What I Know About Peace
12.13.2025 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?
