The Fiction of Peace

About today’s author:
Stacy Bender derives her earthly joy from three earthly areas: her family, her friends, and her work.  Though she could probably have hobbies, she would rather connect other people to what makes them tick.  Her current claim to fame is living in a 1965 airstream trailer at least part of the last year. For a couple of years, Stacy blogged daily (click here to read all about her racing mind).  In the past few years, she has blogged once every so often. 

You can read more about how Stacy has influenced Kerry’s life as his wife and friend, and why he is celebrating her during International Women’s Month by reading tomorrow’s final post in the series “Celebrating Women.”

____________

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
-Romans 12:18 (ESV)

If you look at my public Facebook feed, you will see a lot of smiles on it.  The biggest smiles most recently have been in some live videos with my daughter (who authored the post a couple of days ago) and with my son after the closing of his recent on stage performance of The Amish Project at Baylor University.

I do not smile all of the time.  

In fact, every year that goes by shows more wrinkles on my forehead from the “Stacy Scowl” that often contorts my face to represent the ugliness that resides in my heart.  I harbor resentments, I want to be right – or at least seen as someone who can find out what is right, and I lack trust in others to watch out for me.

Who knows where this comes from?

Research could probably point to a number of different “risk factors” in my life, but I want to be clear that, given how many people seem to have risk factors,  I see it more as “normal dysfunction” in my life: a lot of fun stories, a few laughs, and a lot of tears.  Side note: I like the concept of “normal dysfunction.” I just coined it; maybe there is other research out there that has already coined it, but it’s the first time I have written it in a published work .

Of course, research has its place.  We could measure my cortisol (stress hormone) level to see how it differs when I am with people I trust versus those who have hurt me in the past.  We could create charts, graphs, and pretty images to depict how everyone else is responsible for my feelings.

And that could feel good – giving everyone else the responsibility and weight of my feelings.  

In the words from a recurring line in The Amish Project, “Am I right?”

Of course, I’m right.  You responsible for me takes away the responsibility from me for me…and for you…and for anything.  I can blame you for all of my problems, I can feel better, I can avoid you, and I can talk about you in counseling office, in prayer concern time at Bible study, and in passive-aggressive story-telling at a favorite coffee shop.  Everyone will sympathize with me, they all will feel better about unloading their stories, and they probably will feel fine talking about me when I’m not there.

“Am I right?”

Sarcasm.

All of this is sarcasm.

And it makes us feel better.  We internalize it.  We believe it.  We live it.

Until it doesn’t feel good at all.  

Until I have to look at myself in the mirror and realize that the broken relationships in my life have one common denominator – me.

The fiction of peace is that you can give it to me or that I can give it to you.  

We do this thing in liturgical churches – we extend the peace to one another.  But it only works if I extend peace to you while you are extending peace to me.  You cannot give me peace while I hold onto peace and not extend it to you.  You can extend it, I can extend it, but – without a recipient – there is only a fiction.  Peace hangs in between us and begs us to accept from one another as we extend it to one another.

And actually – isn’t that the truth?  That peace hangs…or at least hung…on a cross…

Romans 12:16 is not a stand-alone verse.  We come to this verse after a lengthy discussion of what sacrifice is and what love is.  The bottom line is that love and peace and sacrifice are not concepts but rather a person.  When God sent Jesus, heaven came to earth.  Jesus brought peace in the form of a living breathing person who because a dying sacrifice who conquered death – an our lack of peacefulness – in the day of Easter.

The fiction of peace is that we are extending something to each other.

When we share the peace with one another in a liturgical church setting, we are not extending our peace with one another.  We extend the peace of Christ – God himself – to one another.  This becomes less about us and all about what God has done and is doing in the world.  Romans 12:3-15 describe what it looks like to be the church in action  – to be Christ’s peace to one another.

I am not saying that allow ourselves to be doormats.  Boundaries are healthy.  Toxic relationships should be handled with care.  We should make wise choices about how we relate to those who have deeply hurt us.

