Peace on Earth, and good will to men.

Could there be a simpler, clearer, or more compelling vision? Is there any other avenue for survival of our civilization and our planet?

At about this time every year — for a week or two at least — we whole-heartedly embrace the spirit of Christmas. We decorate our homes, we reach out to old friends, we sing along to the same magical Christmas tunes we learned as wide-eyed children.

Over and over, we say the words “peace on earth”; we write them, we sing them, we seem to believe them. But then, just as quickly, January arrives, and we push them aside until next year. Do we really mean it?

We do. The phrase Peace on earth, good will to men is far more than a pre-printed message on Christmas cards. And although Christmas tradition — like our nation — is deeply rooted in Christianity, the idea of global peace transcends religion. It’s a universal ethic of human behavior that can be embraced by people of all — or no — creeds.

Christmas is not just a time for celebration. As Charles Dickens showed us in his timeless tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge confronting his Christmases past, present, and still to come, Christmas is a time for reflection.

So, with that in mind, let’s ask ourselves a few hard questions. Can we ever hope to regain peace in Ukraine, after 10 months — continuing today — of unspeakable carnage and destruction? Do the storm clouds over Taiwan portend similar barbarity ahead in that part of the world?

Most importantly, is the ominous existence of huge arsenals of nuclear weapons around the world, ready to go and powerful enough to destroy that world, fundamentally incompatible with the very idea of peace on earth?

The hard truth is achieving peace on earth has proven to be mankind’s toughest challenge. We’ve yet to find the path to enduring peace.

That’s the global reality, and we in the United States can’t fix it by ourselves. But don’t give up yet — and don’t lose sight of America’s unique role in leading the pursuit of world peace. Our nation is more committed than any on earth to world peace. We’ve expended fortunes and priceless lives in that quest. We don’t always succeed. It’s a continuing effort, it’s messy, and we have legitimate differences among ourselves on how to achieve it. But we’re on it, relentlessly.

For any who don’t see it that way, who see our nation as an unnecessarily militaristic one, look closer.

Yes, we maintain an immensely powerful military force, and we deploy it worldwide. Peace is not the absence of fighting or fighters. The repeatedly learned lesson of history that the only way to avoid war is to be prepared — and willing — to fight one. Our nation’s maintaining and demonstrating that posture is not abandoning the quest for enduring peace, it’s working to achieve it.

The ongoing savagery in Ukraine is proof once again that ideals like peace on earth regularly come up short in competition with geopolitical power plays. We’re helping our allies turn the tide there, and sending a message to the rest of the world that such naked aggression is intolerable.

Our larger concern is the staggering global threat of nuclear weapons, many in the wrong hands, pointed at one another and ready to launch — the world’s true existential crisis. Finding a way out of the nuclear quagmire is the challenge of our age, and the one for which I believe only U.S. leadership can save the planet.

How are we doing on the “good will to men” side? That’s also a work in progress.

Tops on my list is finding a way to unravel the political hyper-partisanship that continues to deepen the divide between Americans. We seem to be shifting inexorably from disagreement with our political adversaries to antipathy toward them — a sure-fire dead end. Can we not take advantage of our fleeting Christmas spirit to remind one another that we are in fact all on the same team, one nation together?

And on a person-to-person level, we’d best quit searching for opportunities to take offense. Yes, if we look long enough and hard enough, we’ll always find something to be offended about — but along the way, we’ll bury any chance of mutual good will.

So, let’s face it — achieving peace on earth and good will to men is a tough slog. But take heart, America — we’re not there yet, but we’re on the case, year-round.

Merry Christmas!

Image credit: Sam Howzit, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons