Over the past few weeks, our worship series, Courageous Peace Witness, has invited us to think about what it means not simply to believe in peace, but to practice it. We have talked about courage, conflict, reconciliation, and the ways that peacemaking sometimes asks something difficult of us. Recently, I had an unexpected opportunity to think about those questions on one of my many walks up and down High Street. 

On a beautiful Saturday morning while walking home from yoga, a man in a passing car rolled down his window and began yelling toward me. Once I turned my headphones off, it became clear that his intention was to call me the f-slur and tell me I was going to die of cancer. The whole encounter lasted only a few seconds. My first reaction was mostly confusion. I only had a few moments to even process what was happening before the car was already gone.

But the encounter stayed with me. Partly, it was because of the ugliness of the words themselves. But it also left me wondering what it means to practice everyday peacemaking when we encounter hostility. 

What does a courageous peace witness look like in this situation? 

We often imagine peacemaking as something intentional like a difficult conversation we choose to have, a conflict we work to resolve, or a protest we decide to join. But sometimes conflict simply shows up in our path. We don’t have time to prepare our words or consult our values. We have only a moment to respond.

In the few seconds of this encounter, here are some of the possible responses that flashed through my mind: 

• Show him my middle finger, possibly with some choice words to go along with it. 
• Throw the half-full cup of coffee I was carrying into his open window. 
• Act confused as if I couldn’t hear him and hopefully frustrate him.
• Calmly walk over to his car and attempt to engage him in conversation.
• Add some extra sashay-ing to my walk to show just how much of an f-slur I am proud to be. 
• Cry at the state of the world where stuff like this still happens. 

Some of these are, admittedly, less befitting of a pastor. 

In the end, there was little time to do anything more than shake my head and keep walking, but each of these options (and others) kept playing through my head. I don’t actually believe there was a “right” response. And I don’t think practicing peace means responding graciously to every act of hostility, putting ourselves in danger, or absorbing someone else’s hatred without boundaries. Peace is not passivity, and loving our enemies does not mean allowing ourselves or others to be mistreated.

If nothing else, this experience has given me an appreciation to be a part of a community that is working toward “nurturing a courageous peace witness.” 

I’m grateful to be a part of a community that challenges me to creatively respond to conflict in ways that refuse to meet violence with more violence, even if spilling coffee into this person’s car would have felt so good in the moment.

I’m thankful to be a part of a community where the worth and belovedness of who I am is affirmed so deeply that I can laugh in the face of those who try to tear me down with hateful rhetoric, even if there’s a deep part of me that still feels that sting and that strengthens my resolve to stand up for others who might not feel as secure in this belovedness. 

I’m appreciative of the many ways we as a community continue to have these conversations about the hard work of peacemaking so that we build the skills and habits that help us respond rather than react, even if all the less-than-peaceful reactions and scenarios continue to play through my mind. 

I am still figuring out what courageous peace looks like in practice. But that work of nurturing courageous peace is the important part. We prepare ourselves, little by little, so that when unexpected moments of hostility find us, our deepest values have some chance of guiding our response. And eventually, those practices of peace become simply a part of who we are.