Peace and Patience

Since my last post many months ago, my husband and I have suffered many tragic events. Our lab-rot Bernard was shot and killed. It has been hard to even look at the post with his picture on it and think about him having suffered such a tragedy. For almost ten years now, I have been learning the way of peace. I do not believe that violence is a way to bring about peace. This means that we do not own fire arms nor do we support our nation's hell-bent attitude toward war. Now, months later, at the beginning of December, our Honda CRV was totally obliderated by gun fire. Yes! It was shot 32 times with some sort of fire arm. Most folks we know, have said things such as, "boy, if that happened to me, I would be sitting on the front porch with a sawed-off shot gun!" Though, this reaction is something that seems appealing at at least sort of tempting, I remember that our calling is to peace and patience. It is not easy way that we choose, but the way of Jesus that we choose. Hauerwas says: "So we love order, even order that is based on illustions and self-deception. When we say we want peace, we mean we want order. Our greatest illustion and deception, therefore, is that we are a peacable people, nonviolent to the core. We are peaceable so long as no one disturbs our illusions. We are nonviolent as long as no one challenges our turf So violence becomes needlessly woven into our lives; it comes the warp on which the fabric of our existence is threaded. The order of our lives is built on our potential for violence....For it is a peace that is baced on the truth that requires we be hospitable to the ultimate stranger of our existence: God. God is sucha a stranger to us because we have chosen to live as if were our own masters. God thus comes challenging our fears of the order by forcing us to patiently wait while others tell us their story." The truth is that I realize my own knee-jerk reaction. I realize how tempting it is to take life into my own hands instead of waiting, hoping and praying on a God that remains so incomprehensible. I guess that is why for now, I will resist the temptation to sit on my front porch with a sawed off shot gun and will dp my best to press on. This schooling in peace is a little more intense than ever before. And I hope that my husband and I both can know the truth in all of it. I hope we can find peace and patience each day. Something else to consider: (Hauweras, continued) "Through repentance we thus learn to accept that our lives personally and socially were not meant to be tragic but joyful. And our joy is not that for which we hope, but is a present disposition that pervades our whole life. It is the presupposition of all the virtues. It is the discovery that we are not by nature liars and violent, but rightfully we are those who desire to know tht truth and to live at peace with ourselves, our neighbors, and most of all God. Joy thus becomes the disposition born of a hope based on our sense that it cannot be our task to transform the violence of this world into God's peace, for in fact that has been done through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Our joy is the simple willingness to live with the assurance of God's redemption." May it be so with us!