Now: The Peace I Seek

Now: The Peace I Seek

By April McQueen

Sometimes daily schedules bring more stress than solace.  The peace I seek is right in the now I live, not in the future of all I could become thanks to a masterfully demanding to do list.  There is no lesser and no greater than this: NOW.  If I took this moment for nothing brief but always amazing, then surely that is the blessing.  Little consistent beats of my heart join with breaths of prayer.  In and out they provide a richer, more completely effective present. They form the backdrop to the basic human system that makes up the believers in the faith, a network of life stories and lived truths.  Awesome in its harmonious fellowship and doing what they can and being who they are, I find a symphony of support in the sisterhood, profound prayer in the brotherhood.   There are moments that punctuate time, instant by instant, an empty effort to control, finding that now is over before the next moment makes its way here, stays, then is also gone. 

I understand this secret of passing time with its routines and rituals, distinguishing my soul with a loner’s spirit, kissed by grace more times than I dare to admit. I am fully aware that it is neither to be asked for nor claimed, never intimately owned; time’s movement is sober definition and solemn, sacred space. 

Like broken bread of life there is plenty to go around. We believe we can be reconciled. Everything will be alright as we score the hundredth second chance from a well-protected yet accessible sacrament, however, when we fail and repeat the cycle of sin again. This is true even if we have to repeat our penance, a prayer on the tip of our tongue, until sound becomes fact and fact evolves to belief while we hold on. 

When we hold on in faith, faith then holds onto us like the widow embraced her lost coin when found.  She celebrates and cherishes her good fortune, then gladly gives what she has, which is closer to zero than a rich man is to his seven-figure bank account.  Her sacrifice, however, is never forgotten because her prayers were there to surround that coin until found, protect her meager fortune, and lend her faith that the coin will return. Faith becomes her choice and control when she chooses to give it away, a humble steward. 

I am in awe of the many single-coin- “rich” folks who have far more joy in poverty than a rich man on his deathbed who experiences an eleventh-hour conversion.  Their joy is in the truth that they are more than seasonal sojourners, walking with me, sharing wisdom from their experiences, a relay of lay men and lay women and I am the baton.  Somewhere in between the limits of beginning and ending those relationships, those times with the ones who are in the middle are not always given their due.  It’s a messy struggle there.  Things come together then break apart like a chemical reaction.  I cannot predict or describe it any better.  It must just be experienced.  Let my love of neighbor as I love myself define a new legacy of change in the atmosphere.  Let me imitate Christ’s example and as I pass love along, gain strength for my journey and the testimony of one who has been through the fire and lived to tell the tale after reaching the other side. 

Prayer becomes conversation for our benefit.  It is breath and bellow.  It favors those who sit in silence, tuning our ears to the Spirit within while we wait.  We wait for an exchange of communication birthed of patience that is letting time pass not passively but actively. We, as believers, expect to hear something, feel something, and be transformed by something into something. We all want more yet all too often settle for less than a mustard seed, small and divine, making a leap of faith and experiencing a holy connection; when we believe, it is more than enough. 

As true believers, we wait to catch a glimpse of heaven or feel the strong power of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the great I am that could break or create worlds with His words made will.  That power once felt triggers default reverence…the respect that is deserved and represented with love despite race, color, creed or code, beyond measure and without a doubt, sought and found in the peace of now.