SEEKING PEACE IN A RESTLESS WORLD

 

 

( To gain a further understanding of the meditation that follows, a reading of the suggested scriptures will be most helpful)

Luke 13: 31 – 35
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,…….how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing !” (1)
Restlessness is almost a definition of our humanness. Perhaps it is restlessness that differentiates us most of all from our Creator. The Divine Spirit rests after brooding over the deep, to create all things. Our rest is mostly spasmodic and seldom serene. It is restlessness, like the waves of an ever ebbing sea that best characterizes the human condition.

There is an uneasiness here on earth that is generic! It comes all unbidden, even as the world tries to make us comfortable, and gain that ” at home” feeling. The world’s consuming embrace soon reveals the phantom-like quality of its promises until one becomes disillusioned and filled with restlessness. Then there begins the endless quest for something more.
We make concerted efforts to curb our discontent, and on occasion, we enjoy some temporary relief.
For the poet, John Masefield, a trip on his challenging sea is all that is needed. Others  find a meandering stroll down memory’s lane to enjoy the reveries of some far off yesterday is enough to restore life’s peace and tranquility. Still others, like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, find complete release from restlessness in the pages of some treasured book:

Come read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs
And silently steal away. (2)

But in the morning the delicate equilibrium steals away with the evening star.
The book providing yesterday’s pleasure is closed! The too-brief sea voyage ends! Someone or something awakens us from our reveries, and chaos and perplexities come again to knock upon life’s door!

We learn from Luke’s Gospel account of the life and times of Jesus, that human restlessness is not a sign that God forgets us. In the words of Jesus to the people of Jerusalem, He expresses the exact empathy and tenderness we humans crave. The illustrative picture that follows is God’s response to the chronic restlessness of the human spirit:

” O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
how often I have longed to gather
your children together, as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings,
but you were not willing.”(3)

It is a common conclusion of many who undertake a reading of the New Testament, that Jesus is something ‘completely OTHER’ than human. Therefore, all the mores and standards associated with Him lie beyond a human’s ability to achieve. I suggest rather that this image is the result of observing life from a vantage point above the restlessness and the chaos of the world. This vantage point ