To the Parched, a Drink

Peace is a desert flower, lonely, hardy, eager. It is always ready. It has to be.

Not since World War II has there been so much violence in so many places on Earth. The total number of conflict-related deaths rose last year by a whopping 96%. That’s not only alarming but nearly unfathomable considering that in 2022 the United Nations counted more than 2 billion people living in war-torn regions and 110 million displaced by violence.

Today, there are at least 114 armed conflicts raging across the globe. Our United States is not counted among the places where conflicts are ongoing. That’s almost comical given the near-daily mass shootings in this country, the fresh memory of an attempted overthrow of the government by armed insurrection, the dismal reality that a third of the population now believes violence is justified to achieve political aims.

Oh, we have a violence problem alright. That much can be said with certainty. What’s much harder is seeing it for what it really is and understa…