More often than not, though, we use this as an excuse to harbor resentment, to put up walls in relationships where bridges should be built, and to create havoc in the lives of others because of our choice to withhold peace from them

Kerry asked me to write about “being a wife” and what that means.  Being a wife means to be someone who is willing to live at peace to the extent that it depends on me by relying on the One who is peace to be the peace I bring to my relationships. To be clear: I have not perfected this concept of peace in all of my relationships.  There is still plenty of work to be done.

So…let’s get to work, shall we? Together.  Let’s all be peacemakers in our hearts, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our country, and in our world.

ps: You can bring this concept to your Facebook feed…smile!

_____

March is International Women’s Month!  It is my hope that you will join me over the course of the rest of March in celebrating the women who have had a significant role in influencing me.  I will post daily blog-posts — some of these posts will be from me talking about the women who have had a significant role in influencing me and some of the posts will be from these women themselves, childhood friends, mentors, teachers, co-workers, etc.  

My hope is that this series, “Celebrating Women,” will accomplish three things:  

1. to serve in a small way as a “Thank You” to all the women who have influenced me
2.  that you will gain wisdom from those who have spoken wisdom into my life
3. that it will serve as a reminder to say thank you and to recognize all the amazing women in your one life

Click here to see all of the posts related to “Celebrating Women.”

Advertisement

CELEBRATING WOMEN: Day 1, God as Mother Hen

Today is International Women’s Day!  It is my hope that you will join me over the course of the next 23 days in celebrating the women who have had a significant role in influencing me.  For the rest of March, I will post daily blog-posts — some of these posts will be from me talking about the women who have had a significant role in influencing me and some of the posts will be from these women themselves, childhood friends, mentors, teachers, co-workers, etc.  My hope is that this series, “Celebrating Women,” will accomplish three tings:  1) to serve in a small way as a “Thank You” to all the women who have influenced me, 2) that you will gain wisdom from those who have spoken wisdom into my life, and 3) that it will serve as a reminder to say thank you and to recognize all the amazing women in your one life.  

“How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing.”  Matthew 23:37b

Moses, Isaiah, and even Jesus knew something that I fear we too often forget within certain camps of American Christianity.  This is particularly true of the branch of American Christianity in which I would be placed by most who know me — American Evangelicalism; a designation that seems to mean less and less and one that has become almost theologically unrecognizable to some of us who still find themselves identified within this camp (of course that is probably a blog for a different day; today is a day to celebrate women).

Within American Evangelicalism, however, we seem to have forgotten something that Moses, Isaiah, and even Jesus knew about God — something that they knew about God’s nature.  And if someone tries to remind us of this thing to which Moses, Isaiah, and even Jesus pointed, we are quick to “correct” them — to point out that they have strayed from one of the significant tenants of the faith.

You see Moses, Isaiah, and even Jesus knew that God’s nature was too great, too complex, too divine to be described simply as male.

Because of this, the writers of scripture describe God not only as Father (which is a designation that we should not and must not lose — another blog for another day) but they also describe God using the imagery of a mother giving birth and nursing her young, a mother eagle, a woman comforting her young, and even a chicken gathering her wayward chicks home (Hosea, another writer of scripture, even describes God as a mother bear tearing asunder those who would separate her from her cubs).

God may be Father — but He is NOT male.  Male AND female are made in God’s image and both are needed to reflect God’s image and nature to a world that desperately needs to see and recognize God.

For me, the nature of God has been reflected to me in countless women.  God has spoken to me in the voices of countless women.  God has shaped me through the influence of countless women.

Mothers, friends, mentors, clergy, teachers, fellow workers in Christ.

To try to name them all would be impossible!  But on this day recognizing women, they all must be thanked.  THANK YOU!

For the rest of the month, I want to continue to celebrate the women who have reflected and continue to reflect the very best of God’s image into my life and the world around them.  I hope you will join me on this month of celebrating and learning from the women who have spoken life into my life, who have formed me, who have reflected the very best of Gods image to me, but more importantly, I hope you will take the time to say thank you, to celebrate, to recognize the women who have done this in your life.