Solomon wrote wisdom literature. Adding to his experience, he had an eminent teacher in his father, David, and in the documents of Moses as well as the records of the Judges and others in Israel. He knew something of the successes and failures of neighboring nations. He cultivated good relationships, especially through his marriages with kings’ daughters, so to avoid war. He appeared to have been prepared for it if the kingdom were invaded. He did everything he could to avoid the bloodshed that stained so many hands of kings, including those of his father. In this menu of state he succeeded. His faults were personal: his greatest virtues were also personal.
But war may be humanly irrepressible. An eminent historian wrote of the American Civil War: The Irrepressible Conflict. It was clear to insightful analysts of the times that war would come after 1850, the date of the Great Compromise on slavery that was designed by Clay, Webster and Calhoun. No one was satisfied with the legislation, but it avoided war for a time. Such a compromise drew a line, the Mason Dixon line, in the sand. The compromise was unsatisfactory, and would increasingly appear so in the decade following. Slavery could not go on. Increasingly the North opposed it. Increasingly the South supported it. A conflict was irrepressible. A war had to be fought. Free nations cannot long exist, half slave and half free. Social and personal rights would not be mutual. Debate and counsel would not prevail. National loyalty would not prevail. Rights in economy and religious faith would not hold. Only war would serve, with one side defeating the other side and forcing its solution.
Although I am tempted to follow this up with remarks about international ways of doing things, my purpose is personal more than social. I am dealing with a number of wars just now. The wars between husbands and wives are psychologically bloody. They have, for some, become irrepressible conflicts. The only treaty will be the divorce papers where the signatories will end a relationship that was born on what many consider the most beautiful day of their lives – their wedding day. The shared equivalents will be forgotten, at least for the signing of the treaty. The children are forced to accept the decision, as the end of the war. Their parents will never be quite the same to them. Society and friends, impacted by the former relationship, have to adjust to this new one. Two rather good people have become enemies, even if benign. They have not found resources or inclination to work through their problems. They have found, in a civilized way, divorce, given of God through Moses on how to end conflict, but the solution is forced. It is not the product of the best in the persons, and it is not God’s first choice. In less dramatic ways than in marriage and divorce we face daily decisions that ought to be made by our better persons. In this there is blessing and honor. And it is exactly what Jesus tried to get people to do – and he still urges. With virtue and high values, with patience and grace, two persons, or twenty, or whole communities may find solutions, good will, and ways to get on with each other. Differences that make persons appear less than they were meant to be, do not serve us well. It takes some grace, objectivity, hope, sacrifice, and love, to learn peace. The process requires humility of both the guilty persons and the aggrieved. No one takes all the guilt, and no one takes all the benefit. There is often mutual guilt and mutual innocence, even when the burden is greater, even greater by far, in one than the other. The most innocent pays the greater price, as did the Savior in his offering for the guilt of loving all. One seeks peace because no other context finds permanent solutions, and no other is more like unto the loving Prince of Peace. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020