Be at peace

by Tom Pappas

Pastor Jen started me thinking on Ash Wednesday with the question, “Have you decided to do a Lenten discipline?” We were at a local coffee shop where she had made arrangements to impose ashes for people who approached her table. (It was nicely done.) I presented my forehead at about 8:30 and was her sixth sign of the cross.

Her question prompted me to a possible awkward moment where I had nothing to say because I hadn’t really given it much thought. (I don’t lead the way on this planning ahead phenomenon.) But I defied awkwardness this time and we segued into a discussion of previous Lents with the coffee incident of ’84. That was memorable.

She asked me to read Psalm 32, which I present here from The Message.

 Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—
    you get a fresh start,
    your slate’s wiped clean.

² Count yourself lucky—
    God holds nothing against you
    and you’re holding nothing back from him.

³ When I kept it all inside,
    my bones turned to powder,
    my words became daylong groans.

⁴ The pressure never let up;
    all the juices of my life dried up.

⁵ Then I let it all out;
    I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”

    Suddenly the pressure was gone—
    my guilt dissolved,
    my sin disappeared.

⁶ These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
    when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
    we’ll be on high ground, untouched.

⁷ God’s my island hideaway,
    keeps danger far from the shore,
    throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.

⁸ Let me give you some good advice;
    I’m looking you in the eye
    and giving it to you straight:

⁹ “Don’t be ornery like a horse or mule
    that needs bit and bridle
    to stay on track.”

¹⁰ God-defiers are always in trouble;
    God-affirmers find themselves loved
    every time they turn around.

¹¹ Celebrate God.
    Sing together—everyone!
    All you honest hearts, raise the roof!

Something happened.

I became aware of a seething anger in me that had to be dealt with. Oddly, as I re-read it, nothing in this passage connects today with the words with which I will describe as my Lenten Discipline. But I know God used the passage and the pastor to work with me.

I am was mad at politicians, who put party above the common good. I am was mad fellow humans who live their extravagant lives as if what they consume and/or waste today doesn’t matter for all of us tomorrow. I am was at Christians who hate in the name of God. I am was mad at world events. I am was mad.

Somehow the words “Peace” and “Peacemaker” came to me. I committed to be at peace, and be a peacemaker where I could.

So far, I continue to NOT be mad in this second week of Lent. I have been at peace and am looking to every situation for Christ’s way to be a peacemaker.

Be at peace yourself.