The Gift of Peace

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27

This is one of my favorite Bible passages. Jesus is giving final instructions to his disciples the night before he is arrested and lead to his death. He is reminding them that he will die and come back, and he knows they are going to face some rough days ahead.

This verse is in the Gospel reading this coming Sunday, and we talked about it in Bible study this week. When I told our group this is a meaningful verse for me, Fr. Charlie asked me why. The reason isn't so much that Jesus is giving peace, an inner peace that heals and gives us strength, it's that he gives it NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES.

That passage gets me. When I think about how the world gives, a lot of things come to mind. There are presents, like the Tiffany boxes above, that we expect on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. But Jesus gives his gift of peace at a time when the disciples are not really ready for it. They have had an interesting night of having their feet washed by their leader, been told that people in their own group will deny they know Jesus and even turn against him. I'm not sure they're in the best mind-set for this gift, as much as they may need it. Are we ready to accept the peace Jesus gives us, that w3e already have inside at the times we need it most?

Then there are the gifts that are given with the expectation of reciprocation. My mom wouldn't let me accept expensive gifts from boys when I was in high school. She had good reason for that. Sometimes it happens at work when someone "helps" take a shift or work on a project with the understanding that the help will mean a day off later. But Jesus didn't expect his followers, or any of us, to give him something in return. What could they, or we, possibly give in return?

There are also the supposed gifts that we have to give back. Emily Post tells all brides who don't go through with their weddings that they should return the ring and any gifts, unless the ring was given as a birthday or holiday gift, but even then, it's tacky to keep it. There are the uncomfortable times we might be given something that we thought was  gift, only to be asked to return it. Jesus' peace is always with us; there's no way to return it, and I don't think he'd want it back.

Probably the biggest way I see what are called "gifts" in our modern world is in the area of commerce. We get money for work, give that money in exchange for food and clothes and DVDs and phone service. We get discounts for being loyal shoppers, or for being thrifty. Even some of the items we pay for are like gifts. My massage therapist's work on my shoulders is a gift, but I pay her. "Nothing in life is free," is a cliche, but it rings true in our world. But that is exactly what Jesus meant when he said NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES. There is no exchange here. No amount of money, or work, or volunteering, or anything, will buy this peace. There is nothing we can exchange for it.

It's hard to wrap my head around this verse. "My peace I give to you; my peace I leave with you." This isn't just any peace. It's not a greeting from Sunday services. It's not a wave of two fingers, or a circle with a bird foot thingy in it. It's not an image or a word at all. It is an all-encompassing feeling of inner wellness and calm and love. It's Jesus' presence in our very selves. He gave it to us. He left it in safekeeping with us.

He doesn't expect anything in return. There is no blushing and saying, "Oh you shouldn't have. I can't accept this." It's not returnable, and not exchangeable. It's already in us. It's the right size. It's the perfect color. It may not be wrapped up, but sometimes we have to look for it a little, like its hidden. But it's there. All we have to do is open ourselves to it. We are part of the gift, after all.

April was National Poetry Month

I keep a lot of the parts of my life pretty separate. I teach, and I have a work account and webpages that I use to communicate with students and colleagues. For church, I have this blog and an email account, which I also use for family and friends. I'm a poet, and I have a separate email and webpage for that. This past month has been National Poetry Month, and I helped plan a whole bunch of events at school for students and faculty. And I've been writing a brand-new poem every day all month. They haven't all been good, and all of them will need either to be revised or just forgotten. But, since it's the last day of the month, I'll post one of the new ones here. Several of the poems I have written this month relate to the Bible study I've been doing every week at church, or to the season of Lent and Easter. This was one of them.

Lazarus


He did not face death alone.
His last sight of his beloved sisters' faces
the crows feet around their green eyes,
their dark hair braided--
his last breath inhaled into their chests
still connected to them.
His naked body feather light under their touch
as they bathed him, perfumed him,
wrapped him in the ivory linen.

Imagine his surprise!

His eyes flitting open in the cave,
feeling the cold
around his warming skin
the hard stone under his shoulder blades.
The pain not just vanished
but the feeling of a new heartbeat
the stale air of the cave swirling
in the clean pockets of his lungs.
To get up and walk was nothing.
For the rest of his life
he would dance.

New Year, New Things

Where did the first month fo 2010 go? For me, it started with a week of the flu, which lead to my not being ready for classes to start the second week of January. I've been plahying catch up all month. I knew when I sat down at my computer that it had been awhile since my last post. I had to do a double-take when I saw that it's been over a month since I last wrote anything here. I don't make new year's resolutions, but I'm hoping to be more regular about writing in the coming year. Starting now, not on Jan. 1st, obviously...

So what's new? I had written last year about all the changes in my life, and that I felt that waiting to move forward with becoming a deacon was a call from God to stop and do some other work. Janurary has been the start of my living out this calling. I went back to full-time teaching and am leaving the administrative work that has been taking all my time and energy. The new person JJC hired to take over these tasks is wonderful, and also named Kristin! We're joking that we found the perfect person with the perfect name for the job. Now that the work is in someone else's capable hands, I am focusing on teaching. I had forgotten what I challenge it is for me to learn 85 new names and faces in just a matter of a week or two!

The wonderful part of this change is that my teaching life has expanded beyond my secular classrooms at JJC. I started leading Bible Study once a week at Trinity on Wednesday mornings. I wasn't sure how many people would come, but as I told Fr. Charlie, I'm making a committment to learn the Scriptures better, so if no one comes, it is time for me to sit and read and think about God's word. But we've been blessed to have a table-full of thoughtful, intelligent people for the first three weeks. We're reading and discussing the upcoming Sunday's readings, so we have time to think, pray and digest the lessons before hearing them again on Sunday morning. And Fr. Charlie gets time with us to hear our thoughts and start thinking about his sermon. It's been great with wonderful questions, great talks, and a sense of fellowship with our learning. I am very hopeful that the meetings will continue to be fruitful for many weeks and months to come.

Another activity that I started is a quarterly book group. We met this weekend on Saturday to talk about William Young's The Shack. Again, I wasn't sure how many people would come, but the conference table was full. We had some critical comments about how humans have tried to capture God in a book or painting, and how these works always fall short, but that in striving to explain God, we get some new perspectives. We talked about the ways Young tried to explain the reasons why God acts, why we have to wait to gain complete understanding, and why we really, really don't want to be the judges of others. By the end of the hour-long discussion, everyone agreed that the group was a good idea, and to have our next book be Three Cups of Tea. Yeay for breathing life into new avenues of learning!

If I had any questions about whether I made the right decision in waiting to enter further into deaconal training, those were wiped away at the book group. As I was brewing coffee for the group, a friend and fellow parishoner came in to see if I needed any help. She's been coming to the Bible Study group, too, and I asked her how it was going for her. She said it was fine, and then came over and touched my arm. She looked me in the face, and said how grateful she is that I'm doing all that I am at Trinity to help people learn about the Bible and think about their spiritual lives, that these times of learning should be a part of our lives, and that they've been missing at our church for a long time. As I was driving home after the discussion, I heard her words again and I knew they weren't her words alone. Mack, the main character in The Shack, may have had God to talk to face-to-face, but I know God was talking to me through my friend. I'm doing what He wants me to do.

Now that I'm more on track with grading my papers at work, and finally regulated to my new schedule of early morning Bible study, I'll be checking in here more regularly. I met with my spiritual director, Carol, this past week, and she said that I shouldn't worry at all abnout the deaconhood. The diocese has a hold on all new canidates for the next year, so I can go about my calling at church without any thoughts about further calling. But I am also open and willing to do what God wants of me. We'll see where He leads...