What Jesus had to say about peacemaking and meekness.

Jesus said, "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." He also said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." These are some major clues as to what the imitation of Christ and transformation into Christ in order to become the Father's sons in the Son consists in. The Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience (obedience being at the heart of it!) are simply bywords for the overarching "Evangelical Counsel": become God the Father's child! In the two Gospel quotes the Son of God is saying that, if we would be like him sons (also consequently heirs and, yes, soldiers, but decidedly not in the physical sense) to Father-God, we have to be peacemakers, which means being meek rather than rowdy, which is our (fallen) nature. To that end Jesus even tells us to ask for anything so we can take out our rowdiness on the Father and not on our siblings. You would almost get the impression that the world's thugs aren't obeying Jesus nor are they imitating Jesus very closely. But note: we're not to be doormats to thugs but instruments of God (as St. Francis prayed, "Make me a channel [also instrument] of your peace," and Mary has even been called the "Reed of God") which implies yielding power and wielding principle, not the other way around. What happens is this: most people seek their stability in worldliness, but he who yields to God is truly rock-solid. That may be ironic or paradoxical or Alice-in-Wonderlandish. It's also 100% the case. Jesus says to his inner circle of Apostles, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Jesus teaches a peace that starts from within and is affirmative, rather than some secular notion of nonviolence which is linguistically a negative value and by its pathological approach only seems to this blogster to encourage the very thing it condemns.