Handel's "Messiah" represents the highest hope for mankind. Of course, the oratorio is thoroughly Christian; but the spirit of the music and the text are universal. Today as I listened to the work presented by the choir of First United Methodist Church in San Diego, I thought how the world might be changed if all six billion people could simultaneously hear what I was hearing.

My imagination took me to a place where everybody in the world could be together, where everybody could see everybody. I imagined the music and wondered what kind of symbolic gesture might serve as our universal commitment to peace, a commitment to erase terror from the earth. Some say a dove is the perfect bird to represent peace and hope for the world. On grand occasions white doves are sometimes set free to rise with seeming purpose and determination into the sky. White doves are preferred for such occasions.

I have nothing against doves, against doves of any color, but I should not like white doves for our celebration of peace and the end of terror. I like to think the pigeon would be a better choice. And not white, for God's sake. If the bird is to have true symbolic value for all people, get mottled pigeons of many colors and shades.

Pigeons are common... like my people, like my family, like me. I am comfortable with Pigeons. They are earthy. And they are everywhere. You can find pigeons in New York and Paris and Rome and Tokyo and Baghdad. They hop around sightseers in Red Square. They waddle and strut in clusters all around the Place de la Concorde. What would St. Peter's Square be without them.

I know a man who raised pigeons when he was a boy growing up in Baghdad. He made nests for them on the roof of his house. My friend who kept pigeons when he was a boy has grown into a good man. I won't go so far as to say my friend is the exceptional person he is today because of his association with pigeons when he was a boy; but I wonder if he would be the same today if he had raised white doves instead of pigeons.