Nuclear Disarmament
The peace symbol that we are all familiar with - you know, the one with the circle that has a straight up and down line running through the middle of it and then two diagonal lines going out from the center to the bottom rim of the circle - originally stood for Nuclear Disarmament. Ships used to communicate with something called Semaphore code, which is where flags were held out at various positions to spell out letters, kind of like a visual morse code. Two flags held out diagonally downward meant the letter N, and one flag held straight up and the other straight down meant the letter D. Put both of those together and draw a circle around it and you have the Peace Sign. I actually really like the idea that at the heart of one of the most popular symbols for peace is this idea of Nuclear Disarmament. But I want to introduce a new context for Nuclear Disarmament beyond just dismantling and disposing of nuclear weapons. I would say that outside of the context of the physics of atoms and nuclei, one of the most common usages of the word nuclear is in the term “nuclear family.” A nuclear family, of course, is the core family of mother and father and children. If we think about the nuclear family when we talk about nuclear disarmament and how it relates to peace, I believe we can discover some important truths. I hesitate to make any generalizations about families. To quote Leo Tolstoy from Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Unhappy can be used to describe at least some of the time every single family ever. Families are made up of imperfect people that routinely offend and hurt and neglect and ruin each other on a daily basis. Sometimes, this is accidental. Sometimes, it is malicious. Usually, everyone is keeping score. Everyone is stockpiling their own armament of grievances and slights and plans for revenge. Many of the weapons in these stockpiles are completely justified. Anyone with half a brain would logically conclude that we should launch one of our nuclear bombs because we are one hundred percent in the right and they are one hundred percent in the wrong. But the problem with nuclear weapons is they will always end in mutually assured destruction. We can’t let off a bomb against one of our family members because we all live in the same house, and a bomb that blows up them is going to blow us up as well. We may each have our own unique reason to be unhappy in our unhappy family, but the only way to have a happy family is through nuclear disarmament. We have to forgive. We have to get rid of all of the righteous fury and all of those saved up in your faces and I told you so’s and let the perfect love and peace of our Savior cast out all of our anger and fear and betrayal and pain. Look at the peace sign again. It is like a person standing with their arms spread out, empty hands palm forward in submission and acceptance, ready to embrace, just as Jesus Christ bridged the chasm between justice and mercy and healed the divide between each of us. All happy families are alike because happy families have embraced the peace and love of the Lord and have joined together into one eternal family, where there are no divisions, no us versus them, no nuclear armaments, no grudges, and no unhappiness. I hope that when we see the peace symbol, we remember to let go of our anger and allow ourselves to disarm our nuclear weapons and embrace each other with peace and hope and love.
