What I Know About Peace

What do I know about peace?

We are in the last day of Peace Week of Advent.  When I began to think about writing about peace, I blurted out loud: What do I know about peace? And then I hooted out loud. As you age, you talk a lot to yourself. You even laugh to yourself.

Laughter it turns out is a key to peace. This week as I drove to work  Silent Night came on the radio. The line “Round yon virgin, mother and child” made me laugh out loud. I remembered that my mother and her sisters used to sing: “round John Bert, mother and child.” John Bert was a family friend. It took years before they realized what the song actually said. Few things are funnier than misunderstood song lyrics. I noticed my body’s reaction to the laughter. I felt peace. That is actually what the song is about after all. 

Laughter mixes up a cocktail of neurochemicals for body and mind. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin all increase while cortisol decreases for hours. In short, laughter resets the nervous system. (My source for this is Chat GPT and some 30 years of nursing not to mention 35 years of mothering.)

Laughter ushers in peace. And peace is a commodity at Christmas. No?

Here I will mention our current situation. The range (stove and oven combo) we’ve used for 19 years finally croaked. We purchased a new one many days ago (11/29/25). The entire process has been a series of unfortunate events. It still sits in my kitchen pretty but not functional. A mama really needs her stove and oven during Christmas. You might even say that the range debacle has robbed me of my peace. It has turned into a marriage issue revealing tiny tears in our ways of relating. Finally, we have begun to laugh. With that kindness and peace have shown up as we live together and continue the fight, not each other but to get this range up and working in time for Christmas dinner. 

Here we are: no range. Here we are laughing. Here we are finding peace in the chaos. 

What lyrics did you sing incorrectly that still bring you laughter today?

Hope

 

What do I put my hope in? How easy is it for me to look to something else for hope? What do I hope for this Advent season?

My answer is that I put my hope in God. It is pretty easy for me to look for hope elsewhere on the daily. This Advent season, I hope that I won’t be as easily distracted by the shiny, the worldly, the temporary. 

Hope in God is solid, certain, weighty. It is not from my imagination but from God Himself providing me with the grace to hope. I hope in the lovingkindness of God. 

This morning I hold the hope of God in Jesus. It is not fragile or whimsical. I return to moments of Thanksgiving that I hold dearly. My adult children left yesterday and we put up Christmas decorations. Ornaments with their young faces grin back at me from the tree. Like Mary, I ponder these things in my heart and treasure them. 

I pray that as I sort the temporary and fleeting, God would send His breath and let them float away like so much smoke. The solid will remain. Hope even though not seen is certain. 

Note: The Bible Project has an Advent series. Check it out. These questions came from them.

Wait

The first Sunday of Advent always comes as a surprise to me. Hard to believe since the Sunday ushering in the season is earmarked from now to infinity. I usually am so dialed in to Thanksgiving that on that Sunday, I say to myself: Is today the first Sunday of Advent? Do I have Advent candles? Yes and no. 

This morning I am waiting. It is not a particularly holy place. I can’t think of a sentence that would include holy and Lane Kiffin. But I wait on him, unpopular as he is in my home of Volunteer fans. I am in my own battle between self-hatred and hope. Why do I care what this man does? I will waste no more words on him.

My point is that it doesn’t take long to see how far I have wandered from the Garden of Eden or even from a posture of waiting according to the Word of God. 

In Hebrew the word for hope is qava. The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament expounds on this word:

This root means to wait or to look for with eager expectation. Waiting with steadfast endurance is a great expression of faith. It means enduring patiently in confident hope that God will decisively act for the salvation of his people. Waiting involves the very essence of a person’s being, his soul (nephews; Psalm 130:5). There will come a time when all that God has promised will be realized and fulfilled (Isaiah 49:23; Psalm 37:9). In the meantime the believer survives by means of his integrity and uprightness as he trusts in God’s grace and power (Psalm 25:21). His faith is strengthened through his testings, and his character is further developed (Psalm 27:14).

Not many things show me how undignified I am more than Ole Miss football. Integrity? Uprightness? Not usually if Ole Miss is playing football. We have had a historic season. Every victory each Ole Miss fan feels they have fought for bravely. And now we wait and war. Do we even want him? LSU, really? 

