The Second Week of Advent, Friday

Thoughts on Peace (and recipe miscellany)

Happy Friday Friends. Sorry this is a bit later than usual, but the Steubenville Catholic Schools are under the impression that we live in South Carolina and have cancelled school for less than an inch of snow. It defies reason. Anyhow, our little Montessori school follows their lead, so that is my excuse for tardiness. I still have an essay or you, though, this one on peace, and two recipes, one for a very Christmasy risotto and another for my favorite Advent cocktail. There is also an audio version of this essay at the end of this newsletter, if you prefer to listen it it.

On Peace

Sometimes, I’m not sure I know what peace is.

I mean, I can define it without looking it up in the dictionary. I can use it in a sentence. I can tell you that it means the cessation or absence of conflict, whether between nations, communities, families, individuals, or in a soul. And I know it can be used as a synonym for both contentment and rest.

I know all that. But I don’t know how well I know it from the inside. Peace, for me, often feels like a rare and fleeting feeling, especially peace with myself. I can be (and am) content with many things in my life, but almost never with me. I’m always disappointing myself, always wishing I were other than I am. Perhaps because I’m a redheaded choleric. By nature, I’m fire, always flashing hot and quick and then regretting it later. Or perhaps it’s because I’m American. My friend Kate thinks that Americans are predisposed to restlessness because we are the descendants of those who left—who said goodbye to family, tradition, and culture to sail across an ocean, then journey across deserts and plains, always searching for something better. Maybe she’s right. Perhaps I’m just genetically inclined to struggling and striving and not sitting still.

Or maybe it’s because I’m a human in a fallen world, and the kind of peace I want isn’t to be found here.

I don’t know. And truth be told, I don’t always find Scripture to be particularly helpful on this front. It can be confusing. Isaiah tells us that Jesus is the “Prince of Peace,” (Isaiah 9:6). On the night Christ was born, the angels greeted the shepherds with songs about the peace the babe would bring: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!" (Luke 2:14). Jesus Himself tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and promises “I will give you rest,” (Matthew 5:9, 11:28).

But Jesus also tells us, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” (Matthew 10:34). Elsewhere, in the Gospel of Luke, He sounds even less peaceable, saying, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49). And of course, there is His perpetual reminder to us that, “In this world, you will know trouble,” (John 16:33).

So, which is it? Peace or a sword? Fire or water? Trouble or rest? A babe’s birth on Christmas or a God’s death on Good Friday?