War and Peace

I rolled up to the familiar stop sign gently pushing my foot upon the brake. While waiting my turn to move forward, I noticed a small sign staked into a grassy mound off to my righthand side. Created out of a piece of aluminum it was painted by a shaky hand in bright blue paint. With a large peace symbol at the bottom, it read Be The Change.

It occurred to me that someone created that sign out of great passion, but, passion for what I do not know. Was it intended to inspire me? Cause me to question its purpose or the identity of the person who not only made the sign, but hauled themselves to my street corner to stake it? And I did question, curious as to where the symbol of the peace sign even came from and its very purpose.

The peace symbol was originally designed in 1958 for the British nuclear disarmament movement by a designer and artist named Gerald Holtom. The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphore signals for the letters “N” and “D,” standing for “nuclear disarmament”. In semaphore the letter “N” is formed by a person holding two flags in an inverted “V,” and the letter “D” is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. The blending of these two signs forms the shape of the centre of the peace symbol. Not at all that interesting until I discovered the wounded soul of Gerald Holtom.

Psalm 91:1-2, Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

In a newspaper interview, Mr. Holtom divulged his heart behind his creation sharing, “I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards…”

The peace symbol as we see it used today is not its original creation. Its true design is of a figure with arms stretched up and out, in despair… the pose of surrender. But Mr. Holtom came to regret the symbolism of despair, as he felt that peace was something to be celebrated and wanted the symbol to be inverted. It is long believed that the inside of the symbol was a “runic symbol for death of man” and the circle the “symbol for the unborn child”,

The truth is that the pose of surrender is the only way in which we will truly find peace. We must die to our human flesh and be born-again by the blood of Christ. This pose of surrender- us reaching out to the heavens in deep despair- is the only way we can “be the change”. By our surrender we will rest into the shadow of the Almighty. By our surrender we will dwell in Him and trust in Him. By our surrender we will be saved from our despair and be given freedom, no longer a prisoner of the emotional war. And the only change that brings forth everlasting peace is change through the process of transformation.

Father, thank you for the gift of Jesus who gives us the freedom to fully surrender. It is in our surrender that we may know true peace from war. In Jesus name, Amen.

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