Eastering Faith

On Sunday, I suggested that rather than a noun, our celebration of Christ's resurrection is better as a verb.  Rather than Easter...perhaps we should think of "Eastering" faith.  A faith that both moves and meditates on God's work among us/in us.  A faith that prays with its legs/hands as well as our hearts in quiet moments.  A faith that celebrates but also knows the concern for those who are crying.  Eastering faith...I believe is summarized well in the Prayer of St. Francis.

Lord, make me a instrument of Your peace.  Peace here is more than an absence of violence, rather an embracing/encompassing shalom - or wholeness/connectedness.  I also love here that this isn't just about what we can will or work we have to do...this is something God does/has done for us.  To make us...mold even...mend us into an instrument of peace. 

What would that instrument look like?
Is it a guitar?
Is it a drill?
Is it something a doctor would us to help/heal us?
Is it something that we would recognize or is God's tool box drastically different from our own?

Because you know peace, you must decide the pathway to that peace...the process God might use to engage us and encourage us.  We need to know the instrument that will be working in our lives.  Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Which to me means I let go of the stuff I hold inside...the anger at that person...the frustration at myself for my role...the pain I leave unprocessed.  All that stuff that wants to congregate in the corner of my soul, like a cobweb.  All that stuff that wants me to just pretend I don't see it there huddled and hanging out together.  All that stuff that is broken and even unwanted.  Because our soul is shy and won't show up just because we invited it to the party of life, we need to ask God to interrupt and intervene in our lives.

Make me...because I cannot make myself forget or heal.
Make me....because I cannot wrap my mind around the process.
Make me...because otherwise I might not even go there.

But make me not in the image of the world, but in Your image O God. 

Where do you long for peace?  May a list.
Where do you long for stillness/shalom in your life/your family/your community/and especially in our world.  Make me...which also sounds like mold me and fill me and use me in ways that do not hurt or harm but bring about God's peace.

Can we live into this prayer this week for the sake of the world God so loves.

Amen.