Each year a team of people working for Webster's Dictionary meet to decide which new words to add to their latest edition. They apparently make their selections based partly upon these questions: is the word in widespread use? Does it have staying power, or is it a passing fad?
Recent new inclusions include the words hangry (becoming bad tempered as a result of being hungry), newsjacking (the practice of aligning a brand with a current event in an attempt to generate media attention and boost the brand's exposure) and Kompromat (compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, usually for a political purpose).
The words which we choose to use matter. The usage and creation of new words often reflects the preoccupations and values of a culture. I wonder then what these words say about our culture?
This year a group of people involved in peacebuilding have proposed that the word peacebuilding be given a dictionary definition. It seems reasonable they argue, that the activities of the many people around the world who are committed to the prevention of conflict and the promotion of a lasting peace be included in the dictionary alongside warmongers, firebrands and rabble-rousers. In 1992, the UN defined peacebuilding, alongside peacekeeping and peacemaking (both already in the dictionary), as a distinct and essential means to helping war-torn societies transition from violence to peace.
Peacebuilding is, by its nature, an unheralded and hidden activity. It is a word which describes something which is difficult, something that requires stamina and patience, and there are particular dispositions found in those called to that work, whom the prophet Isaiah called “repairers of the breach”.
One such peacebuilder, Martin Luther King, once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” Others today endorse that hopeful trajectory with statistics suggesting that a less violent humanity is evolving. I pray for that to be true. If it is, then we are going to need even more peacemakers to keep us on track.
We live in a time of great verbal as well as physical violence. And verbal aggression is often a precursor to physical. Our words do matter. Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers.” And I believe that, and ask your prayers for all involved in that effort, but we must also remember that the inheritors of peace are also blessed. We may not live our lives in that awareness, but we are blessed in this country by an inheritance of a peace built upon the efforts of others who have tried to weave together the fabric of a diverse and free society to create something whole.
Perhaps we need a new word which more fully acknowledges that, and perhaps we also need to acknowledge that we are all called to be peacemakers, peacebuilders and peacekeepers today so that those who follow us can inherit the same.*
Get involved!
Comments