So you’re probably all familiar with the 3 dimensions of space.  Length, Width, and Height are how we measure and define an amount of space.  We humans also live in a half dimension of time.  In that half dimension, we can travel forwards, but so far we are unaware of an ability to travel backwards in it.

How many things would you like to change in your past with the knowledge you now possess?  I can think of several things I would change, there are words I would not speak, and other words that were unsaid that I would be sure to say.  I would change my focus in certain relationships, and I would be so much more kind than I was in my past.  There are many things I would like to change.

If you have ever watched a time-travel movie, you realize how quickly changing things in the past can mess things up.  Marty McFly nearly erases himself from existence simply by saving his dad from being hit by a car.  Do we dare risk travelling backwards to change the past, in order to change the future?  It never seems to work out quite how we expect it to.

At least it doesn’t work out very well in the movies.

What if I told you there was a way to change your past, and by changing the past affect your future?  I assume that you will think I’ve had a bit too much holiday eggnog, and write me off as a nut(meg) job.  What if it were true though?  What if we could make changes to our future?  Well, I am proposing to you that it can be done.  You can start here in the present, visit your past, and change your future.

Here’s how it works.

Have you really confronted your past?  Have you owned all of your mistakes, accepted that you ultimately bear the blame and are responsible for your actions in that moment, regardless of the circumstances you were in?  If not, do so now.  Take a moment to travel back to whatever that mistake in your past was, confront it, and accept the responsibility for what happened.  As you return from the past with this responsibility, you will find that your present choices are affected, and your future will be different.  You may discover that you are far less willing to hurt someone again, once you accept the full weight of the responsibility for your actions.   Perhaps you will think before you speak in the future, or alter the way you approach the same situation if it happens again.

You have changed your future by confronting your past.

There is one other method of time travel available to you.

Have you made peace with your past?  Have you accepted that those things that happened have happened?  Perhaps someone has betrayed you in a way you never thought possible.  Perhaps someone took something from you without asking and with no intention of returning it.  Perhaps someone has even stolen your peace through their actions in the past.  Again, return to those moments and confront them.  Make peace with each difficult moment, accepting it for what it was.  Forgive.  Forgive the person who hurt you, even if they haven’t asked for forgiveness.  Travel back to that moment where you felt the knife in your back most keenly, turn to the person who placed it there, and tell them that they are forgiven.  Forsake your right to revenge, and move on.

As you return to the present, you will find that you can approach the rest of your life differently now.  You have changed your future.  You have broken the power of the past to hold you on a certain course.   You have changed the past.

I don’t pretend that any of this will be easy.  There is also one more thing to be done.  It is perhaps the hardest single thing you may have to do.

Accept forgiveness.

Now that you have owned and confronted your past, Jesus is waiting with forgiveness in hand.  You can find the peace that was denied to you in the past.  Jesus has already done the work to offer you this forgiveness, and we are celebrating his arrival on earth those so many years ago right now in this season.  The present, right now, is the perfect time to change your future.  You don’t have to be stuck in the future dictated by your past, Jesus has opened up other paths for us.  You can find peace in the future, in spite of a troubled past.

Use the present, to confront the past, and change your future.  Travel in time.  Seek peace.

(Oddly enough, Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” was the inspiration for this post.  Give it a read if you have a few hours this holiday and you’d like to be challenged.)

Be sure to check out the other people on the journey with me at 254peace.org, or on our Facebook page.  There are some awesome people participating this year, and they all have something important to say.  

Last night, Samantha and I were out and about in Fort Wayne in the evening enjoying some Christmas festivities.  At one point we were between two events, and as I stood outside the car as she leaned back in to get something, I saw an incredibly bright meteor shooting across the sky for what seemed like 10 seconds.  It was an awesome thing to see, but in spite of me quickly and repeatedly shouting “SAM! SAM!” she missed it.

I wonder how many people missed it the night Jesus was born?

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own stuff, wrapped up in our own heads or hearts, and totally miss what God might be doing around us.  I just happened to be looking in just the right direction to see the shooting star last night, and I’m sure I’ve missed more of them than I have seen.  In the same way, I’m sure that I miss many of the peaceful moments God has planned for me.  It isn’t always something I’ve done wrong, but just looking the wrong way at the wrong time can keep me from seeing something special.

So how do we make sure we are not missing those moments?

I’m not sure that we can be sure to avoid missing those moments.  Each one could be totally different from every other one we have experienced.  I think we just have to make some sort of effort to stay open to what God might be trying to show us, but not always make it a regimented and strictly structured thing all the time.  Structure is good, and it can be a great way for us to learn regularly, but I guarantee you that no one was expecting a choir of angels to show up that night near Bethlehem.

On the other hand, the Bible tells us of the Maji, who because of their diligent and structured study, knew from the stars that something world changing had happened, and they pursued that event at great cost to themselves.  So structure certainly isn’t to be frowned on.

As often happens with these posts, I don’t really have a great life illuminating concept to pass on to you right now, but I can share my thoughts, as I wrestle with this concept of peace.  And perhaps more so every year, I wrestle with how God chooses to reveal it to me.

How has God revealed truth to you in the past?  Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear your story.

Be sure to check out the other people on the journey with me at 254peace.org, or on our Facebook page.  There are some awesome people participating this year, and they all have something important to say.  

If you’re planning to skip any of my posts this year, it might as well be this one.  Seriously.  It may not be the most peaceful way to spend 2 minutes.  Ultimately I guess this is part of an exercise in finding peace with what I sound and look like.  It’s just a bit of stretching myself, so I can accept who I am.  It isn’t easy, and it may not be all that easy to listen too, but here it is, and I’m going to accept that this exists, that I purposely am putting it out there, and make peace with it.

Or at least I’m going to try.

An overhead view of a wetlands my father and his father before him have worked on restoring.

I often get overwhelmed with all of the things that need to be done, especially during December, and I often forget to take a moment to experience peace instead of just writing or thinking about it.

Another aerial view of the wetlands. The way the sunset is striking the trees in the background is quite remarkable.

For me, I often find peace in taking photographs while I wander about in nature.  I don’t do it nearly enough, but when I do, I find some level of enjoyment in it.

The sun setting behind the Maumee river, near Antwerp.

As the sun set, the moon draws nearer to the horizon, it’s sharp crescent cutting through the soft clouds.

The moments I captured tonight could have been easily missed.  In fact, I almost didn’t even get out the camera tonight.  I new I had a bunch of catching up to do on my 25 Days posts, and I figured I should head back from work early and getting moving.

Peace is just as easy to disregard.

What if you chose to spend just a few minutes pursuing peace as you went about your day?  Pursuing peace instead of waiting for it to come to you.  Find something that you enjoy that makes you feel peaceful at the end of the day, and go do it.  Do it even when there is a small cost like cold hands, and a late start on some other project.

Don’t miss it.

Be sure to check out the other people on the journey with me at 254peace.org, or on our Facebook page.  There are some awesome people participating this year, and they all have something important to say.  

I always love to hear your thoughts on these posts, so comment, like, or share as you will!  You can also subscribe to these posts and receive them via email each day by using the subscribe box to the right.  

As I wrapped up my essay from yesterday, I made an assertion that 1 is equal to 1.  In this day and age though, it seems that we have forgotten that there is objective and indisputable truth, so I will be doing my best to convince you today that 1=1 is not an alternative fact, and it is not up for debate.

If I have one dollar, and you have one regular ol’ dollar, I can trade you my regular ol’ dollar for yours, and we will both effectively be happy and will have not lost or gained anything in the transaction.  I think this is an easy statement for everyone to accept, and defend as truth.  We all agree that 1 equals 1.

