I have noticed that all of our contributors are really wrestling with the state of the world right now.  It seems that peace has set sail from these shores and been lost at sea.  For the last several years I have enjoyed listening to the news incessantly, but in the last few months I have given up on listening religiously and have just been turning my radio off.  It is too stressful to listen to terrible events the world over and have no solution for them.

Beth, one of this year’s contributors, mentioned a lack of magic.  The feeling that so often is associated with this season.  The glimmer of hope breaking through when all seems lost seems to be missing this year.  I can’t help but agree with her.  I haven’t felt very magical yet.  I would blame this project, but I know that last year didn’t feel like this.

Peace is elusive.  Even we who are actively seeking it are struggling to find it.  I can’t remember the last time I felt what I would describe as the warm hug of the universe.  An enveloping calm with the tingling sense of a loving embrace.  In my search for peace, I find that I am worried that it hasn’t shown up!

I begin to wonder if I am grasping too hard.  If we imagine the feeling of peace as a butterfly flitting by on a fragrant spring breeze, am I a hand that has snatched it from the air, crushing it’s delicate beauty between my calloused fingers?  Perhaps one of the secrets of feeling peace is being able to accept it when it comes, but allowing it to depart at it’s own desire.

We try to keep peace captive, when the feeling of peace is a broadwinged mariposa that must not be forced to remain for fear of breaking it’s fragile wings against our cruel and unyielding skin.

If this feeling is so fleeting, so elusive, why pursue it at all?  Would we not be better to live as if the feeling didn’t exist, so that we could ignore the ache of its absence?

I believe the answer is yes…If peace were only a feeling.

Instead we can find peace in the midst of this storm tossed world by remembering that the feeling of peace is simply a moment when you clearly see God’s plan at work.  The butterfly doesn’t cease to exist when it flys from your hand, but instead carries on with its work.  God’s plan for me, for you, for this world doesn’t cease to work when we don’t see the plan in action, or when we don’t feel the pleasant effects of tickling butterfly feet against our open palms.

The plan still exists.  The plan that ends with Jesus making all things new.  The plan where every tear is wiped from our eyes, and death will be no more.  In that day God will make his home amoung us, with far more splendor than his humble beginnings in a Manger so many years ago.

This is all part of the plan.  Even if we don’t understand it.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is coming to rule over his subjects.  What a glorious day awaits us who would be ruled by such a king.