Peace...when there is no peace

 

This week we are exploring and experimenting with shalom, peace, and how this sacred encounter shows up disguised as our life in the journey to Bethlehem this year.  Yesterday, I offered words from the author Madeleine L’Engle on silence and letting the Word pray within you.  What happens if peace feels as far away as Pluto?  What if this week you have been fraught with anxiety or anger, what if you have fought with fear and frustration, what if your life resembles a home that has been broken into by forces beyond your control?  Your life may feel like something that is broken beyond repair and the furniture of your life is turned upside down and your skin keeps crawling with aches within.  Maybe what you long for and are waiting for is this storm of life to pass.  Maybe what you are praying for is your cancer to be cured.  Or maybe you are waiting for a relationship to be restored, even though the other person has blocked you on social media.  Or for the leaders of this world to be adults rather than bickering like children on a playground.  Or for the church to be the church to speak up.  So where does that leave peace when everything isn’t perfect or polished?  Isn’t peace supposed to glisten and glow, make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside?  Maybe…but maybe not.  Peace is about integration, letting our head, heart, soul, body, words, and presence be in alignment with God (not just with our own plotting and planning).  Peace is being enfolded in the crucible of God’s embrace, which sometimes feels like a boat slowly going down stream and at other times can feel like white water rafting.  For my beloved reading this who don’t feel peace, who think all this sounds too much like positive psychology, or Pollyanna, let me share the words of Jan Richardson who writes:

 

Blessing in the Storm

I cannot claim to still the storm that has seized you,
cannot calm the waves that wash through your soul,
that break against your fierce and aching heart.

But I will wade into these waters,
will stand with you in this storm,
will say peace to you in the waves,
peace to you in the winds,
peace to you in every moment
that finds you still within the storm.

May Jesus speak and sing to the storms within us and around us offering shalom each second, a sacred presence and reminder that we are not along.  Amen.