"Let There Be Peace on Earth

...and let it begin with me," advises a song's lyrics. I was reminded of this message, when I saw a suggestion Belgium newspapers had for restaurant goers after terrorist attacks. DeTijd and L'Echo urged diners to finish their meals by arranging cutlery on plates in a peace sign and then sharing their peace message in a hashtagged image of their plates on social media.

     Trendwatching.com went on to list the following ways companies promoted reconciliation among different genders, races, countries, religions and those with different economic advantages.

• In its "Share the Load" commercials, Procter & Gamble's Ariel India laundry brand dispelled the cultural assumption that there is such a thing as women's work and men's work.
• To emphasize the soul-destroying damage bullying does to kids perceived as different, Argentina's Bagley brand turned the smile on its Sonrisa cookies upside down.
• Attacking the distinction some stores make between beauty brands and ethnic brands for Afro-American women, Shea Moisture hair care brand's commercial noted its products are in the beauty aisle "where we all belong."
• Starbucks is helping overcome unemployment among teens and young adults in disadvantaged areas by providing in-store retail and customer service training in New York's Jamaica Queens neighborhood. The program is slated to roll out in 14 additional locations in the U.S.
• In connection with Mother's Day, HSBC, a bank in the UAE, not only provided a series of free workshops on resume writing and interviewing skills to help mothers return to work, the bank also helped kids make videos telling about the skills their mothers offered employers.
• JetBlue thought people could agree, if they had the right motivation. If passengers on a flight reached a unanimous agreement about where they wanted to go, they received free tickets to that destination on any US airline. Their choice and reward: a round trip to Costa Rica.

Thinking about gun violence in Chicago and terrorist attacks around the world, Sister Susan Quaintance, a Benedictine nun, spent one Saturday morning investigating what the psalms had to say about peace. She found references acknowledging our work alone is not sufficient. Believers can take comfort knowing, when it comes to peace, God helps. Psalm 4:9 says, "In peace I lie down, and fall asleep at once, since you alone, Yahweh, make me rest secure."