First Place

"Peace"

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." -- Moshe Dayan

My understanding of that quote is that if you only hang out and talk to the people you like, you won't get to know your enemies. Your enemies might turn out to be really nice people once you get to know them. If you are thinking that they're mean, and walking away from them, and doing other disrespectful things to them you are not giving them a chance to tell you about themselves.

An example of this in my personal life is my relationship with my sister. We usually get along, but sometimes we act like enemies. Instead of being meaner to each other or going to our parents to tell on each other we can try to talk it out and break up the fight or argument by ourselves.

An example of this in my community is at my school there is a girl named Peggy in my class. She and I used to not get along very well because I thought she was a show-off and I thought she was rude and she said I was snobby in second grade. But once I let her talk about herself and I spoke to her about myself we became good friends and we still are. We understand each other better now.

An example of this in the world is that people in different religions, different cultures, and different countries and places don't get along because they think that they are so different that they shouldn't be friends with other people who are not like them. These misunderstandings can lead to anger or war.

When it comes to our enemies we should pay more attention to the things we have in common, not the ways we are different. Even though differences make us interesting, some people take them too seriously. We need to understand that we are all humans in the same world.

Elizabeth Harrison, gr. 3, St. Catherine's School, Richmond

Second Place

Haley Butcher, gr. 1, Seven Pines E.S., Henrico Co.

Third Place

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." Moshe Dayan

This quote above means showing God's idea of love to enemies, not my idea of love, because only God's help can make me want to talk to my enemies...especially someone who has hurt me.

Two years ago I had a beautiful white Angora bunny who I loved very much - and she loved me too, I am sure. I would sit out back in the grass and hold her, and people would say we looked alike because I had fluffy hair like her fur. My next door neighbor, who is a serious man with no children, has three vicious dogs who would stand at our fence and bark across it at my bunny. One sad day the dogs got a hold of my sweet Snowbell. .....They killed her....... I will never forget my father calling me in and telling me she was dead. I hated my neighbor and his dogs. I talked and talked to my father about it.

I knew to pray about it from what I had learned, and I tried to forgive them for what happened. I did begin to forgive him and I tried to be kind. I would stand at the fence and say "hi" to my neighbor. But he would ignore me and he would not smile. I don't think he knows how to talk about problems or how to say "I am sorry." I think the lesson in trying to talk to your enemies is to always pray to God to help you keep talking, even if it is not returned.

Since I am only eight years old, I cant' travel the world over and talk directly to people. But, I can send them messages of love by doing things that show I care and don't hate them, like making school kits in my church club for Iraqi children. I can also save my money and turn it in for people who need it around the world.

I just gave my pastor $13.74 and asked him to send it to people in Ecuador because I heard they need money. My sisters and I adopted a child through Compassion International for a year. It was hard to save enough money every month to turn in, but we think it helped Mukundahayo far away in Africa. These things aren't much, so I think just trying to talk to enemies near me might be the best way to help the world.

Emma Ellis, gr. 3, Home schooled, Richmond

Honorable Mentions:

Peace is one of the major things that our world needs to reach. Stop for a minute and take a good look around. Wars and fights are going on everyday and everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying everyday, whether it's because of starvation or bombings. Even here, in the United States of America, there is at least 1 death every day.

As Moshe Dayan said, "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. you talk to your enemies." That is true. Because there is already peace between you and your friends, you should talk to your enemies. At first you will have many differences, but sooner or later you can make peace.

I think that people should focus more on making friends than how to get back at enemies. That is what causes violence which prevents peace and starts wars and fights. With a simple, "Hello!" or, "How are you?" you can take a step forward and make more friends than enemies.

Lots of people have forgotten that to have peace in the world we must have love and patience first. We must be able to reach out and make friends first. If we can't make friends then who are we to be calling for peace? Who are we to judge others? What some people don't understand is that when we judge people we are doing something that could make more enemies. If we would open our eyes to look at all the people surrounding us and just reach out to the people who need help or just a hug and assurance that they will make it through their hard times, the world would be able to reach peace much faster.

When you have love and patience you can show people--even total strangers--the great person that you are inside. When we make enemies, it's like starting wars between us and the enemy. Then the violence and hate begins. He brings in one person and then you bring in one person. This continues until you have created a wall. This wall is blocking you from each other's lives. A wall made of violence and hate. Another problem is that too many people are building these walls. Maybe the actual problem is the anger building inside the people as the walls are built. They let it out by killing and injuring people. Intelligent, beautiful, and innocent people are dying everyday because of anger.

