Seeking Peace

August 2, 2016

We all acknowledge I imagine that we are not perfect.  We know that we will make mistakes.  We even are taught in church that we are all sinners.  But that does not make acknowledging those errors and sins easy.  It does not make waiting to see what the cost will be any less painful.  Will we get away with it or might we lose everything?  It can be agony!

As we watch presidential politics, we can see this play out on a large and public scale.  While we/I wish that they’d just come clean and move on, we know from our own lives just how hard that can be. 

I remember times when I have screwed up my courage and admitted a wrong only to have anger spring up around me and others pile on to my confession their pain – perhaps pain I had caused.  I wanted a free confession, not one where I had to pay the price for pain and disappointment.

When I remember these times, it becomes much clearer to me why others, and even I myself, do not confess.  What if confessing makes it worse?  Therefore, the dread stays inside, unrealized.  How do we ever find peace?

In the Daily Office today, we read the encounter between John the Baptist and his questioners sent by the Pharisees. (John 1: 19-28) During that exchange, John says that the one that had been foretold was among them, unseen, and unknown.  The Lord is among us even when we do not perceive his presence.  The hope we need is here even as we are in the midst of our questions.  The forgiveness we need is at hand even when we are too afraid to ask for it.

And so I end with one of my favorite prayers, A Collect for Peace.  I read it every Tuesday.

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.