I typically think of the meaning of advent as to wait, but it means arrival. Not only the arrival of Jesus as an infant but more typically throughout church history the second coming. The arrival of Jesus to complete the work of restoring all of creation. 

If Ole Miss football minimally has the purpose of convincing me that I need to be restored, so be it. I am convinced also that what I wait for is infinitely more satisfying than anything this earth has to offer.

I turn to my favorite psalm. 

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

see the unseen

It is quiet here at midday on the first Sunday of Advent. Only the sound of boys chatting and laughing, the sound of Fifa 15 on the Play Station, the sound of the Titans game low in the background break the quiet. My stomach is full of turkey sandwich and the house is littered with Christmas decorations. 

I don’t know how many times I have completely missed the first Sunday of Advent. It is easy enough to do, especially when leftovers from Thanksgiving still stock the fridge. I would get so frustrated with myself over forgetting that first Sunday. 

Today, though, we did not forget. Matthew (23) was home from college so we grabbed the chance to decorate the tree together.  I suppose I have a Norman Rockwell image in my mind of how this should go down. The scene includes hot chocolate and carols in front of a warm fire. Everyone is laughing and chatting. Everyone is engaged and eager to help hang those little ornaments on the branches. 

Today the distractions are endless: Nerf guns,  remote control flying helicopters, football on tv, iPhones and iPads. Matt and I goad the kids to help reaching a shrill tone of voice in desperation to get the task done. The lights take two hours and my back aches from holding light balls over my head. They are much more crowded up in one spot near the top of the tree. Charlie Brown may have done a better job! 

But more than anything,  one feeling prevails on this day. 

Gratitude. 

My eyes are focussed to see the camaraderie of the three brothers. My ears are tuned to hear the laughter and teasing and love. It ends soon enough with Matthew back to Knoxville and Matt to work. 

It is into the everydayness that Christ entered. He stooped down and made Himself a baby so that He could save us. I do not want to miss His incarmational Presence this Christmas. When I see the love of God or when Mystery cracks open my paradigm for life, will I run and hide? Or will I open myself to it? I want to say the same words as Mary. I am the Lord’s handmaiden. May it be as you have said.

Will I give up my notion of Rockwell scenes and perfectionism? Will I embrace the mysterious way the Lord has ordered my life? Will I surrender to Mystery? Will I keep  my eyes open to see the unseen?

For nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37

silent night?

Christmas 2005 with the Elrods All is calm. All is bright.
‘Round yon virgin, mother and child
Holy infant so, tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Bright, we got that covered. Calm, well not so much. 

Last night we read our Advent devotional book, and the shenanigans that surrounded the reading could have reached the heights of the angels rousing the shepherds in the meadows on the night of Christ’s birth. Matt and I were not as entertained, however, as the shepherds. 

“Stop it!”

“Don’t hit your brother.” 

“Move to the other chair, now!”

Maybe tonight we should begin with a few laps around the cul de sac before reading. 

I’m wondering if maybe it wasn’t so calm on the night of Christ’s birth. A lot was going on and I’m guessing some panic may have been charging the air. 

What! No room! 

A manger, really, Joseph?!

Please move the ox over so I can put the baby down!

And yet, PEACE must have flooded in with the entrance of the Prince of Peace. And so all the buzzing about focussed on this baby. A swaddling of vulnerability sent to change the world. 

And so we re-direct. Can I tell you the story of how God killed the first animal in Genesis so that Adam and Eve could have clothing? Did you know the shepherds were the poorest of the poor? The wise men followed this star all the way to Bethlehem... What do you think it smelled like in the cave where he was born? 

My mother tells the story of singing Silent Night growing up in Sunflower Methodist Church. She would sing, “Round John Bert, mother and child.” Her only context for that line was her neighbor John Bert. She didn’t know what a virgin was. Nor did she care that John Bert could not have been there at the birth some 2,000 years ago. She sang the song that made sense to her.

And so we go on filling in the gaps... sharing the story... giving context. This baby, well, He really did change the world.