People should pay more attention to fixing these problems instead of making those walls. People should focus more on talking to their enemies. I think that to have peace we must first make friends and hold back anger with all of the other hurtful emotions. By making our enemies our friends, we are gradually breaking down walls formed between us piece by piece. After this our enemies can be fully welcomed into our hearts and our lives. This is what we must do in order to make the world a better place. Please think about what I have written and take action. Step by step peace can and will come into the lives of all.

Faith Emba, gr. 3, Our Lady of Lourdes School

Make the World a Better Place

The world should always have peace because if it didn't everybody would be mad and people would fight all the time. You should always try to make peace because you don't want to yell at people you care about or be angry with your friends. You won't make peace if you scream, or yell, or act hateful because that doesn't help it just makes you even angrier with that person. Peace is important to me because without it the world would be mad and things would be miserable and then if everything was miserable your life would be horrible.

The quote "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends talk to your enemies" means if you talk to enemies they could become your friend and then you wouldn't have any enemies to worry about. Then that could help you and other people because you won't yell or distract people around you then you'll definitely make peace. I feel that everybody should converse to enemies and forgive them, or apologize before you get mad and be violent. That way you can make peace. If you never do that the world would be intolerable and disorderly.

In my community most people don't converse some usually use violence with guns, but instead you could reason with the person and it may be possible that you could become friends with that person and be a good influence and help them make peace. I have peace because whenever I get into a fight with my friends after about twenty minutes I become friends with them again.

Peace is also important to me because without it things would be hard for you to learn and it might make your grades drop so if you have an attitude or like to be negative try to fix it because it could make peace and help yourself and other people. So make a difference and make the world a better place.

Cassidy Maund, gr. 3, W. A. Walton E.S., Prince George Co.

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."

I think this quote means you should talk to your enemies to make peace. You

should talk with your enemies because you are already friends with your friends. Talk to your enemies and say, "I want peace. Let's be friends." I think you should chat with your enemies and make friends out of enemies.

When all my friends go home I talk to my enemy .We find out we have a lot in common. We play tag and chat. We also make houses for bugs.

I think it is wrong to still be fighting in the 911 wars. We should say, "Let's stop

fighting. We want peace." Lets make friends with other countries we're fighting.

I think we should be friends with everyone. No matter what race or sex they are. The hard thing is to still be friends with our other friends. Stop fighting and be friends with the people you are fighting.

Emma Gay, gr. 3, Mary Munford E.S. , Richmond

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your

enemies." --Moshe Dayan

My understanding of this quotation is that you should talk to your enemies in order to find out what kind of person they really are and the things they like to do. If you find out more about each other, then you can learn to play together and be friends and learn how to get along. In order to get along with your enemies you must tell them in a kind way why you are upset with them. Both of you need to talk to each other about ways to be nice to each other and not upset each other. The both of you should talk about ways to get along and be friends.

This idea applies in my personal life when I am at school. I need to be kind to my classmates and be able to let them know when they upset me. I also need to know how to talk and play nice with them so I will not upset them. This also applies in my community because I need to be kind to my neighbors and talk to them about anything they do that upsets me, and do my best not to do anything that will upset them and make them mad. I need to talk to my classmates and neighbors in order to make peace with them and to talk about our problems so we can fix them. After we talk about things that bother us, we can play together and get along without any bad feelings.

This also applies in the world because we need to be able to talk to people in other countries and discuss ways we can get along and not be at war. We need to fmd a way to get along so there is peace around all the world, and they only way we can work out our problems is to talk about them and try to find a way to be friends.

Matthew Evans, gr. 1, Mehfoud E.S., Henrico Co.

Enemies are a part of life. They are something we all have to deal with. What would happen if you talk to your enemy? I would talk to my enemy instead of my friends because it's always good to play with someone different. But an even better idea is that I might become friends with my enemy. Enemies can make a miracle happen in just a blink of an eye.

An example is me and my enemy does not like each other and then bam! We are friends. I became friends with my enemy because I was nice to my enemy. and I played with that person. Another reason to talk to your enemy instead of your friends is that nobody wants to feel left out and if you talk to your friends you might hurt your enemy's feelings if they're left out.

There's a saying that says "treat people the way you want to be treated." That saying really goes with enemies because if you treat your enemy badly then your enemy might treat you the same way. My last idea would be if you talk to your enemy you may learn more about that person by talking together. These ideas might make peace in the world because there won't be fighting with each other. These ideas might stop violence in our communities.

Sierra Spain, gr. 3, Seven Pines E.S., Henrico Co.