International Day of Peace is Monday, September 21, 2026 with the theme Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day. Please refer to the Peace Committee’s article in the August News Bulletin for ideas on how your club can acknowledge this significant day.
Peace in the world begins with peace within each of us; the peace we find within can help bring peace to the world around us. This month your peace committee would like to share a reflection called Being Boat People by Jon Huckins...
"Our house is chaos. We have four young children, and on any given day they each have a friend (or three!) over at the house, eating all our food and leaving crumb trails through the living room. It’s sacred chaos, but it’s still chaos.
One day a few years ago, the “sacred” part of the chaos left the building, and it was just the kind of chaos that led to yelling, arguing, and elevated heartrates. Rosie, our second born, stood in the midst of the chaos and sternly instructed, “Let’s all just pause, take a few deep breaths, and have a family reset.
Instantly, we all felt relieved that someone had the clarity and conviction to call us back to ourselves. To name the chaos but not be swept away in it..."
Vietnamese peace activist and contemplative Thich Nhat Hanh would describe Rosie as a “boat person.” In his book Being Peace, he tells the story of fishermen in his home country who would go out to sea and often be confronted with stormy waters. The conditions would sometimes get so bad that all the fisherman aboard the boat would panic and succumb to the vast ocean. But, other times, there would be just one fisherman who would, in the midst of the stormy chaos, remain calm and instruct the others how to navigate the perilous waters. Having just one “boat person” could lead to the survival of the entire crew.
Our country—and world—are in what feels like daily chaos. It is so easy to get swept out to sea and lose ourselves by allowing the external chaos to cultivate an internal chaos that leads to blurred vision, quick judgment, and an overall sense of hopelessness.
I’ve spent nearly twenty years learning from and working alongside peacemakers embedded in global conflict zones. If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that their internal peace has to be equal or greater than their external practice of peace.
I think of my Palestinian friend, Sami, who teaches that in order to love our enemy, we must understand their story and the pain that animates their violence.
Or Shaul, an Israeli peacemaker who sat with the Palestinian family who had been hit by a Molotov cocktail thrown by someone from his village, to offer care and take ownership of an act not done directly by himself but indirectly by his community.
Or Pastor Guillermo (a.k.a., the “party priest”), whose mustachioed smile and warm embrace welcome deportees, asylum seekers, and anyone seeking “home” into community around the Eucharistic table as part of Border Church each Sunday under the shadow of the thirty-foot wall separating the US and Mexico.
Or Paulina, who, as a young woman with boundless career opportunities, chose to stay in Tijuana to open a shelter for mothers and children displaced by physical and economic violence.
These are boat people.
In the midst of a chaotic world, they are each a presence of peace. Something I’ve learned in this work is that many of us can work for peace while carrying untended violence in our hearts. We say peace, but we know nothing of it. We aren’t working from a place of belonging and wholeness. Instead, we are working out of our own wounds, shame, and trauma. It’s not that the work is bad in and of itself, but it likely won’t last and often doesn’t contribute to bringing peace in the midst of our social and political chaos.
Boat people like Rosie, Sami, Shaul, Guillermo, Paulina, and Thich Nhat Hanh offer a ballast to the chaotic soul of our society. They remind us that our individual acts of love, forgiveness, and courage are intimately connected to the healing of our society. It doesn’t take all of society to save it. Just a few of us, with the tools to navigate the storm, could save us all.
Jon is the founder and director of Journey Home, whose work is to heal soul and society through pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago and the Mexico-US Border. He has a PhD in Christian Social Ethics and has written multiple books, including co-authoring Mending the Divide: Creative Love in a Conflicted World. At the center of Jon’s life and work is living deeply rooted in his neighborhood with his wife, four kids, and house-church community in San Diego.
Our country—and world—are in what feels like daily chaos. It is so easy to get swept out to sea and lose ourselves by allowing the external chaos to cultivate an internal chaos that leads to blurred vision, quick judgment, and an overall sense of hopelessness.
I’ve spent nearly twenty years learning from and working alongside peacemakers embedded in global conflict zones. If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that their internal peace has to be equal or greater than their external practice of peace.
I think of my Palestinian friend, Sami, who teaches that in order to love our enemy, we must understand their story and the pain that animates their violence.
Or Shaul, an Israeli peacemaker who sat with the Palestinian family who had been hit by a Molotov cocktail thrown by someone from his village, to offer care and take ownership of an act not done directly by himself but indirectly by his community.
Or Pastor Guillermo (a.k.a., the “party priest”), whose mustachioed smile and warm embrace welcome deportees, asylum seekers, and anyone seeking “home” into community around the Eucharistic table as part of Border Church each Sunday under the shadow of the thirty-foot wall separating the US and Mexico.
Or Paulina, who, as a young woman with boundless career opportunities, chose to stay in Tijuana to open a shelter for mothers and children displaced by physical and economic violence.
These are boat people.
In the midst of a chaotic world, they are each a presence of peace. Something I’ve learned in this work is that many of us can work for peace while carrying untended violence in our hearts. We say peace, but we know nothing of it. We aren’t working from a place of belonging and wholeness. Instead, we are working out of our own wounds, shame, and trauma. It’s not that the work is bad in and of itself, but it likely won’t last and often doesn’t contribute to bringing peace in the midst of our social and political chaos.
Boat people like Rosie, Sami, Shaul, Guillermo, Paulina, and Thich Nhat Hanh offer a ballast to the chaotic soul of our society. They remind us that our individual acts of love, forgiveness, and courage are intimately connected to the healing of our society. It doesn’t take all of society to save it. Just a few of us, with the tools to navigate the storm, could save us all.
Jon is the founder and director of Journey Home, whose work is to heal soul and society through pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago and the Mexico-US Border. He has a PhD in Christian Social Ethics and has written multiple books, including co-authoring Mending the Divide: Creative Love in a Conflicted World. At the center of Jon’s life and work is living deeply rooted in his neighborhood with his wife, four kids, and house-church community in San Diego.