Because each of us likely has our own definition and perspective, in early 2009 John Noltner began interviewing people about what peace meant to them. His goal was to create a collection of thoughts on peace from a wide variety of people and use it to foster a larger public conversation about the topic. A freelance photographer based in Minneapolis, Noltner also took black and white portrait photographs of his subjects. In addition to creating a traveling exhibit, another result of his efforts is his book, A Peace of My Mind, Exploring the Meaning of Peace One Story At a Time, which contains excerpts of about 50 interviews and the subjects’ portraits. (Many of the full interviews are available on the book’s web site as podcasts.)

A significant number of those interviewed, particularly those with a religious orientation, tend to look toward an internal peace as a first and essential step. They believe that the personal effort of finding an inner peace contributes to and builds peace in the world as a whole. Others tend to view it as an absence of war. Yet there hasn’t been much of that, notes Luyen Phan, an international student advisor. He believes peace can arise by building on cultural awareness and exchanges so that what happens elsewhere in the world has more meaning to us.

Economic and personal security also play a role in some visions of peace. Some express the concept that “nobody gets seconds until everyone gets firsts” or that the measure of success isn’t monetary but the intangible values that prompt people to strive to help others. There is also a sense in some interviews that personal safety or the knowledge that a person has food and shelter are key components.

Some views are striking because of the individual’s background. Jamal Hashi was in elementary school when war broke out in his native Somalia. Now a restaurant owner, his observations have a somewhat unique religious backdrop and perspective.

The core of the message [in the Bible and Qur'an] is: achieve peace, give peace, and live by peace. But what do we fight about? The difference of who was the messenger. It’s like killing the mailman because he wasn’t the same mailman last week. Did you get the mail? That’s all that matters.

Others are more lyrical. Take for example, Melvin Carter Jr., a retired St.Paul police officer, who considers peace it “living symphonically” with each other. “[Y]ou know, in the symphony you’ve got all kinds of stuff happening — rhythmically and melodically and harmoniously — at the same time. [Yet the instruments work] together in such a way that doesn’t clash.”

One thing that is clear is that regardless of how people view or strive for peace, it is not a state we should consider only during particular times of the year. Thus, A Peace of My Mind would be one of those Christmas gifts that has the propensity to long outlast the event.

Hudlin Wagner in John Noltner’s A Peace of My Mind

When we meet Niko, as he’s known to friends and family, he is struggling with a never-ending and always growing pit and ache in his stomach. Although Niko’s mother became a Danish national treasure as a pop singer, she and Niko’s father die in a car accident when Niko is 13. He was cared for by his older sister, who also manages and invests the earnings from their mother’s songs. But Niko’s fear of losing her increases as she begins living her own life, gets married and has a family. Niko increases his carousing and fighting, gaining the reputation of “an up-and-coming young psychopath.” His path of self-destruction includes suicide attempts, trying to erase that knotting pain in his stomach.

Niko believes things may finally be changing for the better when he meets Silje, who turns out to be the singer in a tribute band to Niko’s mother. Niko falls deeply in love with her but can’t control the demons inside. During a minor argument he ends up savagely beating Silje and then attempts suicide in his sister’s home. His actions eventually drive his sister to suicide herself, an event that crushes him.

The knot is tearing down everything to make room for itself. Walls, rooftops, floors, everything is being smashed to pieces in the loudest possible way. Suddenly the noise and pain stop, because what’s the point of giving me a stomach ache when I no longer function? All is silent, the demolition is over, the knot is everywhere and I am no longer me. I am the knot.

It’s at this point that Jesus Christ steps in. Actually, he breaks in. Niko wakes up early one morning to the sounds of a prowler in his apartment. Niko sees a man who’s “tough, long-haired, bearded and big and strong, and [who] oozes confidence” entering his bathroom. When the man comes out, Niko clocks him in the head with an ashtray. Niko meet Jesus, or at least someone who claims to be Jesus and there to make Niko “a better man.”

This encounter reflects part of the tone of My Friend Jesus Christ. Husum takes a light, at times humorous, touch to the issues Niko faces. At the same time, the sparse language of the work, translated from the Danish by Mette Petersen, retains a balance of seriousness and sincerity. That quality may reflect Husum’s time as a screenwriter prior to the book, first published in Denmark in 2008 as “My Friendship with Jesus Christ” and now in its first English translation.

Although Niko is relatively convinced that Jesus is a “nutter,” when Jesus touches him the knot disappears. Jesus advises Niko to move from Copenhagen to Tarm, the village in Jutland where his parents grew up. Niko’s mother never returned to the town and refused offers to perform there after running away with Niko’s father to escape her own abusive father. Figuring he has little or nothing left to lose, Niko moves there.

