The Peace We Can’t Reach: Confronting Narratives That Deny Our Conditions, Jam Our Spiritual Frequencies, and Defile Shalom

By Meg Gorzycki

Propelled by George Floyd's murder in her hometown of Minneapolis, Meg Gorzycki addresses the question of why peace is difficult to cultivate and sustain, and finds that America has always had a love-hate relationship with peace. The Peace We Can't Reach posits that peace is more than the absence of war and aggression, and in its most profound sense is shalom, the commitment to live for the well-being of all so that compassion and justice might prevail. Exploring shalom from the perspective of war, police brutality, mass shootings, and economic injustice, this book offers evidence that neither democracy nor Christianity as Americans have known them are capable of achieving peace. It asserts that the keys to peace are personal and social narratives that give people a sense of identity and their highest purpose, and concludes that gaining control over these narratives is vital to shalom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Sep 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666783452

Meg Gorzycki

Meg Gorzycki was raised in Minneapolis and schooled in the Benedictine and Jesuit traditions. She holds a BA in Religious Studies, an MA in History, and a Doctorate in Education. She has been a teacher, administrator, and faculty consultant, and has worked in Russia and Saudi Arabia. Her theological outlook blends Gnostic Christianity with Judaism, Buddhism, and Native American wisdom.

Book preview

Preface

Madness can grip people who think deeply about peace. To think about what peace means and why it is hard to achieve is to invite things into one’s awareness that are painful and depressing. The passion for peace often forces us to question the sanity of idealism. Those who study peace and its absence take the risk that they will be disgusted, angry, and disillusioned with their discoveries. Those that talk about what they learn take the risk that they will be seen as overbearing moralists or pious buffoons.

I am taking these risks because when Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, I wept. I was struck by memories of my parents and all the teachers, nuns, priests, and coaches who taught me that everyone has a duty to do their best to make the world a better place. They lifted the spirits of working class kids and taught us to take joy in serving others. I was taught to value peace, and to use God-given talents to be of service to others. I wanted to go back to that world, but of course, my perception of that world—that Minneapolis of the sixties and seventies—was romanticized. Back in those days, I saw lots of poverty, urban neglect, and racial bigotry. I saw those things, but I did not suffer—as did others I knew—because of my color, family income, or because I lived in a part of the Northside that was run-down and crime-ridden. The sentimentality I have for my youthful lessons is different from the maturity that is required to understand and work for peace. That kind of maturity requires me to see myself as I am and the world as it is, and to be critical of partisan and tribal propaganda that distorts and denies our condition—our universal and binding human condition.

George Floyd’s death made me angry, but it was not shocking. We live in a world where men kill each other all the time and then make excuses for it. I wanted to learn why violence is part of our way of life, and why Christian faith and commitment to democracy have not produced peace on the personal and civic levels. I wanted to know why Human beings have adapted to violence and learned to live without peace. Have we made a separate peace with the world by accepting violence as collateral damage for our way of life? Are we completely helpless in the grip of our own egos and primal urges?

For good reasons, we are urged to pursue peace, though it seems our nature is against it. Peace in our civil life enables material transactions that are mutually beneficial to our material existence. Peace in our spiritual life enables individuals to cope with adversity, loss, grief, and failure. Yet, there is no magic elixir for peace. There are only the narratives about peace that we put into our hearts and minds, and the choices we make about which narratives to activate. Our narratives may be deep in thinking and rich in understanding of and compassion for others, or they might be shallow, ignorant of others, and void of compassion. We decide.

Many people have said to me, Nobody wants to talk about this stuff. Peace is too personal . . . It will never come no matter what anybody says. Peace is a fantasy and it is stupid to pretend otherwise. There may be truth to these assertions. There may also be truth to the claim that people desperately want to talk about peace in their lives, and do not know how to do that.

I have been accused of wanting to change the world, and though there is some truth to that, I would be satisfied if I could only provoke thought. My role here is to present some ideas about peace, and to offer some insights to how we conceive our identities— our sense of self—and what we believe about our purpose in life and our obligations to others. I believe the narratives we build around these things are intimately connected to every war, every assault, every riot of smashing and looting, every rape, every mass shooting, every police officer’s knee on a civilian’s neck, every act of government corruption, and every corporate act that contributes to the injury and impoverishment of others. I believe that these narratives are not predestined.

Chapter I

Introduction

And because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.

—Matt 24:12

And because the love of many will grow cold, lawlessness will increase.

—Anonymous

Cry, The Beloved City of Lakes

A major fault line of peace gave way in Minneapolis on a mild spring day in 2020, and its shock waves tumbled around the world. On May 25, a local merchant called the police when he suspected that George Floyd was passing counterfeit currency. The police arrested Floyd, but struggled to get him into a squad car. Officer Derek Chauvin subdued Floyd, pinning him face-down in the street. With his knee atop the back of his neck, Floyd pleaded with officers for over nine minutes to let him up because he could not breathe. Paramedics removed Floyd from the scene, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The autopsy stated that he died from cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression, and that Floyd had fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cannabinoids in his system.¹

The consequences of these events were tragic and far reaching. Rioting followed in Minneapolis and cities all over the world. Chauvin was convicted of murder. Floyd’s family and scores of citizens who lost property in the looting and arson filed lawsuits. Some called for police defunding and Chauvin’s execution. Some declared Floyd a hero. Some averred Floyd was asking for trouble the minute he ingested narcotics and tried to pass fake money. The tragedy was nothing new. It was a chapter in the book of the human condition in general, and an event set in motion by the narratives we tell ourselves about who we are in particular.

Police officers kill about 1,000 people a year, and roughly 25 percent are Black, nearly double the percentage of Blacks in the general population. Blacks also represent 34 percent of all unarmed civilians who are shot by police.² Floyd’s murder was one of several in Minneapolis wherein police officers killed suspects. Jamar Clark died on November 15, 2015; Philando Castile died on July 6, 2016; Brian Quinones died on September 7, 2019.³ They died in the city where I grew up and learned about peace, community service, and social justice under the tutelage of Catholic priests and Benedictine sisters. These men died in neighborhoods that were ragged enclaves of working-class people, where roughly 20 percent have no high school diploma.⁴ They lived and died in neighborhoods where absentee landlords neglect the needs of renters, citizens complain of police harassment, and poverty is persistent.⁵ Like so many, they died in a nation that has mixed feelings about the fact that they existed.

My beloved City of Lakes, with its beautiful parkways, theaters, arts, universities, medical centers, and history of progressive politics, became ground zero of another episode in America’s struggle with dignity and diversity. The fatal encounter between Floyd and Chauvin occurred in the Powderhorn neighborhood, which is one of several neighborhoods in the shallow south side of Minneapolis squeezed between I35W to the west and the Mississippi River to the east. The area was developed in the early 1900s to house White middle-class residents. As the 20th century closed, working class Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and emigrants from Somalia, India, and the Middle East settled in. At the time of George Floyd’s death, there were over 550 tents in Powderhorn Park. It was the largest encampment of homeless people in Minneapolis history. In 2016, Hennepin County, in which Minneapolis is located, documented over 4,000 homeless in its jurisdiction.⁶ At the time of Floyd’s death, about 19 percent (eight percent over the national rate) of Minneapolis’ residents lived in poverty.⁷ Every data point has implications for peace.

Prior to May 2020, Floyd was arrested several times for theft and drug charges. In Texas, he was sentenced to five years in jail for aggravated robbery, during which he allegedly thrust a gun into a woman’s belly as he ransacked her home.⁸ After his release, he volunteered to assist Houston’s Pastor Patrick Ngwolo, and mentored young men struggling to overcome despair and violence. He is remembered for telling people that God trumps street culture.⁹ He struggled to support the children he fathered with different women. He moved to Minneapolis for a fresh start.¹⁰

After Floyd’s death, initial protests were peaceful, but then came mayhem and all the narratives that justified it. Protesters busted the windows of the Third Precinct Police Station and set it on fire. Looters smashed shop windows and stole whatever they could carry. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades. In seven days, over 1,500 businesses in the Twin Cities were vandalized and over 60 were destroyed by arson. A year after the melee, only 21 percent of those businesses were back to normal.¹¹ After the riots, activists demanded reparations for all African Americans. Enough is enough, protestors declared. In solidarity, people of all colors and identities rallied around the mantra No justice, no peace.¹²

