I can pray for peace, for the world out there. They do so need it desperately. So many places are in conflict and turmoil. So many people suffering in ways I cannot comprehend. This world so desperately needs the Peace of Advent. But how will it come? This Peace feels so elusive, so far away, so hopeless.
Perhaps Peace is so distant because it has not found a place to abide in me. There will be no resting place for Peace until my ego, which wants to coerce and control and contain, withdraws. Peace will only come when I follow the example of Jesus: God letting go of all the rights and privileges of being God to become one of us. And not to lord it over us nor to be king, but to be a baby. How humble is that? The Eternal One bringing Peace on Earth. God, giving up God, to make room for the Peace of Advent.
But my ego wants to rage and scream. I want what I want. I want my desires to have precedence. I want to be offended. I don’t want that change to take place. I want to keep up nice appearances. I want to be thought well of. This creates turmoil within me so that there is no room for the Peace of Advent.
But what if I start letting go of my ego? What if I let go of my desires and offenses and reputation? St. Francis of Assisi said, “We must bear patiently not being good….and not being thought good.” What if I start by finding the compassion toward myself that embraces being imperfectly human? Then, perhaps, the Peace of Advent will find a place to dwell deep within me. Then Peace will take root and begin to sprout. And where Peace begins to grow, it will spread, first within me, then to those next to me, and on and on into the world. Until, before we know it, Peace on Earth is not just a saying but a reality. May it be so. And may it start with me.
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