Never had the familiar words struck me with such force as they did at a concert last week. Those Latin words “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace) come at the end of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and express a request for a gift needed at every stage of history.

This prayer rang out even more eloquently than usual at this time when war once again so menacingly looms before us.

This petition  for peace had a special impact on me because it was sung by a combined chorus of some 200 college students. Massed on the stage of Sanders Theater behind a professional orchestra, the youthful singers gave eloquent expression to my own desire for peace and that of many other people around this country and, indeed, the world.

In my 75th year, there is nothing I hope for more ardently for my own daughter and others in the rising generations than for them to live in peace.

Beethoven himself lived in a time of armed conflicts that roiled the countries of Europe. When his Solemn Mass was first performed in 1824, listeners would have been reminded of Napoleon’s recent invasions of Vienna where the composer lived.

At the beginning of the words “Dona nobis pacem” in the score, he inscribed German words translated as “Prayer for inner and outer peace.”  This heading showed his understanding of the spiritual meaning of peace as well as its external manifestations.

This winter has brought us all a turbulence that strikes me as different in character from any I have experienced in a lifetime of ups and downs. Andrew Delbanco, a Columbia University professor of literature, in a recent talk, referred to these months as “a time of great darkness and pessimism.”  That is what I hear from many people encountered on my daily rounds.

This period perhaps could also be called a “phony war,” evoking the October 1939-April 1940 waiting period before World War II heated up. We feel ourselves on the edge of a crevice, ready to leap over or disastrously fall in.

Many people, now senior, grew up believing in the adage “there is nothing new under the sun.”  By now, we know better. The current time of tension stretched out over many weeks is unique in our experience. Some 250,000  warriors ready to spring on Iraq, intense diplomatic struggles at the United Nations, continued erosion of personal savings, and much more, mark this as a period that tests the inner resources of just about everyone.

I also bemoan our decline in representative government. How, for instance,  can the president promise some 30 billion dollars to Turkey without any debate in the Congress that has the responsibility to appropriate major expenditures?

Is not the veteran senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, right to bemoan the silence of the senate at a time of such crisis? “There is no debate,” he lamented, “ no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.”

The thunderous silence on the floor of the senate in the face of decisions that may affect our national well-being and will determine our nation’s place in the world troubles me. Our representatives ought to be debating the wisdom of alternative courses of action.

I find the conduct of our federal government profoundly disturbing in other ways as well. Though it is delicate to question personal religious practice, the strong reliance of the president on religious motivation, something he himself talks about, especially bothers me. As a person to whom religion has loomed large over a lifetime and continues to do so now, I have learned how hazardous it can be to interpret a particular course of action as willed by God.

To justify the use of massive force against Iraq, the president puts faith in “regime change” and the creation of democratic rule. A  new government in Baghdad will supposedly serve as a model inducing other Arab nations to change their ruling structure. What a utopian plan built on wishful thinking!

But, in case you don’t like that scheme,  he comes up with alternative rationales as occasion requires. No one of them justifies an assault on Iraq without the backing of the UN. That is the conviction of most spiritual leaders of the world, including those of my own tradition.

I have chosen to write about the threat of war this week because of feeling torn by it. In doing so, I assume that many other people of my generation feel the same way. Even those of us blessed with long life have never previously experienced quite this set of circumstances. We have survived many other crises but this combination is different.

“Grant us peace” remains my prayer, along with the hope that our nation will find paths leading  to the well-being of our own people and peaceful  solidarity with the other nations of the world.

Richard Griffin