Be inspired:
Hearing Peace

In the Lutheran Church, many people know the peace greeting “Peace be with you”, which is spoken in every service and during every Holy Communion.

It is not only of great importance in Germany, but also in the Central African Republic. During the normal Sunday liturgy the congregation is greeted with “Siriri aduti na bè ti ala”. “Siriri” means peace and “bè” means heart. The verb “duti” is an interesting one. “Duti” literally signifies to sit or to stay. There would have been other verbs expressing “be with you” or “stay with you”, but the people who translated the greeting into the Sango language in the 1960s chose “duti” and thus to sit.

Hospitality resonates in the word “duti”! Whenever you stop at someone’s house, you are invited to stay: sit down (“mo duti”). Then someone from the household will bring out a seat or offer his or her own stool and seat himself or herself on the floor: You can sit down here (“ye ti duti la”). All this is accompanied by a lot of attention, recognition and mutual tributes. Saying “Mo duti” shows that you are prepared to welcome guests and prepared for their stay. A guest is always welcome to stay, even for a longer period of time. Sitting together as a way of living and being together. Sitting next to someone, apart from a short chat, can therefore also mean living with someone. Sometimes guests stay for weeks and months. When the guest leaves, he/she says to the host: “Mo duti nzoni” – that means “stay (sit) well”, in other words, be well, live in a good way, reside well.

This peace greeting shows how peace can succeed: Peace must sit with us, be with us, reside with us. And stay. Peace is thus being personified (“Let peace be in your hearts”) as if peace were a human being in our house whom we like to take care of so that he may feel comfortable and stay. And like all guests, peace does not only cause work, but also contributes to the house community, enriches it, honours it, brings new ideas and fresh thinking into the house. So, we do everything to keep him (or her) with us. The congregation reminds itself of this every Sunday.

Rahel Kühne-Thies