Samuel Muiruri, a young man from Nakuru Kenya, shares of his journey to peace.
“Then he breathed to them and said: peace be with you…………”
I have always shared the greeting of peace among my brothers and sisters and even made countless prayers for peace. But just recently I realized that I do not know the real meaning of peace. Immediately after the post election violence in Kenya back in 2008, I saw that I had generated a lot of hate towards people of other ethnic tribes. I found it easy to blame the other ethnic groups for the conflicts and ethnic divisions.
The opinions I held and the way I expressed them fuelled hate and disintegration amongst my own community. There was a great deal of violence and tension in the area where I was living and a friend of mine, who was from a different tribe, came to me asking for safety and protection because he feared that he might be harmed. I could not honestly imagine welcoming him to my premises, even though we had been close friends for a long time. I felt that if my people realized that I had done so, they could reject me and even withdraw me from the community.
My friend had great faith in me and after some time I could not resist any more. So eventually I offered him a place at our rural home, which was a few kilometres from the town where the problems were occurring. Hardly did I realize that I had welcomed Jesus in my life by welcoming this friend. This was the genesis of my transformation. I realized that I have been taught to feel that the tribe I belong to is better than others- and I admit there is a feeling of superiority in me which I received when I was a child. This feeling generates a hidden attitude in approaching a discussion with some people; I feel their opinion might be inferior.
I need to change and see the negative inside of my own community and moreover inside myself and begin to live the word of SaintPaul, 'consider others more important than yourself'. To elaborate this point, I wish to quote a part of the diary written by Etty Hillesum. She was a young Jewish lady, and wrote her diary under the brutal oppression of Hitler in the concentration camp where she was killed together with thousands of her people.
The rottenness of others is in us,
I see no other solution,
I really see no other solution than to turn inward
And to root out all the rottenness there…….
…….I no longer believe that we can change
Anything in the world
Until we have changed ourselves first,
And that seems to be the only lesson
To be learned from this war:
That we must look into ourselves and no where else.
All I really want to say is this:
We have so much work to do on ourselves
That we shouldn’t even be thinking
Of hating our so called enemies.
The only thing we can do,
And I see no other alternative,
Is that each one of us must turn
Inward and destroy in himself
All that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
And remember that every atom of hate we add to this world
Makes it still more inhospitable.
This made me reflect about my life and the life of other generations to come. I realized that I had to disarm myself from all forms of rottenness and instead arm myself with a sense of true community. Since then I have involved myself in the mission of changing the mindset and hearts of young people in my country. I strongly believe that in order to attain achievable results I must target the upcoming generation with tools of change that shall enable them to influence change in their parents as well.
My principle is that true love can solve all the problems and differences because it can transform our hearts, and in the process, win our opponents and transform their hearts as well.