Everytown

Minneapolis has been a haven for peace and prosperity for some and hovel of deprivation and despair for others. Prior to Floyd’s murder, the North Star State saw increases in crime and violence. In 1960, the crime index (numbers of both violent and property crime per 100,000 people) for Minnesota was 1,466.1, which included 42 violent crimes. In 2021, the index was 136,249, with violent crimes at 17,631.¹³ In 2019, Minneapolis’ violent crime rate was several times higher than the national rate.¹⁴ North Minneapolis, where in my youth my family lived, worshiped, attended school, and worked, had become a combat zone. The number of homicides doubled from 2019 to 2020, while robberies and carjacking spiked. Police and parole officers quit their jobs, as they feared for their safety.¹⁵ Residential areas that were once tranquil terrains with kids playing in parks and neighbors chatting over the backyard fence became gang lands festering with violence, shootings, theft, extortion, and drug dealing.¹⁶

Like many American cities, Minneapolis has a Dickensian quality. It was the best of cities; it was the worst of cities. It was a city of colossal corporations such as General Mills and Target; it was a city of ghettos, flop houses, and organized crime.¹⁷ It was a city of first-rate schools and universities; it was a city of high schools wherein less than 32 percent of graduating seniors were college ready;¹⁸ It was a city filled with Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish houses of worship; it was a city menaced by pedophilic priests.¹⁹ It was the city in which Mayor Hubert Humphrey preached integration and fought anti-Semitism; it was the city wherein Greg Smith murdered Terry Knudsen, and then bragged to friends that he beat up a fag.²⁰

Minneapolis is Everytown, USA. Originally inhabited by the Lakota, it was transformed by entrepreneurs from the East Coast who saw fortunes in local resources such as lumber and wheat. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, waves of immigrants arrived, including Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, Slavs, Italians, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. World War II brought African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South and seeking employment. The 1970s brought Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, and later, famine and human rights violations in Africa drove Somalians and Sudanese to Minneapolis. Like my own Italian, Irish, German, Norwegian, and Polish ancestors, they sought jobs, education, and a better life.

As Everytown, USA, the City of Lakes has waffled between astonishing hospitality and compassion for the stranger and villainous xenophobia. Historically, White Christians herded Native Americans onto reservations and enforced red-lining in real estate transactions. It practiced discrimination in hiring, and tolerated police brutality against minorities. Despite this, Minnesota passed anti-segregation acts in 1885 and 1897, and its courts prosecuted violators.²¹ Minneapolis was among the first cities in the United States (US) to pass anti-discrimination ordinances, and by 1900 had a reputation for supporting African American activism in churches and community centers.²² In 1975, it became the first city in the nation to ban discrimination against Gays and Lesbians in employment, schools, and property ownership.²³ The city has been described as one of the most livable cities in the country. It is, however, a land of paradox and hypocrisy. In 2020 it was rated the most charitable city in the US for its generosity to the poor and its volunteerism.²⁴ Yet, Minneapolis has not yet achieved peace and economic equity.²⁵

When I learned of George Floyd’s death, I thought, What did people expect would happen, given the dominant social dynamics? For generations, racism and other forms of bigotry have permeated law enforcement and the justice system. For generations, police officers got away with assault and violations of civil rights. For generations, families imploded. For generations, employees cheated employers, and employers cheated employees. For generations, teenagers dropped out of school and had kids out of wedlock. For generations, individuals—rich and poor—claimed that they were entitled to pursue their interests by any means.

The Story in Our Eyes

Though many of the things we encounter in life are out of our control, we are not predestined to respond one way or the other. Our circumstances and conditions are largely the product of the narratives we tell ourselves. The key narratives of our lives regard our identity, how we define our purpose in life, and our obligations to others. The stories in our heads tell us where we belong, where we do not belong, and where others belong. They tell us who deserves what, and how to protect our possessions and privileges from those who do not deserve. They shape how we regard truth and how hard we work at keeping an open mind and caring about others.

Everyone has an idea about what peace means and what it feels like to live without it. Universally, people declare that they love peace and pray for it often. While stockpiling every weapon known to mankind and selling more weapons to the world than any other nation, our leaders assure us they are humble servants of peace. Lofty Sunday sermons extolling the blessings of peace proceed from the same lips that smear our brothers and sisters because they are Muslim, liberal, gay, colored, or undocumented. Conversations about peace are peppered with snarky quips and lofty tangents that lead nowhere. In discussions about neighborhoods gone bad, people huff, That’s just the how the world is! They suggest that we are helpless in the face of violence, war, hatred, and all the microaggressions we inflict on each other.²⁶ The words are frequently uttered by people who sincerely want peace, but are so beaten by the Sisyphean nature of making peace, that when others talk seriously about it, they snarl, just shut the hell up.²⁷

I get it. The world is and always has been a violent place. Neither Jesus, nor Buddha, nor Muhammed, nor those who presented the most prophetic and iridescent insights to peace were able to secure its place among us. Like them, all who want peace must decide for themselves what is meant by peace, what peace requires, whether efforts to create peace are worthwhile, and how to respond when our efforts are not successful.

