Peaceableness and Practicing Hope

March 4, 2026 | Faith at Home, Resources, Whats New?

He’ll settle things fairly between nations. He’ll make things right between many peoples. They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore. Isaiah 2:4 (The Message)

 

He’ll establish justice in the rabble of nations and settle disputes in faraway places. They’ll trade in their swords for shovels, their spears for rakes and hoes.
Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning how to kill one another. Micah 4:3 (The Message) 

We cannot shield our children entirely from knowledge of the news, the words of elected officials, actions of ICE, images of violence and war, and the messages that we’re in some real trouble here. My young adult son came into my office recently and asked, “Have you seen the news?,” with worry all over his face. A teacher of elementary age children shared with me that students were asking questions about ICE, and wondered how to respond. There’s a line from an article I read in the last year that resonates for me as a parent and educator: “We don’t have to protect children from difficult feelings, but we must not leave them alone with them.” Some questions that keep rising for me, thinking about children and how we can accompany them in this time:

  • As we experience what’s happening in the US and globally, what are our children taking in and learning from what they see and hear?
  • How do we help them make sense of our country and its actions in this time?
  • How do we talk to them about war? As children, and as Friends?
  • And alongside parents, what is our responsibility in faith communities to accompany children in a time of increased societal instability? How do we nurture faith, resilience, compassion — and ensure them that they are not alone in what they feel or experience?

We need to accompany children and young people in this time with care and intention. One way, in this moment, is to reaffirm that together, we can learn and practice peace. In various translations of Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3, there is the promise of not training for war, learning war, or playing war any more. We sing a song that we won’t “study” war any more. These words – train, learn, play, study – are about making active choices.

I wonder: How do we actively train for, play, study, and learn peace?

At home, at meeting, participating in civic life, how can we actively model peace for children as one counterpoint to what is happening around us? The sociologist Elise Boulding (1920-2010) is one of my Quaker heroes. She was a peace studies scholar, activist, and mother of five children. This quote is attributed to her:

“War is not inherent in human beings.
We learn war and we learn peace.
The culture of peace is something which is learned, just as violence is learned and war culture is learned. . .
Peace cultures thrive on and are nourished by visions of how things might be, in a world where sharing and caring are part of the accepted lifeways for everyone.”

Boulding emphasized personal and interpersonal promotion of peace and welcoming differences. She also asserted that children are vital and under-appreciated players in the peace process. Now, more than any time in my memory, we need to be actively engaged in peacemaking with children; seeking to balance the ugliness around us with the assertion of a world where peace is possible; nurturing a vision of how things can be: peace that will thrive because we also do the work for equality and justice.

Boulding used the term “peaceableness” and recognized that peace begins in what we do everyday, in the home, in the family, in ourselves. The kin-dom of heaven, the beloved community, is not far away. It is for us to study, learn, and make. I encourage us in this moment to repeatedly reassure our children that this is still possible here on Earth and in our lives. That it will happen in gestures and actions of all kinds, from small kindnesses to participating in community protest.

In a moment when the events around us are full of suffering, other-ing, breaking, and fighting, I recommend for all of us the picture book Good People Everywhere by Lynea Gillen, that shares the message that everywhere, people are doing good things – and so can you. From the book: “Today, in neighborhoods all over the world, millions and millions of people are doing very good things.” To borrow from early Quaker George Fox, we must be doers, not just sayers, of peaceableness.

Peaceableness will grow in those everyday gestures and actions of all kinds, and it will also require the big work of reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing. It’s going to take sustained intention and attention, interruption and action. Children are watching and learning. They have questions, and worries. We can do better for them, and with them. Let’s actively learn and share peaceableness.

 

Melinda Wenner Bradley, she/her (West Chester Meeting, PhYM), is the Director of Communication and Training for Faith & Play Stories. A co-founder of QREC, she serves on the Steering Circle.

A version of this piece appeared on Melinda’s Substack blog on January 8, 2026.