A Peaceful Place Called Home – July 09, 2000
Home is a feeling of peace and love that we carry with us.
Never did home seem so far away as when a young soldier crouched in a foxhole near the enemy line during World War II. Bullets whizzed overhead. “For days . . . hot, humid, nerve-splitting days, and horrible, long, rainy nights,” the 20-year-old soldier held his position.1
Like many of the brave and strong, young John Walz “knew he had to find peace if he [were] to keep his sanity. So he thought of the most peaceful place on earth. . . . Home. Using his helmet and knife he started to sculpt in the muddy earth. He fashioned a miniature version of his living room at home. A shelf for his radio, a table for his food, a comfortable chair, pictures in frames on the walls. Then he settled back in his lounge chair made of mud and felt a beautiful sensation fill his tired body and anguished soul. . . . PEACE. He had created a place of peace in the midst of war.”2
Because home had been a peaceful place for him, he was strengthened by its memory.
We live in a time when such homes are needed. Homes where kindness, courtesy, and mutual respect find place at the kitchen table. Homes where laughter and love resound in living rooms. Homes strengthened by prayer and softened by forgiveness. In such homes, when children leave, they take with them the quiet confidence of happy family life.
Out in the world, youth are sure to face the shrapnel of sarcasm and the cannons of contention. They are surrounded by so many traps that would require the surrender of sacred principles and beliefs.
But if home remains a place of peace, they can return—even if only in their mind’s eye—and garner strength. When a soft answer, a gentle touch, a secure feeling of love characterizes home, they will do all they can to recreate such a safe haven—for themselves, for their children, and for their children’s children in years to come.
Home can be a bit of heaven that gives us respite from the battles of the day.
Program #3699
1. Personal History of John J. Walz, written by his daughter Debbie Bentley.
2. Personal History of John J. Walz.