I find that, occasionally, it makes sense to offer a prayer or liturgy with a simple refrain. It offers a place to mentally land for a few moments, especially in a litany dealing with heavy topics. This week, given the news, feels like one of those weeks. Also, sometimes we need to say a thing aloud a bunch of times to get it into our thick skulls :)

Sunday I preached a sermon about inner peace being an inside job and a choice that we get to make out of our free will about whether to take Christ up on the invitation into let "Peace be with you" regardless of what's happening around us.

And then we are confronted with news of more killings, more injustice, more police violence. (RIP Duante Wright, Lord have mercy.)

I even got news from my best friend that she is suddenly in hospital having emergency surgery.

Bad news is another opportunity for me to practice this lesson. To practice the Peace Within (John 20: 19) regardless of how the world, events, other people, etc are behaving or feeling.

I'm reminded of the hymn lyrics: "Thou wilt keep [them] in perfect peace / whose mind is stayed on Thee."

And I'm convinced that keeping that inner peace fire stoked, we are able to access more empathy, more compassion, and more right action. When we are not spinning our wheels in worry, anxiety, and emotional turbulence (here is the growth edge for me) we are better problem solvers and justice-doers. Today I'm even more sure that Inner Peace is an important Fulcrum of Transformation.

This is difficult spiritual work. Inner peace is not apathy. It's a radical restructuring of our way of being in the world.

We hear the voice of Christ speaking:

Peace be with you (1).

Right now these words seem impossible, mind-boggling,

Even, at times, annoying.

How can we allow ourselves to be at peace

When the world is full of such suffering?

And yet Christ, who was framed, tortured, ridiculed, and murdered, Speaks

peace to us from the other side of death.

Even in suffering

Peace be with you.

Even in great loss

Peace be with you.

Even in violence

Peace be with you.

Even amidst ongoing injustice

Peace be with you.

Even amidst persecution and oppression

Peace be with you.

Even in illness

Peace be with you.

Even in lack

Peace be with you.

Even in trouble

Peace be with you.

Even in sorrow

Peace be with you.

Knowing that inner peace is not apathy or lack of compassion,

Peace be with you.

But instead increases our power for transformation,

Peace be with you.

We align ourselves with Christ’s message:

Peace be with you.

So that we can more effectively be a force for change in this world.

Peace be with you.

And so that we might know the fullness of life offered to us here, Earth-side.

Peace be with us all.

1. Luke 24:36

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