Peace out

Where does peace come from?
Within? God? Diplomacy?

What do we even mean by “peace”?
Calm? Happiness? Cease-fires? Mediation?

The word “peace” is so ubiquitous that we’ve ceased paying attention, ceased knowing what we’re saying.

Kind of like when you rapidly say a word so many times in a row that you forget what it even means anymore and have to stop and think about it.

The philosophy of language is really quite interesting; I took a class about it in college. (In France, in French, which just adds one more layer of interest to an already pithy subject.)

One of the most compelling concepts from the class is that a word is really just a symbol, a signifier of something else. In order to have meaning, it must be attached to something other than itself. When different people look at the same word, they may (and probably do) call up different “attachments”: different images — different significances — for that word. This concept partially explains why word-association games where you say the first thing that pops into your head are so telling about an individual’s psyche and life experience. While there are absolute, objective truths — definitions — of words, what a word actually means to an individual is so much more than that.

So what does “peace” mean to you? Stop and think about it for a second. (I know that it’s an odd feeling to STOP and THINK about something, isn’t it? I’m serious: do it right now.)

Honestly, 2 thoughts immediately come to my mind.

In the movie, Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock plays a gawky FBI agent who’s infiltrated the Miss America pageant. I love this movie. However, the movie is tainted for me because at the very end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT!), Sandra’s character says “And I really do want world peace!” *Groan* Totally out of character and cheesy (not that other parts weren’t, but this was unbearably so). It bothers me most because it’s disingenuous: They had just spent a fair amount of time making fun of the fact that “world peace” was an automatic answer for the ladies in the pageant, the robotic answer, the expected answer. Maybe they do, in some sense, want world peace… but they don’t even know what that means, and they haven’t even stopped to think about it! Over the course of the movie, Sandra’s character has gone from an intelligent, but clumsy, tomboyish, overworking, hygiene-challenged shell of a woman who scoffs at pageantry to a compassionate, beautiful, confident woman. I would hate to think that being the latter includes giving up your ideals and emptying your brain as well. Even if, at her core, she actually does want the world to be at peace, did she REALLY have to say it like that?

The other image that “peace” brings up is in the Mass when the priest says the word a handful of times right before the sign of peace. This repetition never really stuck out to me until I heard Dane Cook’s spiel about it. Now, he’s making fun of it, but he does it in a way that’s not offensive. And honestly, priests say it at least 5 times right before the sign of peace:

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever 
R: Amen
The peace of the Lord be with you, always.
R. And also with you
Let us offer to one another a sign of peace.

 

I think my example illustrates just how omnipresent “peace” is, from the secular to the religious. We talk about it all the time. But how many people actually achieve it?

World peace: So many people working towards it (so many people working against it), but even if it’s possible, this is still quite a long way off.

So what do we do in the meantime?

Seek inner peace.

I’ve found that the only time I truly feel at peace is when I’m living contemplatively. Living contemplatively can happen both in the most hectic times of life AND in the most calm. (cf works of Thomas Merton)

In the hectic times, the goal (whether I make it or not) is to keep the eye of the storm in the core of my being. Though the winds of the hurricane roar, there’s always the quiet center in my soul, and the fury outside cannot penetrate it. (cf. Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude)

In order to maintain that center, it’s necessary to quiet oneself occasionally. Just be. Allow yourself some sabbath time. Allow yourself to sit and daydream. Allow yourself to ignore just one pressing issue and just sit. Invite God into your heart, your gut, your mind, and allow Him to heal, clean, and sort through things for you.

I quite often ignore both of these forms of contemplative living, somehow forgetting all the good that comes out of it, and how much my time is multiplied when I take the time to focus on God.

And so I write this post not as someone who’s a master of peace, but as someone who yearns desperately for it, and forgets all the time how to get back to it. So I’m writing now in thanksgiving to the Holy Spirit not only for the reminder, but also for the gifts that make it possible…

Pax vobiscum.

Life in the Fast Lane

Ever get behind a REALLY annoying person on the road? You know, someone going like 10 miles under the speed limit on a road with a double yellow line… a truck that just HAS to pass another truck that’s going one mile per hour slower than the passing truck wants to go… It’s enough to tear your hair out sometimes! Or what about when you make a wrong turn and have to go WAY out of your way… you miss an exit and the next one isn’t for five miles… It’s so easy to get frustrated with yourself for being so stupid.

I’ve gotten a lot better with being patient with these people (and myself) on the road with this simple thought: You never know what God is protecting you from. It could be a speeding ticket, an accident, passing by an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/friend… Or He could be improving your timing so you see someone you need to… You never know.

On Saturday night, I was driving myself and my roommate home from swing dancing, and there were at least three other cars of people we were out with going the same way.

If we had left about 2 minutes earlier, we might have been killed.

You see, a 27-year-old man was driving his SUV 80 mph the wrong way on the freeway and crashed head-on into another car, killing both drivers instantly. 1-3 more cars were involved in the accident.

The first car in our group passed the accident right as people were stopping and getting out of their cars to see if the crash victims were okay. Two of us were stopped about 5 cars back from the accident. We were able to call the other car in our group in enough time to tell them to take a different way home.

As sorrowful as I feel for the families of those who died, it’s a scary thought to know that timing is everything, and the 2 minutes it took me that night to accidentally pass the entrance ramp, turn into a driveway, get back onto the road, and get on the ramp… Might have been the difference between life and death that night.

