There are many ways to say peace
Four months ago, as I looked to the future, I realized that there was a very real possibility that my life might be rapidly coming to an end. I was totally unprepared and unwilling to accept death as a possibility. I had nightmares almost every night, vividly, with frightening detail, imagining my imminent demise, visualizing lying on a gurney moving down a long hallway with my family beside me, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that as soon as I closed my eyes I would never see them again. Night after night I had these nightmares and each time I would be startled from my restless sleep with this unimaginable fear and panic overwhelming me.
On a Tuesday morning, two weeks before my surgery, I remember presiding at a communion service; my mind and heart were somewhere far away, certainly not on the service itself. As the readings were being proclaimed my mind was roiling with all of the desperate thoughts that I had been dreaming of for several weeks. As the reader introduced the responsorial psalm I was transfixed, transformed, and suddenly at “peace.” The response was “In God I trust, I do not fear” [Psalm 56:12].
And I did, and I do…completely, without reservation. God knows and that is all that I need to know. If I trust in God — and I do — then all my turmoil, my doubts, my fears are simply conflicts of my own choosing and wasted energy.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” [Jn 14:27]. And those are truly golden words to live by. My dear friends, may the peace of Christ be in your hearts and on your lips. “Shalom Aleichem.”
