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A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Dr Craig Gardiner.

Good morning.

‘If anyone would strike you on the right cheek, turn the other to them too’. So said Jesus long ago. But Christians have often struggled with his challenge for nonviolence. Tregaron town, home to this year’s Welsh National Eisteddfod is a sympathetic location for conceiving patterns of life beyond violence. Not only was it home to Henry Richard, Wales’ own ‘apostle of peace’, but down the road at Llangeitho, is the birthplace of Annie Jane Hughes-Griffiths.

Annie’s story is inspiring, but it lay hidden and almost forgotten until just a few years ago, when her diary was re-discovered. It records her journey to the United States in the aftermath of World War 1 where she and some friends encouraged America to join the League of Nations and bring about what they called a ‘heritage of a warless world.’

Annie brought with her a staggering petition from almost 400,000 Welsh women of peace. But despite 9 million Americans standing in solidarity with their purpose, the plan did not succeed.

But none of that invalidates Annie’s peaceful purpose. Indeed, some of her hopes found their way into the new United Nations. The ongoing conflicts between countries, just like clashes with neighbours and even wrestlings with our conscience, makes it even more important that her story and other hidden stories of peace-making are recovered, celebrated and re-enacted.

Such hidden histories stretch back into the days of Jesus. His exhortation to turn the other cheek wasn’t advocating passivity in the face of conflict, but like Annie and those women from Wales, he was offering people creative and peaceable ways to overcome what is wrong in the world.

Imaginative God,
Reveal to us now
Your hidden ways of peace
And forgotten histories of grace
So that we may live beyond
the shadows of our anger
and the verdicts of the sword
Amen