James Carroll, frequent op-ed writer for the Boston Globe and other publications, has an old clock in his living room. When it stops, suprisingly it has absolutely no effect on the passage of time. We often forget that the clock is not Time. In his brilliant op-ed, God's Clock, Carroll deftly extends this confusion of a measure with that which is measured to the failure of words to adequately convey ideas, the failure of science to explain all that is known and the failure of religion as a means to fully know God. Yet as humans, we use our tools to understand our world, to reach for more than what we have and what we are. That is our irrepressible nature.

The peace movement is a tool, a human invention, that reaches for a better world, a peaceful world. Peace is there for the having, yet our human institutions, government and cultures, which are all set up to keep our world safe and orderly, somehow fail to do so. We get caught in their clockwork, believing that if we exert more pressure on the existing imperfect machinery it will somehow perform better.

What can we reach for to build a less imperfect machine? How can we reach outside of this clockwork toward solutions, toward a higher level of striving, further from our barbaric roots? Can we trust each other enough to build the new machine with those we consider adversaries, be they here at home or abroad?

Remember that at the birth of our nation, there were bitter rivalries of ideology. But more importantly there was a strong trust that something better could be forged, something that would transcend what existed previously.

Someday we'll throw away that confounded clock and just experience time immeasurable.