There is a beast that lurks among us. It courses through this country and its people. The beast is fighting and war and the misunderstanding of what creates peace. We must strive to overcome this beast of war so the beauty of peace can truly be known. The U.S.'s bombing of Hiroshima is an act of the beast which I will never overcome.

I hate to bring it up. I hate to even tell you the name of the city, because it is one you've heard so many times before. It is a place we all associate with that mass explosion. Hiroshima we can skip over because we think we've heard it all. But what I heard wasn't enough. A few weeks ago I sat in a room alone and read the sick accounts of actual humans who lived through the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.

Most of the personal accounts I read were from children. "A fourth grade girl remembers, 'The people passing along the street are covered with blood and trailing the rags of their torn clothes after them. The skin of their arms is peeled off and dangling from their fingertips, and they go walking silently, hanging their arms before them.'" There was story after story of burning and melting skin and children lost in the masses of dead. I sat in a closed room and cried and couldn't read on, but had to. I wanted to figure out the beast behind this country. The U.S. is monumental in its efforts at wildlife preservation, stabilizing the economy, crime fighting, yet there is another side to this apparent goodness. Where is this beast that played such a role in the bomb? How can it coexist with the peace this country claims?

I had to know what those men had made. They thought it was the weapon to end World War II and all war for all time. A threat to the world. A beast. But Korea came and went and Vietnam came and went, and now Desert Storm and Kosovo have come and gone. So the weapon that massacres doesn't really end war. Joke's on us.

There really wasn't a triumph. People couldn't wipe their brow after it detonated over Hiroshima and over that mother and her children eating rice around their kitchen table. But some tried to wipe off the sweat of war. We couldn't slap each other on the back and say, "There's one for us," as it burned the lovely bodies God so carefully thought about and wove. So I didn't sing out, "God Bless America…" in church one Sunday and someone after the Benediction asked if I'm okay and I said, yes, of course I am because God Bless those burned babies, because God Bless those people with skin that hung from their bodies making a skirt at their hips. But God, please, don't Bless America.

I can't ask God to Bless America because we're the ones that bombed those lovers kissing their last sweet kiss and then laying, "like fried eels," as one woman remembers, after the bomb destroyed their future.

Things that we think are so right, like I used to think about America, sometimes turn out to be so wrong. I learned the Pledge of Allegiance for Mrs. Nold in first grade and that seemed right. But I don't think I would say, "…one nation, under God…" after what I know now about this one nation's capability for evil; that would seem wrong.

I can't conceptualize the capacity America has to hurt when I see so many valuable assets America offers as well. What sort of men could build a bomb that burns humans into unrecognizable lumps? What country could house a weapon they nicknamed, "Little Boy"? There are murders, hate crimes, children's tears from neglect, lying, deceit, all wrapped up in this one country that has potential for so much good. What sort of country can account for such different actions? But, then, what sort of peacemaker could turn on his own sister?

The best of the neighborhood was Peter, my older brother. There were lots of boys and lots of games and he was the best at every position. Best shortstop, best running back, best goalie. Best of all, he was the peacemaker, the stopper of fights, the righter of wrongs. He never swore or laughed when someone like Justin always cried when his team lost. Peter wouldn't dry Justin's tears, but later he would walk over to Justin's house and hang out, just the two of them. That was his way of keeping the peace.

There was one morning at the bus stop when the peacemaker proved as phony as a bomb that could end all war for all time. I waited with Billy, Kyle, Justin, Marc, Eric, Peter, and Kelly and we played two square across a crack in the road even on the cold mornings when we could pretend we were smoking. It was me against Peter, the reigning champion, and I knew like everyone else that I would lose. I thought I was safe, he being my brother and the neighborhood peacemaker. He started out with a double tap and I lost. It was embarrassing to lose in front of all the guys, the tough guys. It was embarrassing because I tried so hard to be like them. I wore tube socks with gold and blue stripes like Billy, I hammered countless nails into trees for The Treefort, I even rode my wonder woman dirt bike up and down the ramp we made just as much as the other guys. When Peter got me out I started to choke up and get hot and cry. I looked to my brother to console me with a smile or a shrug. They were all laughing.

Then, Peter laughed.

The peacemaker joined his friends to laugh at me. When you're the only girl being laughed at by all the guys tears are useless, you must use physical force. I had picked up a few moves from old karate movies Dad and I watched on Saturday mornings, so I tried them out on Peter.

I brought my useless little hand down on his shoulder in what I thought was a good hard chop. I curled into a ball holding my arm that pulsed with breathtaking pain. My clever weapon hurt me more than it was meant to hurt Peter. Joke's on me. Joke's on the men who made the bomb. It hurt them more than they could foresee. Now they throw-up when they even hear what deathly damage they caused. But what sealed the truth that day when we waited for bus number 59 to take us to McKinley Elementary was when Eric called to me, "Hey, 'Beauty and the Beast' all in one."

That's what it is, that beauty (peace) and that beast (war) all wrapped in one. Peace looks so good. I wanted peace at the bus stop, I wanted Peter to stop laughing at me, but I chose to hurt him, a violent act, in order to obtain it. They dropped the bomb hoping to end a war that had already killed thousands of soldiers; but the bomb still killed. Killing doesn't make up for other killing. We long for that beautiful peace--but we'll never truly know it, feel it, until Christ returns. War is the beast; is the true beginning of death. It is this beast that finds its way into the vein of America and us humans. Situations never begin and end with peace. They always begin with war and sometimes end with peace.

The joke is true peace and anti-war cannot coexist within us. We all have that Beauty and the Beast all-in-one dysfunction. Jesus is true and untainted peace, so I'll stick to emulating his teachings which say, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you." He's the only one that can truthfully give peace because it is He himself He gives. And I'll gladly receive. I can't understand the peace that Peter so easily passed out to the guys but forgot about for me, just like I can't understand the peace Jesus so perfectly gives. And I don't Bless a country that bombs without blinking. Unbelievable.

My sister, a pacifist Mennonite pastor, said what is even more unbelievable and terrible is looking at a face that knows of Hiroshima without tears streaming down it.