So next time you literally want to jump out of your car and wring the neck of the guy in front of you… or beat yourself down for going the wrong way… just roll with it and thank God for a few extra minutes and for life, instead.

Conversations with God

An excerpt from my paper journal in which I usually converse with God.

What is my purpose Lord? What is your plan for me?  I feel like sometimes I do nothing.  I go along spending and making money and for what?  Money only lasts so long.  What shall you have me do?

I can be such a coward.  To live to die for something?  I am such a coward.  What do I do that makes any difference in this world?  I live my life just like everyone else.  So mundane and mediocre.  I pray that my fear to abandon will not steal my salvation. I fear absence from You, Lord.  And yet I fear to live recklessly for you!  And then there is the forgiveness.  If God, you our serious about forgiving our trespasses as we forgive others, I might be in a little bit of trouble.

God, how I want to let go.  No longer be angry.  To not let things jade and disappoint me.  Lord help me to find healing.

You Say Good-bye and I Say Hello

A couple disappointments today, as two friends announced that now they, too, are (one definitely, one probably) moving away. (One of which is a guy I was still *hung up on* a little…)

Sadness.

But it’s just amazing to find God in these instances. Because, you see, God speaks in disappointment (to make you realize that He’s still there), with disappointment (to protect you from things that would lead you away from Him), through disappointment (to give you strength to endure), before disappointment (to prepare you for it), after disappointment (to help you heal from it)…

People (i.e. me) perennially wonder, “Where is God in this time of trouble?”, and yet, they don’t (or can’t) open their eyes to see that He never left and that He’s already answering their prayers before they are even uttered, already working to set things aright.

I got settled in at home after these two news flashes, and found that I’ve received an e-mail and a Facebook message from two friends that I’ve just met within the past month. (And, coincidentally enough, one is a current *hang-up* of mine…) “He giveth, and He taketh away,” no?

Now, not that friends can just be replaced, because they obviously definitely cannot. But those responses were sources of comfort for me. They said that not only am I not alone because I do keep making new friends and multiplying my blessings that way, but it was just a little hug from God, letting me know that I’m okay and that there is still hope for me and a plan.

How great is that?

Deserted

[Sorry for the blackout there for a couple days: 24 hour silent retreat followed by a full weekend o' fun and religiosity.]

The retreat I went on was called Poustinia. It’s the Russian word for “desert”, and it originated in the Eastern Rite of Catholicism, but is now a more common practice across Catholic traditions.

Basically, you spend 24 hours in a “cell” with just you, a Bible, a journal and pen, a loaf of bread, and water.

That’s it.

And it was AWESOME.

We did it in the empty rooms at the seminary, so they were single rooms that were your decent, old, bare, dorm rooms with a bed, a sink, a desk, and a window.

Nothing crazy weird or anything happened, just lots of great insights and personal peace.

After the first hour or so of just concentrating on being open, I was thinking about my post earlier about “that generation” it occured to me that I’d heard that Moses was never allowed into the Promised Land, but I’d never actually heard what he did that was so terrible. So I followed a lot of cross-referencing (side note: If you’ve never done this, I HIGHLY recommend it: It’s an experience in and of itself to see how tied together the ENTIRE Bible is!) to find out. Basically, he gave up on God’s mercy for sinners. He got short — and sort of downright mean, the way I read it — with the complaining Israelites! They were complaining for the second time of not having water in the desert, and he’s like (paraphrasing, obviously), “You Rebels!” (And I wonder if that actually had a swear-word connotation back then, as though he was saying something equivalent of “You ************s!”… food for thought…) “We’re just gonna get water out of the rock here again for you, even though you don’t deserve it, you ingrates…” And he has to strike the rock a second time because the first time doesn’t work, whether Moses was lacking in faith, or his negativity got in the way, or whatever the reason for not being able to perform a miracle is.

So God comes in and tells him that he just blew his chance at getting to enjoy the Promised Land. Now, obviously, he made it to heaven, seeing as how he appears with Jesus and Elijah at the Transfiguration, but while on earth he only gets to see the Promised Land, he does not actually get to enter.

So lesson: DO NOT, whatever you do, DO NOT think that you are any better than the next sinner, because God’s Grace is going to have to get BOTH of you through the Pearly Gates. And your sin of pride and lack of faith in God’s mercy is going just going to cause you suffering.

I also felt like I didn’t know enough about the Prophet Elijah. He’s the spritual father of the Carmelites, and beyond knowing that he was a big-time OT prophet, I didn’t really know him.

I highly recommend 1st and 2nd Kings, if you’re interested in him and his successor, Elisha. Not only did it really open my eyes as to why they were so important, but it also gave me an idea of why Jewish people kept calling Jesus just a prophet even with all the signs he was performing. Because they did a lot of the same kind of miracles! Ordering fire and water around? Bringing people back to life? Elijah did it! Multiplication of loaves and fishes? Elisha did it! So if you just heard about Jesus and His works and didn’t actually hear any of his preaching, you’d probably come to the same conclusion!

Plus, I got to the real roots of Carmel: Mount Carmel was the original place where Elijah did his greatest feat: Proving that God was the only god, and slaying all the prophets of Baal. Totally didn’t know all that.

So there’s the tip of the iceberg of awesomeness that is the insight I gained.

In other words: go into the desert — it’s pretty sweet out there