Hope for Peace

By Kendyll Gage-Ripa (13 years old)

             Her eyes open to reveal the morning light streaming through her window.  It is a new day, a new beginning, a peaceful new dawn.  But, her peaceful world is shattered by a gun shot, and it feels to her as if what was once whole is now torn apart, broken, as if the bullet had shattered the very window through which, just moments before, the sunlight streamed, and danced upon her windowsill.  Out on the street a man lies dead, and for what?  People need no excuse to kill, all they need is the means to do it.

            Ours is a violent world.  We turn on the news and the dark cloud that is violence creeps into our minds, and into our hearts.

            Hope for peace is always there.   Like a flame, the hope for peace sometimes blazes with light, sometimes flickers to a faint whisper.  But it shines on, here, within or hearts, never completely going out.  Peace is something we take for granted, like a flowering tree.  The soft petals emerging from the hard wood.  This miracle is amazing, how something so soft and delicate can be born from something so hard  But every spring, without fail, blossoming trees line the avenues and streets, like ships docked at a harbor, their branches, the sails, swaying in the breeze.

            Human beings have always turned to violence to solve our problems because it is the easiest solution.  A peaceful world would require real work.  To be violent it takes only one individual, but for peace we must strive together.  In striving for peace, we must each do our part, and work together to achieve our goal.  Peace is in our everyday lives, in acts of kindness, in friendship, in trust, and in love.  Through these small actions, we build a larger picture, a picture of a peaceful world.  But now, our peaceful picture is poised on the brink of a steep precipice, and one small tap could send it plummeting down to its destruction on the rocks below.

            We humans are one people, all the same, and at the same time, all different.  We are all of different races, creeds, and backgrounds, but we are all human beings, and we all live on earth.  If violence takes hold of our earth, it will affect every one of us.  If we destroy our fellow people, it is as if we destroy ourselves.  For each person who dies has someone to weep for them.  For every son or husband who does not return home, a mother, a wife will weep.  For every city that burns from our hatred, for each person who screams in pain, there will be someone to weep. 

            Each of us holds the key to peace, the key that will turn the lock around our hearts, and open the door.  Each and every one of us has the power to invest in ourselves and make ours a peaceful world, by working together, by loving, not hating, by using words, not fists, and by thinking before impulsively striking out.  We, the children, are the generation of the future.  It is up to us to change the world. 

 
Back to Index Page