On the banks of the Chilkoot River in Haines, Alaska, you can see Deer Rock. The nearby plaque explains that this rock, known as Guwakaan Teiyee, is very important to the Tlingit people because of the peace negotiated at this site between the Eagle and Raven clans.

You have to read a different sign–a bit farther away from the rock—to learn that Deer Rock was dynamited during road construction; what you see today is the reassembled pieces.

And you have to look up “Deer Rock” online (or, I suppose, in a library) to learn that the state highway authorities desecrated two cemeteries and a village site in the same road-building project that destroyed Guwakaan Teiyee.

We were talking about peace in church this past Sunday (I know, Mennonites are like “peace this” and “peace that.” We’re annoying that way. 🙂 and I shared this picture as part of my sermon:

For me, Deer Rock is a visual expression of what I find most challenging about striving to be a peacemaker: how terribly fragile peace can be.

The people of the Eagle and Raven clans did good and hard work to create peace between their groups. Then the dynamite and the bulldozers came. Don’t they always come? Peace is always tentative, always temporary. And as hard as we work to create it, there are no guarantees that it will last.

Yet we are still called to be peacemakers. To put in the time and the energy, the wisdom and the courage, to create peace. And then do it again. And again.

I am grateful for the witness of the Eagle and Raven clans in coming together in peace at Deer Rock those many years ago. I am grateful for the witness of the Tlingit people, led by Austin Hammond, who protested the destruction of the rock in 1971 and compelled authorities to cement the pieces of this significant landmark back together.

I am grateful for those who strive to create peace day after day even amidst all the broken pieces of previous efforts toward peace.

May God grant us a stubborn hope and relentless spirit as we seek to follow the peacemaking way of Jesus.