Now, inspired by my recent trading success, I propose to you another trade.  I propose to trade you my avocado for yours.  1 avocado equals 1 avocado, right?  Perhaps you can see my avocado, and you feel confident making the trade because you see that it is in good condition, it is ripe, but not overripe.  The color is good, and the smell is as you would expect it to be.  It hasn’t been smashed or damaged and overall, you think it might even be a bit larger than your avocado.  You make the trade willingly, although a bit confused by my desire to trade things for things of equal value.

Let’s say however, that you can not see my avocado, and I refuse to show it to you.  Will you make the trade as quickly?  I suspect that it would take quite a bit more cajoling to convince you to make this trade.  However, I seek to remind you that 1 equals 1, and your hesitance is unnecessary.

Or is it?  Perhaps my avocado isn’t in very good shape.  For all you know, I’ve already taken a bite out of it!  Maybe there is a bit of untruth in the statement that 1=1?

If we stop thinking of money or of fruit (yes, the avocado is a fruit…and in fact, it is actually a berry!) and take our equation to people, it gets even more complicated.

Does 1 person equal another?

Immediately my mind says no.  Surely Hitler and Ghandi are not equal.   Jeffery Dahmer and Mother Theresa are not equal.  I could go on, but the truth is that you have already created a long mental list of people that are not equal to you, some better than you, and some who are unfit to clean your shoes.  After all, some people are truly terrible, and have wasted their potential in the most odious ways.  Perhaps, if pressed,  you’ll accept with me that each person is born equal, but by the realizations of their potential, they increase or decrease their value, quickly creating an inequality between them and us.   The equation is no longer about quantity, but quality.  It isn’t about humanity, but potential.

This is the same argument that we see with the avocado.  The quality determines equality, not the quantity.

What makes a dollar worth a dollar?  Is it the potential it is created with, or the potential that is realized through it’s use?  I can spend a dollar on a small bag of rice to give to the poor, or I can spend that dollar on a (very) small amount of heroine.  Are those dollars still equal in value now?  I’ve used the potential of that dollar in very different ways, one arguably good, and one very bad.

Are those dollars equal to each other still?  Are two people who make drastically different choices equal?  Can anything be equal to anything if we consider potential or intention?

In truth, the physical manifestation of money is not worth very much.  It is paper and ink, and I certainly have never paid a dollar for a piece of paper that size that wasn’t money.  A dollar has value because a higher power has defined it’s value.  A government that we have accepted as an authority in our life has told us that a dollar has a certain value.  We accept this value and use it as the basis for our trade.  It doesn’t matter to us what a dollar is spent on, because its value is not changed by the quality of the transaction.  Each dollar is equal to each other dollar.

A person has value because a higher power has defined their value.  It doesn’t matter how their potential has been spent, or what ideology they subscribe to and believe in, God himself has set the value of each person.

Each person, is equally valued by God, AND the the value of each person is tremendous.  In fact, God sent his very own son, who’s birth we celebrate in this season, to trade for each of us.  Each of us is as valuable to God as his own son.  (Okay…you can make the argument that God traded one for many, but you can also argue that Jesus would have come to save even one sinner, so…I think we have to accept that, while difficult to believe, God loves his created beings an incredible amount.)

How will this change your perspective of the other?

Will you believe with me that each person is incredibly important, as I believe God has made clear through his actions?  Will you treat with equal respect the homeless, and the home buyer?  Will you consider the Muslim and the Christian life as equal in value?  Will you seek to eliminate the intrinsic biases of our nation and worldview in order to more fully follow God?  Will you accept that the ledger of sin can be wiped clean and our values reset by the sacrificial work of Christ, regardless of the amount of the debt?

Will you truly believe that 1 equals 1?

If we do, I believe that the peace born unto this earth 2000 years ago, will grow more fully into its incredible potential.

I am no better than any other, and they are no better than me.

Be sure to check out the other people on the journey with me at 254peace.org, or on our Facebook page.  There are some awesome people participating this year, and they all have something important to say.