Dag Hammarskjold
Dag Hammarskjold, Peacemaker, Part 1
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold (easy for me to say!) was born July 29, 1905, the son of the Prime Minister of Sweden. He studied law and economics at the universities of Uppsala and Stockholm and taught political economics at Stockholm, 1933-1936. He joined the Swedish civil service in the Ministry of Finance and subsequently became president of the board of the Bank of Sweden. From 1947 to 1953 he held various government leadership roles.
On April 10, 1953, following the resignation of Trygve Lie of Norway as the United Nations Secretary General, Hammarskjold was elected for a five-year term. During this first term, he had to deal with the end of the Korean War, problems in the Middle East, and the crisis over the Suez Canal. In September 1957 he was unanimously elected to a second five-year term.
Hammarskjold made numerous peace-making trips to different countries, and during one such trip to negotiate a cease-fire between the United Nations and Katanga forces in the Republic of Congo’s civil war, Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash on September 18, 1961.
The world was then surprised and bewildered with the posthumous publication of a devotional notebook, Markings, that had been written by Hammarskjold. Not until the appearance of that book did people see that he was not only a man of diplomacy but a man with a deep spiritual life as well. He effected in his life a remarkable combination of the contemplative life with a life of action in the world. He was a Christian, the depths of whose spiritual life were entirely unsuspected until the publication of the book.
Working out his faith in service of humankind, he strove to learn more about the nature and the work of God. As he wrote in Markings (p. 122), “In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”
Let us pray…Good and gracious God, with thanksgiving we remember your servant Dag Hammarskjold, whose quiet faith led him to a life of service for the purpose of peacemaking. We pray for all peacemakers, and we pray for more peacemakers; help us all to enter the difficult work of listening to others and working toward compromises and solutions to our differences --- as opposed to the simple resolution of violence. Turn us to you and your never failing love, that we might be inspired to work harder for peace in our world, peace in our nation, peace in our community, peace in our family, and peace in our lives. This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.