At present, our world seems to be experiencing a collective nervous breakdown. In particular, we seem unable to connect with each other. Many have retreated into identity enclaves wherein they nurse vengeance for those who have caused their suffering. Some blame others for whatever is wrong in their lives, and they speak truth. Some believe that corporate interests have dominated our government for so long that the rich have colonized the poor and middle class, and they speak truth. Others insist that individuals have failed in their own responsibility to improve their lives and their communities, and they speak truth as well. The chit-chat in the grocery stores and hair salons tells us that people are sick of public vulgarity, partisanship, and violence. It tells us economic security has something to do with peace. It also brims with uncertainty about how to talk about what is happening to us and why it hurts.

What the Psychologist Said

For most of Western history, philosophers and theologians offered theories of human behavior. Medieval scholars believed that, though human beings were endowed with a soul and made in the image of God, they were tainted by original sin and given to vice and violence. They held that salvation and social order rested on obedience to authority as conceptualized in the Great Chain of Being. In the chain, Popes had authority over Kings, kings over lords, and lords over everyone else. The Renaissance brought humanism to bear on Western thinking, which posited that human beings are not wholly foul and sinful, but endowed with reason, goodness, and the capacity for self-improvement. Humanists contested the notion that God bound people to their economic classes with little hope for upward mobility and without just cause to revolt. It spurred the Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment which are foundational to American culture.

Philosophical theories of human nature were modified by scientific findings about how perception, neurology, cognition, memory, and conditioning affected human behavior. By the late 1800s, it was widely accepted in the academic community that human behavior was caused by both nature and nurture. While nature regards biology, brain structures, neurochemistry, and disease, nurture regards education, social conditioning, parental training, and indoctrination found in religion and popular media.

Biological factors can cause aggression that people describe as irresistible impulses to harm others. In 1966, Charles Whitman, a 25-year old former Marine, shot 45 people from a tower at the University of Texas, killing 14 and wounding 31. Whitman was killed, and his autopsy revealed a brain tumor that doctors believe disrupted normal thinking.²⁸ Dan White, the former police officer and City Supervisor of San Francisco who shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978, argued that he was innocent of first degree murder because of diminished capacity, due to a diet of sugary junk food. The jury bought the Twinkie Defense, and White was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.²⁹

Our brains are not fully developed until our mid-twenties. Specifically, the frontal lobe, the executive part of our cerebrum, is not fully myelinated.³⁰ This means our neurological habits are not yet fully wired. The frontal lobe is involved in planning, evaluating, impulse control, organizing, and making critical choices. The lack of full myelination does not mean that we are incapable of self-control and good judgment. Even five-year-olds understand the concepts of right and wrong, and are capable of obeying the rules. The adolescent brain, however, is a work in progress, and presents us with the option of how to hard wire it. We can immerse teens in activities that require critical thinking, impulse control, planning, and problem-solving, or we can immerse them in video games and solitary activities, and never cultivate cognitive and emotional development.³¹ What gets rehearsed gets hard-wired," what doesn’t is latent.

Even if we are not suffering from tumors, substance abuse, or chemical imbalances, violence and aggression are natural to us. However, psychologists have helped us understand that what is natural is not inevitable. As violent behavior is mostly learned, there are ways to control it. The psychologists did not replace the priest or the prophet on matters of peace, but they did reveal how personal narratives shape our behavior. They helped us understand the power of ideas, assumptions, peer pressure, and how psychological forces such as lust, fear, envy, and guilt shape us. They gave us a language with which to discuss psychological processes and disorders. With this, we may grasp the complex relationship between our biological urges, our sense of self, and the narratives we use to define ourselves and purpose. The works of Sigmund Freud, Albert Bandura, and Erik Erikson are especially salient in our understanding of aggression and violence.

