For the last three posts in this series I find myself in uncharted territory. I’m going to be writing about things I don’t understand and don’t live out. But they are directions I want to move in.
Tonight I am going to tackle the idea of peace. I wish I could write something that was beautiful and inspiring on this subject but that’s going to be very difficult for I have known very little peace.
In fact, I got interested in the idea before August in the midst of exhaustion. I was so tired for several weeks that I begged God to bring about something like Psalm 23 in my life:
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me besides still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
Especially in July and August there were a lot of challenges to living this out. Maybe first of all, lying down was difficult in this period. I would get home from work around 6:30 AM, get in bed around seven and wake up at nine. Sometimes I would get out of bed and sometimes I would just toss and turn. Further, I love to work and have huge dreams—this works against peace.
Today, anticipating writing about peace, I was trying to think of a good peace story. In a telling sort of way, for most of the day the only story I could think to tell was an anti-peace story. In my first year of seminary there was a six-month stretch where I either had work or school all but two days (not two days a week, two days in six months). This is both a boring story and a stinging indictment that I don’t understand peace.
After worrying most of the day that I didn’t even understand peace (irony noted) a story from late August came to me. One night at work I was talking to one of my coworkers. Although not really my type she was probably the cutest girl I’ve seen since I was at Westmont. All month I had been trying to be as clever and funny around her as possible. It might sound sort of cute but it was an addiction. I would ponder what I was going to say to her when I walked in while driving to the gym and then while lifting weights (I always did this before work—it honestly had nothing to do with impressing her) I would plan out what I was going to say when I clocked in.
On that night I had run out of clever things to say so we were just chatting. All of a sudden I saw a little twinkle in her eyes. To use lingo from The Game this is an IOI (Indicator of Interest). This immediately severed the connection between my brain and mouth and I went totally silent. However, she salvaged the conversation, “I always really like talking with you.”
Now, both continuing a conversation in the doldrums and explicitly stating she liked talking to me counts as two more IOI’s getting me to a total of three. For most people, normal people, this wouldn’t be a big deal. However, I instantly flashed upon something a friend of mine said. He is an INFJ (psychologies nice way of speaking of shy, smart, caring, and monotonous people) like myself. He had told me that whenever you get three IOI’s you should go in for a kiss—believe it or not this had actually worked for him.
And of course I…
Did nothing.
As much as I hate to admit it, I felt a lot of peace when her eyes got all twinkly. In fact, that whole night at work I felt a lot of peace. That little taste of the world being alright was pretty good.
Six months ago if you had asked me if I even wanted peace I would have said no. If you asked me if I thought I deserved peace I would also have said no. I wanted to get stuff done and I still do. Now, at least I want peace in my life.
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