There is a place at the entrance of the General Assembly Hall where the UN’s Nobel Peace Prize medal is inconspicuously mounted, one has to peek closely at the installation to confirm that it is indeed the award the organization received in 2001 for its decades long work for peace. After all, it was in the aftermath of the Second World War when 51 founding members established the United Nations.

These days when the pursuit for peace remains fragile (we simply have to read and watch the daily headlines), it is always comforting to look at subtle fragments of calm around us. It is uplifting to appreciate how the work for peace comes in many forms beyond arms, dialogues and negotiations, which ordinary human beings like us have very little control of.  Like when art becomes an instrument of peace.

On the eve of a major event in our modern Philippine history, a nonviolent transition that inspired the world, which happens to be a momentous date of my life, we watched “For Ukraine: A Concert of Remembrance and Hope” at the Metropolitan Opera House. The stellar Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus led by the spirited celebrity conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin dedicated a heart-stopping two-part performance featuring compositions of musical geniuses Mozart and Beethoven.

In part one, the symphony of cellos, violins, drums and the vintage pipe organ resounded Mozart’s Requiem to honor the memory of countless Ukrainain soldiers and civilians who died in the ongoing battle. The chorus and quartet (the tenor and bass-baritone, both Ukranians) rendered hymns like Kyrie, Domine Jesu and Benedictus, which set the somber mood for the over a thousand audience of the Lincoln Center to commit to memory why we were there. War indeed makes us very sad and the feeling became more palpable at the sight of a group of young soldiers, amputees in crutches in combat uniforms, present among the crowd.

But it was also a night of hope. In a video message at the start of the concert, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska expressed the irony that “we should not be actually commemorating” the first year of war. She was deeply grateful to the movers and artists, thanked the Met and ascertained that “art indeed saves lives.”

If in part one Nézet-Séguin’s baton swung from commanding and almost incensed, bits of sweat sparkled from his forehead, in part two he was tranquil, radiating an aura of powerful expectation that the dreadful war shall come to pass. This as the orchestra reverberated Beethoven’s familiar Symphony No. 5 in C Minor resonant of a call for hope and courage.

The finale was A Prayer for Ukraine, rendered in their language, which I read with the help of a translation device in front of me. It was an imploring plea, an aching prayer eloquently encapsulated in nine longing lyrics sung a capella – Give us faith, strength and hope. Lord protect us. The chorus faded when night fell but the prayer had certainly reached the heavens.

Oftentimes, it is reassuring to appreciate the heartbeats of life around us and be sensitive to how neighbors and strangers enthusiastically do their part to make our world a more serene place. At lunchtime on Valentine’s day, I craved for my favorite vegetable biryani and samosas craftily prepared by an elderly food cart vendor I now fondly call Sir. Sir already knows my usual fix, which he follows with a hushed instruction to his wife-cashier for “two extra samosas, no money,” meaning a freebie. This ritual always delights me and remembering it was Valentine’s I gratefully said, “Thank you Sir, I really love your food.”

With an endearing side-glance to his unusually silent chatty wife that day, he blurted out “I love you too!” as he handed my to-go box, she my change. I left the stand thrilled, knowing that he responded to an appreciation of his culinary expertise and generosity. They sounded more like adoring, end-of-hostility verses to the lovely lady beside him, whose deep-set eyes suddenly sparked as they met mine. Did they just have a lovers’ quarrel before I came? I smiled wondering. If that was not a refined gesture of peace, I do not what it is.

In our quaint neighborhood where the elderly walk about for errands even in chilly weather, the sight of someone assisting a hunched lady fix her load or pull out a cartwheel stuck in a sidewalk gap brings joy. When someone says sorry to a line of customers in a shop for an inconvenience caused at the cashier, the hassled understand. In the morning or afternoon rush, giving way to a hurried commuter to enter the train or bus already signals harmony.

One of my favorite Jesuit priest-writers Father James Martin, SJ in his book, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, writes about our “failure to bother” in reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Most of the time motifs of peace happen in the mundane.  They come about when we bother. Kindness brings peace.

Back at the UN, I once spent half a day musing over a well-curated exhibit about the Holocaust, narrating the lives of dispersed persons and life in dispersed persons camps. The images were harrowing, the details even more repulsive. It is unimaginable they actually happened. What was pacifying about the exhibit were the rousing stories of how women, unaccompanied children, a whole generation of Jews rebuilt their scarred lives through global cooperation.

One of the frames that struck me was about a group of 29 servicing offices and missions that helped in global reconstruction in 1946. The Philippines was one of them. My heart swelled at that note; I left the exhibit hall with profound patriotic pride at how our country promoted peace.