Freud theorized that the mind consisted of the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. He claimed that human beings were motivated by subconscious memories and feelings, which was a radical departure from the idea that behavior proceeds from conscious experiences. He theorized that our personalities consist of the id, ego, and superego. The id is the primitive aspect of self that is self-centered and driven by appetites, including sexual lust and the will to dominate. The id is tempered by the superego, which represents the external world of public manners and rules that limit how we may pursue gratification. The ego is the self that is formed by compromises between the id and superego.³² Freud noted that we dislike the superego as it restricts our pursuit of gratification. He held that men welcome war as liberation from the superego and civility.³³

Freud also theorized that the ego defends itself against social rejection and denial of needs by developing defense mechanisms. For example, sublimation is the process of redirecting unacceptable rage or lust into acceptable activities, such as composing symphonies or athletic competition. Denial as a defense mechanism rejects evidence that something is real or true. Freud noted that while denial gives us a sense of well-being, it enables illusions about ourselves and the world, and delays the recognition of what causes neuroses, and thus delays treatment. Freud is not a definitive authority on war, rioting, and mass murder, but his ideas add to our understanding of humanity. Current attempts to understand violence often refer to the role of egos, and to Freud’s theory that psychological traumas are at the root of violent behavior.³⁴

Where Freud approached human behavior from a psychoanalytic perspective, Albert Bandra focused on the aspect of social learning. Bandura’s work confirmed that children learn aggressive behavior by watching and imitating. He asserted that, People are not born with performed repertoires of aggressive behavior; they must learn them one way or the other.³⁵ He surmised that group violence was enabled by moral disengagement, whereby participants either do not consider the consequences of their actions or see them as irrelevant.³⁶ Moral disengagement represents the absence of empathy, and Bandura held that empathy could be neutralized when individuals feel that they, or society, are in immediate danger.³⁷

Psychologist Erik Erikson concurred with Freud and Bandura on the importance of the social environment and blended the psychoanalytical and social theories to form new insights about our humanity. He believed that the development and maintenance of one’s sense of self is largely dependent on others’ recognition, affirmation, and support.³⁸ He coined the term identity crisis to describe the angst that people feel about their place in the world, and posited that it is both a psychological and social phenomenon. The psychological aspect concerns the feeling of incongruity of self, as if one is disjointed and not quite whole, while the social aspect regards one’s doubts about one’s place in the community, or one one’s anxieties about the community’s expectations.³⁹ Erikson held that an identity crisis can be severe enough to trigger rage.

Erikson believed that our perception of others helps shape our identities, as we sharpen our sense of self by contrasting our appearances, habits, and personalities with others. The other assumes the role of delineating our identities, especially in the process of assimilating social norms and beliefs. This process has moral and political significance as it coaxes conformity to a way of life, attitudes towards others, and patterns of relationships with others. Erikson noted that Tribal, national, and class identity . . . demand that man consider otherness inimical, and at least some men have defined others as enemies, treating them with arbitrary ferociousness absent from the animal world.⁴⁰ Otherness, he posited, was also a source of anxiety, as groups could impose the same prejudices and animosity on each other.⁴¹

Otherness is at the heart of why peace is elusive, as it is the cornerstone of individual and institutional hatred of humanity. It is central to many American myths and narratives about who we are and how we ought to treat others. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ book The 1619 Project, made this reality plain in her examination of slavery in America. She asserts that slavery was not only foundational to American economic development, but to the formation of social norms and institutional policies that remain implicit in the American way of life and worldview. Slavery was a pathological manifestation of otherization. Slavery was not merely an economic phase or temporary moral lapse in US history, it embodied a pattern of dehumanizing others for profit and for psychological solace—a pattern that assumed other forms when slavery was abolished.⁴²

Erikson found Freud’s prognosis for the human condition lacking in hope, and he believed that broken egos and identities could be healed and renewed. He also believed that as individuals mature, they organically gravitate towards a conscious ethical concern for others and a deeper sense of spiritual self.⁴³ He wanted to discover a universal and durable ethical framework that would reconsecrate civilization and compel all societies to hold life sacred and strive to achieve their highest goodness.⁴⁴ While Erikson saw spirituality as a vital aspect of self, Freud dismissed it as superstition, and regarded prayer and religious rituals as frivolous acts that encouraged infantilism and delusion.⁴⁵ Freud argued that the ego did not tolerate the other, and held that civilization overtaxed human nature by encouraging hopes for world peace.⁴⁶

