Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
REVIEW VI
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Lesson 208
- (188) The peace of God is shining in me now.
I will be still and let the earth be still along with me. And in that stillness, we will find the peace of God. It is within my heart, which witnesses to God Himself.
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Personal Notes and Application: A long day’s journey to Chattanooga, Tennessee. My prayer: That the peace of God shines in me now. That my words may be soft and kind, gentle and comforting. That Holy Spirit shines in me and through me.
We are now orphans, I said to my husband, and he made a dismissive sound. You can’t be an orphan when you are our age, he told me. He may as well have been an orphan, I thought meanly to myself. When he finally opened up about his childhood, his stories filled me with outrage and sorrow. It was his story and stories like his that fueled my passion for prevention education during my years at Transitions.
Ten when my own father died, I have nothing but warm and loving memories of him – his laugh, his kind brown-hazel eyes, his strong square jaw, his comfortable paunch in front. He was well into his forties when I was born, still handsome, fun-loving, indulgent, and insightful. It took me a lifetime to realize what his death meant to me, to our family, to my own children, nieces, and nephews growing up without him.
This is a different kind of dad. His four handsome, well-past-middle-age sons have few, if any, fond memories. Today in the Jeep heading south, I prepared myself for a sea of a different kind of sorrow. The kind of sorrow experienced by survivors of domestic violence and abuse, of terrorized childhoods, and tortured memories. It is a sorrow over what could have been – the joyful memories, the warmth and love, the kind of father most other people seem to have – and the ongoing sorrow over never finding out what had happened to him to make him despise his own children.
Today’s lesson idea blows right past all this draining emotion and unanswered questions. It is the peace of God shining in me, now in the present moment, not the long past devastation and heartache, that is calling to me. Let the earth be still along with me, and in that stillness, we will find the peace of God. Let us be still then, and find peace for our father, for our brothers, and for all.
Keep quiet, is the prayer I pray to Self. Keep loving and offer the right kind of sympathy. The kind of sympathy that says, I understand your loss is far more than the death of your father’s body. I wish that someone would have protected you. I wish that it could have been different for you.
To my husband and brothers-in-law: I am in awe of you – such strong, decent, good guys in spite of all that passed. God bless and keep you.
the friar patch 