Blessed Are the Peacemakers

I woke up this morning with the words of Jesus in my mind. They came to me as his words always do: quietly, unadorned, unannounced, with no apologies for their gentle but unyielding intrusion in my life. "Blessed are the peacemakers," he said.

It occurred to me, as I lay there between the braying of the alarm clock and business of the day ahead that my whole life has been spent making peace. Here, in the second half of my life, I find myself trying to make peace with a body that is often uncooperative and, occasionally, even unresponsive, a body that has become disturbingly lumpy and sometimes pained, to which gravity and time and many of my own choices have not been particularly kind. I am trying to make peace with the fact that I need so much more rest now than I did in years past, that I no longer possess that determined drive to overcome, that I am aging and, in ways both great and small, failing. I strive for peace with a world obsessed with perfection, with wholly unrealistic standards of beauty, with the constant portrayal of youth and vitality as values exalted far above those of wisdom and that inner strength that only comes with age. As I make - or try to make - peace with my own body if find myself displaced in a world that worships the rippling musculature of an air brushed impossibility, a world with which I cannot bargain and from which I cannot withdraw. In a world like this, peace must be found within.

Blessed are the peacemakers. As I consider those words of Christ, in all their potent and pregnant simplicity, I realize that I am trying to make peace with my family, also. I have never reconciled with a father who prefers to be absent from my life, but have spent every day of that life negotiating with the aching hunger that resides in my heart instead of the fullness a father's strong and gently unyielding love. I must make peace with the knowledge that, as I write this, my grandmother rests in palliative care, that she won't be coming home to sit in the brown chair in my mother's blue living room, that she is the last of a generation of our family to leave the bonds of this earth, that in my mother's care for her own ailing mother I feel the dry wind of the future in my mouth. I must make peace with the fact that, one day, another generation will consider the frailty of my own parchment-like skin through which blue veins bulge with the blood of a thousand generations of martyrs to faith and life and the vagaries of age and failing hearts and pained kidneys. I cannot say with any certainty that the memories of those who will one day bury me will be as longing or wistful as my own and, as I realize how very little control I have over anything outside of my own thoughts - how little control I have ever had - I grasp once again that the only peace I can make - the only peace I have ever been able to make - is within.

Blessed are the peacemakers. I lay there this morning, with the words of Jesus breathed into me, and now realize that I have spent my years wearing the bedclothes of a life that is not my own, with ambitions I was never meant to embrace, sleeping every night in a foreign land. I have this life within, this spiritual presence quite unlike my self, who speaks to me in the quiet stillness of the morning, in the precious few minutes when my mind is not yet filled with all the thoughts and ideas and plans and rules of a life that is quite unlike that of a Christ who whispers from joyful stillness of eternity into the shouting melee of this present, hectic, chaotic, riotous day. This day, with all of its surprise, wonder, joy, mundane tasks, routine events, with all its glory and garbage and stress and love and fear, is a day that offers no moral judgments and yet will not allow me to escape with my moral compass unchallenged; not today, not ever.  I understand, with  my soul sifting through those four words of Christ, that I, with all my failings, cannot overcome the sheer magnitude of this world's demands but can, instead, be at peace with him, and within him, who has overcome the world. It occurs to me, amidst the tiredness of my soul, that to be at peace is to overcome the world; that to be at peace is to become a living expression of the kingdom of God. This morning, with absolute clarity, I heard Jesus say, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and realized it was not a command but an invitation, a whispering of his love, a kiss, the desire of his heart and yes, of  mine. I considered this statement of his, and what it meant, and then quietly got out of bed and went about my day.

Comments

[HeidiRenee]

"to be at peace is to overcome the world"

oh my - i will ponder these words for quite some time, they are truly profound. thank you.

[David Ker]

Awesome. That borderless moment between sleep and waking is a place where insights are sometimes handed to us. Thanks for sharing this and working hard to put it in good writing.

[becky]

"potent and pregnant simplicity"

powerful ponderable words.

[nancy]

thank you, my friend.

: )

[Annette]

I've been reading your posts for some time. This one truly spoke to me. As I approach my 50th birthday, the temptation and inclination is to deny, truly deny, the mental, physical, and social frailties of middle/old age. Yet there is no peace in that. None. Nada.

Thanks for the transparency. For the beauty of this post. I am blessed to have read your heart-felt words

[karen]

Thanks, RWK. I've been letting the world steal peace from my life, and this has been a good reminder.

[Psalm 46]

Dear RWK,
You truly are beautiful in so many ways and the men and women you serve KNOW your beauty.

Through God all things are possible. Even getting up in peace and getting on with your workday!

Thanks for how you put into words the feelings I have had over this past year and a bit while I watch my mother age more and more.We will be there one day and.........

[[rhymes with kerouac]]

Heidi Renee - I put that phrase on my screensaver at work. I may be the only guy in the world who quotes himself!

David - That's never happened to me before - or maybe it has and I haven't remembered. I'm thinking I should keep a notebook by the bed, but I'd probably wake up an hour later with the pen still in my hand and ink on the sheets... The Resident Love Goddess will love that!

Becky - You made me think of a new word - "ponderability". I'm kind of liking that! Maybe it's a quality that 'real' things have.

Annette - I think that, ultimately, we make peace with ourselves. I think this might be true wisdom, and I feel so fortunate to have been given this gift that morning....

Psalm 46 - If I have any beauty at all, it must be an inner beauty!!!!

[Tara]

Oh my!! This is beautiful. Your wording just explodes in my heart...my brain. Lovely. Thank you for sharing:

**"an invitation, a whispering of his love, a kiss, the desire of his heart"**

[Mich]

Timely words that assuage and calm me. For the past month or so, I wake up to an unrelenting broken-heartedness that I've never known. All I can do is cry "Lord". And maybe that's good enough.

And then, the day begins and I am distracted until the next morning. You have named the battle. Peacemaker. Alright, then.

Mich

[Michael]

Just like Jesus.... He came to make peace as well. Even He who was fully God and also fully human ahd to depend on the Father for peace in His human condition.

LOVE LIKE HIM,
G.B.U.
Michael <>< <>< <><

[[rhymes with kerouac]]

karen - Peace seems to get stolen in bits and pieces, doesn't it?

Tara - Thanks...

Mich - The first step to find peace must surely be to quit the battle...

Michael - He is called 'The Prince of Peace'...