Pinball Peacemakers

Have you ever played pinball? Not online or on a computer, but good ole’ hands-on-the-machine pinball?

With a simple pull-and-release of a shooter, a silver ball launches; and as the ball works its way down, around and through the playfield surface, bells ring, lights light up, music plays and occasionally voices shout. 

Sometimes the ball pauses briefly against a post or rests in a depression in the playfield before moving on. When it reaches the bottom, flippers expertly fired launch the ball back up into the playfield, and the whole ringingclanginglighting musical experience begins again. 

Have you ever looked closely at a pinball? Solid, sturdy, mirror-polished, rolling and wheeling, twirling and spinning, sometimes even bouncing? 

Pinball Peacemakers. 
They’re just like that.

Idling in the chute, they wait, until, launched by a Force that is not their own, they enter the day’s playfield with an absolute willingness to go anywhere that Force carries them. They move here and there, touching this and that; and everywhere they go, their impact is felt. People light up, situations react.  They move about the playfield as many times as the flippers dictate, then slip into the bin to await the next launch.  These peacemakers make no plans of their own. They just show up, every day

ready to launch. 

Yes, our world needs the well-known authors and teachers, speakers and organizers who call for meaningful change. But if it weren’t for the Pinball Peacemakers, moving through our days with their quiet kindnesses and their gentle prompts, their healing ways and helpful hands...if it weren’t for their sometimes irreverent laughter and their always willingness to pause with us should we need company in our sorrow or our difficulty...why, if it weren’t for the Pinball Peacemakers...

the playfield would never light up.