Peace Three Ways - Ordinary

Ok, I lied.  I said at the beginning of Advent that I would only do a post a week but the last few days...well there’s a lot that I have been experiencing in reflecting on peace.  Not necessarily that I have felt perfectly “peaceful” but peace nonetheless.  So, peace three ways - the ordinary (today), peace of place (tomorrow), and peace in the both/and (Saturday)

Any guesses what this is?  I found it utterly beautiful but it is oh so ordinary.  It is one of the walls in our basement.  In the center is an enclosed support post, on the right is our light blue walls illuminated by our downstairs Christmas tree (also known as the geek tree because of the ornaments), and the part on the left is illuminated by our color-changing bulbs that we have down there.  I noticed this two mornings ago after I finished up my workout with a yoga flow.  I was wrapping up with what is known as shavasana  - the period at the end of a yoga session where you simply sit or lay down and relax.  So as I was in this moment, I saw these colors on the wall.  All of it so ordinary - an ordinary guy finishing an ordinary workout in an ordinary basement taking in these ordinary colors.  All of which spoke of peace to me.

One of the things I love about much of the story of the birth of Jesus is that, while there are the extradorinaiy elements, there’s also so much that is oh so ordinary.  Ordinary people (teenagers, shepherds, priests, etc) who are brought into an extraordinary story.  Ordinary places (Bethlehem, Nazareth, Judea, etc) with ordinary things (taxes and censuses).  There’s obviously much more to the fullness of the story but these ordinary aspects are extraordinary to me.

As I’m writing this, I keep thinking of the Hebrew word, shalom.  Yes it gets translated as “peace” in English, but it has such deeper meaning than just an absence of conflict or end to violence (although that’s part of it).  Shalom has a deeper sense of wholeness, completeness, and of things being the way that they ought to be and can be.   I believe that our work as humans is to work for the fullness of shalom in the world through our words, actions, intentions, and desires.  And while that can be done in extra-ordinary ways, more often than not I feel that shalom happens in the ordinary moments between people and throughout life.  It is why I love the fact that “shalom” can also be used as a greeting between people - in this ordinary act of greeting someone, you are making a statement of what you hope for them and they for you.  If I greet someone with “shalom,” I am saying in that ordinary moment that I wish for their fullness, their completeness, their wholeness.

I believe that peace/shalom starts in the everyday moments like those and even in shavasana moments at the end of a yoga flow.

Shalom.  Peace.