The Peacemaker – Knox Vancouver

On the job I was given at seven, and the one person I fought

November 10, 2026
by Richard Yung Chung

So… there were seven of us. Five brothers and two sisters, in a small house, with not much money and a great deal of noise.

I once asked my mom how she managed it. Mom, how did you do that. She told me, “son, in those days, we didn’t have TV or computer… not much entertainment… so we went to bed early!”

Which explains the seven. It does not explain how any of us survived each other.

As I was growing up in a large family, I took the role of peacemaker of the family. All of us, as we were growing up in the family, we were all assigned a certain role to play in the family. It was not handed down to us or someone in the family told us to play that role, rather we just naturally and automatically played that certain role, based on what your sibling position, gender type, parental approval, personality or general family dynamic.

We all played a certain role in the family… like, responsible leader of the family (usually the oldest child), problem/rebel, spoiled brat, quiet one, missing one, etc.

I am the second last of 7 siblings.

Nobody gave me the job. That is what I find interesting, looking back. There was no meeting at which the family decided that Richard would be the one who stepped between people. The role simply appeared, the way water finds the low point in a floor, and I stepped into it and never really stepped out.

I should say that I was not a saint about it.

I never argued or fought with any other brothers or sisters… except my younger brother, who I hated with intense passion at early age, because he stole all my mom’s milk.

I used to beat him up, when my parents were not looking, but I stopped that since we got to high school. Not because I got mature, but because he got taller and stronger than me. I got scared (It’s not cool to hear, you got beat up by your younger brother). So I stopped that.

We got real close… like a buddy (only 2 years different).

With everyone else, though, I was the referee.

When there are many brothers and sisters, emotions bound to flare, and then very soon, emotions turned to arguments, and then, sometimes (not often, but sometimes) it settles with smack on the head, and then emotions get really hot.

That’s where I usually come in. I stand between two parties, and try to reason things out… tell them to calm down… remind them that they are brothers, or sisters, not enemies; do the big breathings several times, and usually take one party to the other side to try to talk some sense to that person “(how can you say that to your older brother, no wonder you got hit)”… you must apologize. And I go to the other brother (”you should not hit no matter what”). And I get two parties together, once their emotion is under control. I make peace between them.

It usually worked.

I have been thinking about that small boy in the middle of the room, because I do not think he ever left.

A child who learns to stand between people usually becomes an adult who does it for a living. I became a minister, which is, a good deal of the time, the same job with a larger room. Two people who will not speak to each other. A committee split down the middle. A family at a funeral who have not been in the same room in eleven years. You take one aside, then the other. You do the big breathing. You bring them back together once the temperature drops.

It is useful work. I am not complaining about it.

But it has a cost that took me a long time to see. The peacemaker in a family is usually the one who never gets to have his own fight. He is too busy managing everyone else. His job is to keep the temperature down, and a person who spends his whole childhood keeping the temperature down can get very good at never saying what he actually thinks.

Which is why the brother I fought with is the part of the story I keep coming back to.

He was the only person in that house I did not make peace with. I fought him. I resented him over a glass of milk. I hit him when nobody was looking, and then he grew, and I stopped. There was no referee between us, and nobody was managed.

And he is the one who became my closest friend/brother.

There is a line Jesus says that I preached on for years before I noticed what it did not say. Blessed are the peacemakers. Not the peacekeepers. Keeping the peace is what I did as a boy… calming things down, getting everybody back to the table before anything real got said.

Making peace is harder, and messier, and sometimes it begins with a fight.

He said something else in the same sermon, too, which I have always found alarming. If you are standing at the altar with your offering and you remember that someone has something against you, leave the gift right there. Go and be reconciled first. Then come back.

It does not say go and calm them down. It says go and actually settle it. Which usually means saying the thing out loud.

I still get pulled into the middle of rooms. I suspect I always will.

But I notice that the relationships in my life that have lasted longest are not the ones I smoothed over. They are the ones where somebody said the hard thing, and it hurt, and we stayed anyway.

I grew up as a peacemaker in the family. No wonder everyone likes me in the family… except my younger brother… he never listens to me… even now.

Richard