“Never suppress a generous thought.” – Camilla Kimball
It’s been a hard week. Painful, overwhelming, terrifying — hard.
After church on Sunday, I learned that someone had driven a truck into a chapel in Michigan, shot four people to death and wounded eight others, then burned the chapel down. People who knew the killer said he hated people of my faith — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That was hard to sit with.
The night before, the president of our church, Russell M. Nelson, passed away. He was 101 years old. President Nelson was an incredibly important spiritual leader for me. That was hard to sit with.
And only a few weeks ago, an assassination took place at Utah Valley University, in front of thousands of people. I’ve had the privilege of working there, and I have many friends there, as well. Bearing witness to their grief and the violation of their home – that’s been hard to sit with, too.
It’s ironic. President Nelson had issued a statement just days before about the importance of being a peacemaker, and that thread ran through so many of the sermons he gave over his lifetime. One thing he said frequently was that we need to resolve the conflicts within our own hearts, to strive for peace within ourselves and within the relationships around us. It is significantly harder to take a stand against broader patterns of conflict if you haven’t addressed your own.
Now, based on my experience, and likely yours, bringing balance to the wars inside our bodies can seem an insurmountable task, an almost absurd ask. How can I develop myself as a peacemaker of the heart when everything in my body is screaming in anger, demanding vengeance? What room is there for inner calm when I feel a crime has been perpetrated against me, against the people I love?
From President Nelson’s 2023 sermon, titled Peacemakers Needed: “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.”
So, in the spirit of being just 5% better today — not tomorrow — here’s something you can do right now to embody the peacemaker’s spirit.
In the wake of these tragedies, these losses that cut to the bone, what has stood me up on my feet this week is the kindness of others. When sorrow visits a friend or colleague, I want to reach out with a hand, a phone call, or a prepared meal. And sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t. I hold back, kindness resting on the tip of my tongue, because I just don’t quite know what to say, because nothing feels like enough, because everything feels meager, threadbare.
But this week I felt the opposite — that something, is everything. This week, the peacemakers in my life have reached out and said, “I don’t know what to say. But I’m thinking of you.”
I am also thinking of a chance meeting that I had with a lovely human being who took the time to tell me that my writing had made a difference in her life. She said she wasn’t planning to say anything. She didn’t know me, didn’t want to disturb me. But this peacemaker had caught me in the midst of a mini crisis of confidence. I thanked her, and then I said, Never suppress a generous thought. Never. Ever.
Why? Well, I like to believe that when the thought to say something strikes us, it’s because someone else needed to hear it. When you are unabashedly generous with kindness, you’re helping to shoulder some of the emotional burden of that moment. However you phrase it, however you signal thoughtfulness, the outcome is everything — now that person knows they’re not facing whatever they’re facing alone, knows that they don’t have to.
Research shows that when we provide supportive responses, we signal that the other person has access to both parties’ psychological resources. Your water canteen looks low — take a drink from mine. You’re okay. You’re safe. And when we share our water, we feel safer too, feel the thread of meaning and connection double-knot, triple-knot itself.
So the next time you feel a kind word teetering on the edge of silence, unsure of its footing and worth in a cruel time, find your voice.
President Nelson: “Peacemaking is a choice.”
My best,
Whitney
P.S. Here is an opportunity to be a peacemaker and donate to the Sanford family, as they, too, are victims of Sunday’s crime.