THE PEACEFUL ROOM

Once upon a time a woman who worked at the United Nations had a dream. She went to bed around 11 o’clock at night after a long day of work at the United Nations. All day long people were going to the microphone and yelling at other people. Nobody was getting along with anybody. It was a very frustrating day at work.

However, there was one peaceful moment during the day. It was around 12 noon - when she went down to the Day Care Center at the United Nations 1st floor – in the back – which lead out to a neat garden and a small park with swings and see saws and slides – a sand box and even a skate board section, etc. etc. etc. It was raining outside so all these kids of all kinds of colors and looks and languages – had to be indoors in the big Day Care Center Room and they were all getting along with each other. It was a moment of peace for this lady – and she had lunch with her 4 year old daughter, Maria.

Then she had to go back up stairs – to all the arguing and yelling and word fighting about what’s going wrong all around our world. It reminded her of family fights in the van when she was a kid.

So that night she had her dream – and dreams after long days of stress or long worries about stress for the next day – sometimes pull together hopes for what might be. Sometimes they are worse nightmares.

Her good dream was about the Day Care Center at the United Nations Building. She saw all the kids there all understanding each other – even though all the kids were speaking different languages. She didn’t understand them – but these little kids all understood each other as they were playing their games and eating lunch and snacks together.

Now remember this was just a dream – one of those interesting movies in our mind that play in the middle of some nights.

In her dream every kid in the room was getting along with every other kid in the room – when suddenly all the kids could hear screaming upstairs in the big General Assembly Room.

So in her dream all the kids made a long chain of hands – and they marched out of the Day Care room in the back of the first floor of the big United Nations Building and were heading upstairs.

The teachers and guardians who were there to supervise this big room full of kids were dumbfounded – but they didn’t stop the kids. They had never experienced anything like this before.

The kids continued on their way to the big hall filled with their parents and people from every country in the world – and they marched into the hall – a big long chain of kids holding hands.

The adults were still yelling and fighting till suddenly everyone caught sight of the human chain of kids.

The kids then made a circle around all the adults and then they let go of each other’s hands – all at once – as if they had practiced this for days – and then every kid put a finger to their lips as if they practiced this till they got it perfect. Then they all went “Shush!” and then each said the word, “Peace” in their own language.

Paz, Rahu, Nabada, Rafi, Taika, Paci, Samaya, Santi, Mir, Beki, Nagaya, Lumana, and on and on and on – till every kid finished saying, “Peace” in his or her own language.

And the adults began to cry. Then they smiled. Then they clapped their hands. Then all the adults said in their own language to the kids, their word for “Thanks!” Spasibo, Rumba, Danke, Asante, Otetela, Sha Sha, Tiki Hoki, Dalu, Tak, Toda, Salamot, Tau, Arigato, Gracias, Merci, Dzieki, Fo Fo, obrigadu or obrigada and on and on and on – till every adult said, “Thank you” in their own language.

And then the all the kids clapped for the adults.

At that the Lady woke up from her dream – crying tears of joy – with a great smile on her face. She got out of bed and went to her daughters room. Her little girl was asleep – so she went over to her daughter – and put a big kiss on the top of her head and said, “Paz y gracias”. “Peace” and “Thanks”.

The next day when she went to the United Nations for her job there – after dropping off her kid in the Day Care Center in the back on the first floor – she sat there wondering about her dream. She knew that dreams often are puzzles of pieces of things that happened to us.

That afternoon it was her turn to go to the microphone. Once more everyone was fighting about this and fighting about that.

It was her turn to give a speech and she said the following, “Last night I had a wonderful dream” and she described her dream – and told the whole story about the little kids coming up from downstairs all holding hands in a human chain and then telling us to “Shush” and stop the fighting and bring “Peace” to each other.

Then she said, “There was one piece of the puzzle, one piece of the dream, that was missing – that I was trying to figure out as I sat here today.

“Suddenly it hit me. It was the reading I heard at our church the other day – a dream that someone in the early Christian church had – so I went on line and found the reading from last Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, in so many of our churches. It went like this and I’d like to close with this:

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11

On the day of Pentecost
all the Lord's followers
were together in one place.
Suddenly there was a noise from heaven
like the sound of a mighty wind!
It filled the house where they were meeting.
Then they saw what looked like
fiery tongues moving in all directions,
and a tongue came
and settled on each person there.

The Holy Spirit took control of everyone,
and they began speaking
whatever languages the Spirit let them speak.

Many religious Jews
from every country in the world
were living in Jerusalem.

And when they heard this noise,
a crowd gathered.

But they were surprised,
because they were hearing everything
in their own languages.

They were excited and amazed, and said:
“Don't all these who are speaking come from Galilee?
Then why do we each hear them speaking
our very own languages?
Some of us are from Parthia, Media, and Elam.

“Others are from Mesopotamia,
Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt,
parts of Libya near Cyrene, Rome, Crete, and Arabia.

“Some of us were born Jews,
and others of us have chosen to be Jews.
Yet we all hear them using our own languages
to tell the wonderful things God has done.”

Amen!




This was a story I wrote last night for today's feast of Pentecost. It was for our 8 AM Kids' Mass - and the 4th grade was the class "in charge" for this Mass. I had different kids holding a colored piece of paper with one word on it - the word for "Peace" in the various languages as indicated above. They were to hold it up when I said that word. I had adults holding a white peace of paper with the word "Thanks" in various languages and they too were to wave that word when I said it. The story is total fiction. I assume there is a Day Care Center at the United Nations for employees - but I have not idea what it is like.


The photo on top was taken off the Internet.