I need Peace this Christmas. I am feeling unsettled and concerned. The world today lives amid hatred and war—Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Sudan, Haiti—the list could go on. Within our own country, hatred for “them” seems to be growing and taking root.
There have always been issues that push against the concept of Peace. Wars and hatred are not new. These issues which impede Peace have been around since the beginning of time. The despair and chaos of the last few months make us feel like we are living on the edge, about to fall off the cliff away from any form of Peace.
The question today is how are you and I expected to find peace where there is seemingly no Peace? How do we remind ourselves of what Peace is and what form it takes in these days? There are several things that I have turned to in order to seek the reclamation of Peace in my life. One of these is my grandchildren. When I see Harrison snuggled up in Cheryl’s lap reading a book or listening to music, there is a sense that all will be well, and the chaos of the outside world is momentarily no more. Or when I watch our granddaughter Zoey sleeping, I have a feeling of ultimate peace and calm.
Over the years I have become much more attuned to nature, thanks to my wife. I find myself often going back in my mind to places of extraordinary beauty I have visited to help remind my soul of a feeling of Peace. Kentuckian Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things” illustrates this so well.
When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world , and am free.
Prayer: Creator God, in this season may we be reminded daily of your Peace. Help us to open our minds and our hearts to all that is around us which communicates to us Peace. And as Maya Angelou instructs us, we “look heavenward and speak the word aloud. / Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. / Peace.
Robert and his wife, Cheryl, have been members of Highland since 2006. Robert works for a long-term care pharmacy company based here in Louisville. The joy of their lives are their two grandchildren, Harrison and Zoey.