William James the Pragmatist

William James, the American psychologist, saw himself more as a synthesist who applied his understanding of human behavior, mysticism, religion, and philosophy to the understanding of human behavior. He did not experiment with human behavior, and he rejected the idea that psychotherapy could infallibly pair diagnoses with treatments. Human beings, he observed, were far more complex, and the causes of suffering were deeply personal and often nebulous.⁴⁷

James asserted that human beings were primarily motivated by practical concerns relative to daily life. He held that motivations were conscious, not subconscious, and that free will enables individuals to reason their way through problems and adjust behavior to achieve successful outcomes. He observed that experience forms people’s choices about which behaviors are likely to be successful, and that we all attend the needs of three distinct selves. The material self is concerned with acquiring property, engaging in work, and satisfying basic needs. The social self, which is highly responsive to rewards and punishments, seeks membership and affirmation from the community. He noted that the social self is often adopts a social persona in order to fit into the group. This behavior leads to conflicts between one’s genuine self and one’s persona. He wrote, Nothing is commoner [sic] than to hear people discriminate between their different selves of this sort: ‘As a man, I pity you, but as an official I must you no mercy; as a politician I regard him as an ally, but as a moralist I loathe him.’⁴⁸

James held that the spiritual self is the mediator of one’s own morality and revered ideals. The spiritual self, he argued, does not necessarily find meaning in society’s concept of morality, nor salience in religious doctrines. It is the aspect of self that assesses how well we comprehend others, and evaluates the quality of our judgment. It is concerned with integrity. We derive pleasure, he posited, when command our own conscience and curate our own moral sensibilities.

In the ante-bellum America of James’ youth, Protestant evangelical movements abounded. They rejected the old Puritan claim that only a select few will be saved in the end, and declared Jesus Christ had come for all—especially the poor.⁴⁹ By 1850, roughly one third of adults in the US were evangelicals. Some were fierce abolitionists and reformers, and some were traveling celebrities selling miracle tonics. The more effusive preachers, James observed, frequently fell into trances, heard voices, saw visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological, yet, these features have helped to give them religious authority and influence.⁵⁰ Despite the chicanery and theatrics of some evangelicals, James saw that religion had a practical function. Its narrative of salvation, mercy, and charity buttressed the will to struggle in the face of adversity. He held that it reached its highest expression in helping people achieve mature moral judgment, benevolent action, and decency in character.⁵¹

James has been called the first peace psychologist. He opposed US imperialism and the wastefulness and immorality of war.⁵² Paradoxically, however, he held that mankind was destined for violence and war because human beings lacked the capacity for pure reason. He believed war was inevitable, as people were easily seduced by romantic tales that glorified war. He was 19-years-old when the Civil War began, and struggled throughout his life with guilt because he did not enlist. Though he advocated peace and found war a savage affair, he saw how war gave men a sense of esteem and how it energized men who believed that they were fighting to preserve civilization.⁵³ He listened intently to Americans who had either supported the Civil War or fought in it. While most agreed that it was the greatest catastrophe of the US, they would not undo it if given the chance.⁵⁴ Prior to the war, people desperately tried to avert it, but once it began, it acquired a hallowed stature that sanctified and lionized its survivors.

The Couch and the Cross

It is hard to know which narratives led to the fatal events of May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis. It is fair to say, however, that George Floyd and Derek Chauvin had narratives that shaped the outcome of their encounter. Psychology provides us with the means of understanding human behavior and morality, but as a science, it cannot infallibly prove that the absence of peace in Floyd’s encounter with Chauvin was due to faulty cognition, overactive egos, intoxication, or social norms and prejudices that put the men on a collision course. It cannot prove or disprove that spirituality failed the two men. It can only speculate about how spiritual formation, or lack of it, might have had a role in what happened.

Theists might say that peace is remote because we have rejected God and God’s divine presence and purpose for our lives. Psychologists might say that peace is remote because we suffer from neurosis, chemical imbalances, or cultural brainwashing. Yet, as history reveals, religious piety and psychological fitness are not prophylactics against war and aggression. There are important reasons why spirituality deserves as much attention as psychology when exploring what keeps peace at a distance. The reality that the existence of God cannot be proven does not stop people from believing God wants them to kill others, nor stop people from believing that God calls them to sacrifice their lives for the sake of bringing God’s love to bear on Earth.⁵⁵ Another reason to keep spirituality at the center of a discussion of peace