Imagine peace
Advent, Week Two: Peace
In order to reflect on what it means to wait in the darkness — and there seek hope, peace, joy, and love — I’m committing to write something here each week until Christmas. Consider this field notes on those four themes. I invite you to join me, in the darkening days of a Pacific Northwest winter, watching and waiting for signs of light.
…
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
when there is no peace.
- the prophet Jeremiah
…
“Imagine peace”
- sign outside the Vancouver Art Gallery
…
“We can only live into what we have imagined.”
I’m trying to imagine peace, but I’m having a hard time. And if I can’t imagine it, how can I live into it? I spent much of this week looking for peace…and coming up short.
The refrain that kept going through my head was the words of Jeremiah the prophet: “‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.”
Don’t let me be another voice spouting cheap peace at the expense of integrity…wholeness (which I believe is peace, peace in that deep sense of the word ‘shalom’ — where nothing is broken and no one is missing).
Recently, my inner life has been anything but peaceful. No wonder it’s challenging to have eyes for peace in my outer world. In the language of the enneagram, I’m classified as a number nine, the ‘peacemaker’. I bring a grounding presence to my interactions with people, and I seek harmony in relationships…sometimes to my detriment. ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace.
While a guise of peace probably got me through a lot of roommate relationships, being married collapses the distance required for that kind of…well, dishonesty.
I can’t hide, though sometimes I wish to. An illusion that I was ‘easy to live with’ has gone out the window. I lose stamina for talking through things, for living in tension. And still, life continues. Simple escape is no longer a solution when you share the same bed.
This week, Andrew and I started to see a counsellor together. In our living room, with this stranger’s face pressed up against our computer screen, we answered questions. “How did your relationship develop?” “What do you fight about?” “What are you hoping for from counselling?”
“Peace.” I didn’t say that, but, if I’m honest, I think that’s what I want. Just a bit of peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask?
I have a hunch that, rather, it’s not enough. Ask for more. Seek the peace that is costly, that does not minimize or eliminate the chasms that open up between you, within you. Pursue peace that has room for your grief and despair. For your not knowing. Peace that surpasses your understanding.
What I cannot understand, let me imagine.
Imagine peace that is not found within this warring world, or even your warring mind, but peace that finds you. Peace that takes on flesh and takes up residence in your worn relationships, your waning resolve, your weary body.
Imagine peace.
…
This piece was prompted, at least in part, by a question that came first from my husband and then from my father.
“Could you write about what you’re experiencing?”
“I wouldn’t know what to say...” (I still don’t, but I’m working on it…)
