One benefit of having sons and daughters in distant places is that we sometimes get wonderful letters. Our daughter, Katie, once wrote a letter about a visit she made to one of the 400 small islands in the San Blas Territory off the coast of Panama. The Kuna Indians on these islands have maintained their traditional lifestyle in spite of pressures from modern society. She found their native religion most interesting.

Katie wrote: “They believe they are God’s chosen people and that God wants them to live in peace and harmony. They believe that if someone causes a disruption, the entire tribe is in jeopardy of not going to heaven. There are no jails. They don’t need them. They frequently have town meetings where people talk about any problems. It’s just like a big group therapy session. Over the years several different missionaries have come to the island. However, since the missionaries fight among themselves, which the Indians know goes against God’s plan, they prefer their own faith to ours.”

In the early weeks of each year, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and George Washington for their struggle to bring us unity, peace and freedom. Each year we dust off our most hallowed ideals and hold them up, hoping to make them a reality. We honor those who struggled for justice and renew our commitment to their visions. However, even as we keep faith in our hope for peace, the reality continues to elude us, always hiding somewhere just beyond our grasp. Peace has become the Holy Grail of modern civilization.

This is especially painful for us as Christians. In Christ’s name we keep trying to bring forgiveness and peace to our broken world. Yet, sometimes we can’t even avoid arguing among ourselves. Would the “natives” of this world come closer to accepting what we have to offer if we did a better job of being peaceful and forgiving to other Christians? Often, lasting peace seems even further from our grasp than it was 2,000 years ago in the time of Christ, or than it was in the days of Washington and Lincoln.

Isn’t it ironic that with all of our wealth, technology and sophistication, the peace we yearn for escapes us while it flourishes among a little-known people on some obscure islands in a remote corner of a tropical sea?

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“Finding the Dream” is adapted from “Closing in on God” © 2002 by Jim and Ann Cavera. Deacon Jim and Ann Cavera live in Bowling Green. They write both separately and together and are the authors of “Grounded in God,” available through Liguori publishing or Amazon.com.