Embracing Peace
Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent - which for those in the Christian tradition - marks the beginning of the new church year. Advent starts four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. It is a season of waiting and preparing our hearts to once again welcome the Christ into the world and is often marked with the use of an evergreen advent wreath.
Side note: necessary content on the Advent Wreath (feel free to jump ahead if this bores you)
The advent wreath typically has four candles around the edge with one candle in the center. Each candle represents a different theme for the week - peace, love, hope, and joy, with a center candle that is called the Christ Candle. One of the outside candles is lit every Sunday until finally, on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, the center Christ candle is lit to signify the arrival of Christ into the world.
Last Sunday, the church community that we attend every now and then, was lighting the peace candle.
Unfortunately, the candle refused to be lit or, once it did light up, it quickly went out. Attempts were made to try and fix the matter: trim the wick, try a different candle on the other side, add more oil to the candle holder, but to no avail. The peace candle would not stay burning bright and attempts to get it lit had to be abandoned to carry on with the rest of the service.
And so, the Advent Sunday show went on - minus the light of peace.
As the rest of the congregation continued with the service, I found my mind wondering (which happens to me a lot in these types of settings) and I couldn’t help asking what it might mean to have the peace candle refuse to be lit in these troubled times. I know it was just a technical difficulty that will most likely be remedied for next week, but somehow it felt bigger than that to me. Like this was really the message of the Advent wreath for the day.
Not the comfortable and happy tradition of watching a family light the first candle of the season. Not saying the familiar prayers and being soothed by the rituals and rhythms. Instead, it felt like we were being asked to consider what do you do in a world that is consumed by chaos and where the light of peace refuses to stay burning.
How do we continue to believe in peace given the circumstances?
I know I am probably taking this way deeper than it really was meant to go but I think it is an important question to ask in a time when many people (including myself) feel as if hope is fading and that we are too divided in this world.
That there is too much violence, too much death and not enough of everything to go around. That we now spend most of our time pointing fingers and accusing someone else for the misfortunes of our planet and not seeing our own role in any of the brokenness.
That we have become experts at creating a world of “others” instead of a world of one.
The candle seemed to be demanding an answer. As if to say – “hey, if you are really going to call yourselves spiritual beings that are willing to wait, and watch, and prepare your hearts for Christmas to arrive, maybe you should first figure out how to get my peace candle lit up ASAP”. And not just in church on a Sunday morning during the Christmas season.
So how do we do that?
I wish I had easy answers and solutions, a quick fix way to get peace back burning brightly. But one thing that occurred to me during that worship service was that in times when peace seems non-existent, we may have to look harder to find little flickers of light. We have to look for the small flames wherever they may be struggling to stay lit and give them fuel so that they can keep going long into the night.
We can start by looking for the people working on the sidelines to bring healing light, both small and large, into the world, and offer to help them burn more brightly. To simply remember to be kind when it is much easier to be stressed out and not nice. To take a little bit less than we need so that we might have more to share with others.
- These were just some of the thoughts that went through my mind that morning -
But, later that night - as coincidence would have it – I got to see one of those lights burning bright and strong, and it was a reminder that despite what the headlines tell us, the candles of peace still have some presence left in this world.
And that little reminder came from a strange but welcome place.
My mother had invited us to go see an acoustic concert with the musicians Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. The music was spectacular, and they shared so much joy and laughter, along with poignant stories of heartbreak and discovery - of believing in yourself, and your ability to make an impact on the world and to never give up.
As a closing encore, Robert Earl Keen played a song called, “Show The World”. The chorus goes like this:
Give your heart, lend a hand
Say you will, say you can
Don’t let your love ever end
Show the world you are a friend
And there it was - some fuel needed to get that candle lit and burning brightly. Simple invitations to give a damn about what is going on around you and to get involved. To participate, and above all else to be a friend.
Not to just those that look like you, or think like you. Not to just those you call a neighbor. Not to just those you are most comfortable with in this world. But to the whole wide, vast, amazing, and diverse world we call home.
Imagine what it would look like if we all really embraced this idea and put into practice being a friend to the whole world?
Now I know that the work of peace is hard work, and I do not mean to oversimplify the process here. But, I do think that learning to embrace the world as a friend, as opposed to other, will help us on the path to peace. And sometimes, it is in the simple doing of things that the big solutions are uncovered, and a way forward is found.
So on that note, I leave you with my hope for this holiday season - that in the pursuit of peace, we embrace the idea of learning how to be a friend to the whole world.
But let’s not just hope okay– let’s do it, and see if together we can get that candle burning brightly again.