After watching Hotel Rwanda today, I was feeling pretty low (and generally hating the Belgians for what they did to spur a genocide that claimed as many as 1,000,000 people in 100 days).

Then I saw the news that Nepal’s democratic government signed what I suspect will be a lasting peace accord with the kingdom’s Maoist rebels, ending a bitter 10-year civil war. I have a relationship with a monastery in Kathmandu, and had recently heard from a Tibetan here in Washington that someone robbed the monastery in the last few months.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing: Who robs a monastery? Talk about bad karma. Dang.

When things were at their worst, I’m sure many Nepalese on either side of the conflict thought the war would never end. But it did. And now they have peace. There’s a lesson here.