Shalom

 

Yesterday, we held and prayed the question, what are you waiting for?  I hope you wrote a few notes in response to that question.  Today, I invite you to put on soft music (maybe an instrumental version of Christmas Carols) and continue to hold the question of what you are waiting for.  I invite you to light one candle of peace.  The word for peace in Hebrew is shalom and it is more than an absence of violence.  Shalom is about feeling connected from the top of your head to your pinkie toe and connected to all of God’s creation.  As Dr. King once said, “All (that was, is, and will ever be) is caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...”  Shalom is about interconnectedness and integrity and indivisibility.  Shalom can be fleeting and fragile.  Shalom is what is what we seek to soak in on the Sabbath (which is more than a day of the week ~ Sabbath is a state of the soul to rest in God not trying to hustle or bustle or strive or proof oneself worthy).  What am I waiting for?  Shalom/peace/resting in God’s presence is one response in my heart this week.  And this isn’t just found at the end of the journey in Bethlehem, but along the pathway as well.  When you sit in silence, may God’s sacred shalom surround you.  When you ponder God’s love, may God’s sacred shalom surround you.  When you venture out to the store, may God’s sacred shalom go before you.  When you visit a friend who is hurting or are honest about your own aches, may God’s sacred shalom befriend you.  When you lay down, may God’s sacred shalom be with you every second today.  Shalom, my friend, shalom.  Amen.