Once in Tarm, Niko quickly comes to treasure the area and makes a handful of friends and acquaintances, including a friend from his childhood who shows up in town, a promiscuous hairdresser, and an attractive Jehovah’s Witness who comes to Niko’s door. Acting again on the advice of Jesus (or the “nutter”), Niko convinces his friends, a group he calls “NATO,” to return with him to Copenhagen to help him try and right the wrongs he’s done. With a variety of twists, turns and complications, the group devotes itself to that mission with Niko getting occasional advice — and even some assistance in a fight — from Jesus.

My Friend Jesus Christ is about a search for individual redemption, not Christian fiction or even markedly religious. In fact, some Christians might even object to the book’s portrayal of Jesus. Like Niko, the reader gets hints that the evidence supports the man’s claims that he is Jesus but we are never actually sure.

Husum seems at his best in describing Niko before he meets Jesus, doing a first-rate job of portraying a soul in agony. That effort, though, makes some of the balance of the book seem a bit of a misfire. Niko’s easy acceptance of the idea of moving to Tarm and his mollification there and later don’t quite fit the self-destructive and tormented Niko of the first third of the book. Likewise, at times events in Copenhagen seem a bit too much like a blithe excursion than the struggle of an anguished soul. Additionally, although the ending is certainly appropriate for a story about a search for redemption, it is a bit confusing.

Despite those flaws, My Friend Jesus Christ entertains in its own idiosyncratic way.

Lars Husum, My Friend Jesus Christ

Wilson chronicles her family’s sojourn in Running Away to Home: Our Family’s Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Really Matters. It is a journey of family discovery more meaningful than she envisioned and into a world far different from their lives in middle America. And although Wilson sets out to discover her past, she learns more about living in the present.

Running Away to Home takes readers inside Mrkopalj and its environs. Wilson gives firsthand accounts of her and her family’s experiences. Although Wilson was the one in search of where she came from, her husband and children (six and almost four at the time) adapted more rapidly to village life and the cultural differences. One thing all of them learned is that life operates differently in a small mountain village. For example, the family agreed to rent the to-be-renovated second floor of the house of Robert Starcevic, who ran one of the town’s “bistros.” When they arrived, the remodeling had barely begun. Despite promises from Robert that it would be done in a day, a couple days, a week or two, the Wilsons never ended up living in the space they intended. Rather, they took over the smaller third floor of the house, which housed Robert’s daughters’ rooms. This was due in part to Robert often preferring to spend his days indulging in local libations and watching the world, a not uncommon activity in the village.

It may have been that approach that made a 21st Century American mother take the longest to acclimate. Rather than the constant motion of work and family activities back home, the 800 or so residents of Mrkopalj lived a slower pace. This doesn’t mean no one worked hard. To the contrary, Wilson found that life in the village could be “bone-hard.” There was no industry to speak of and many supported themselves by what they and their neighbors could grow, often on their own small plots. They would rise early to manually tend to their plots and livestock or to perform household chores. They would cut trees in the forest to gather firewood for the coming winter. Much of their work was done without the labor-saving conveniences most Americans would expect to use.

One major failing of the book, though, is that it contains no pictures, despite the fact Wilson’s web site contains 128 photos in a gallery called “Life in the Village.” Wilson says that was a conscious decision. She wants readers to come up with their own images of the village and its people in their minds. Yet virtually all readers have never taken such a step in location and daily life. Not sharing photographs in the book deprives them of actually seeing the people and sites that feature so prominently in it.

Although Wilson did not feel immediately accepted, she did catch up with her family in adjusting to and feeling the fabric of life in the village. Her search for her ancestors seemed less imperative and Wilson noted that she learned more about what their lives may have been like than about them personally. And, for her, that was perhaps the real lesson of their four months living in the village. Among other things, history and a sense of place seemed woven into the fabric of life. Croatia was far from immune from the political, nationalist and ethnic disputes that affected southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Yet while these fractures still lurked beneath the surface, they seemed far less important than the deep sense of community. This meant “they all lived together in messy harmony in Mrkopalj. In addition, for all our American advantages — jobs, industry, good malls — they felt sorry for me. No one in Mrkopalj could fathom what it must have been like to not even know my great-grandparents.”

Graced by an ability to increasingly turn at humorous eye at their acclimation process, Running Away to Home shows how the Wilsons seem to find themselves amidst a world much different than they knew. “Mrkopalj showed us that it didn’t matter what we had,” Wilson says. Instead, experiencing the small things that contributed to the life and culture of Mrkopalj stood in sharp contrast to and often felt more congruous than life in America, “a place where people had everything and appreciated so little.”

As Wilson and her family discover, even when you leave home it doesn’t mean you can’t find a niche and fellowship in other places, and in ways you might least expect.

Jennifer Wilson, Running Away to Home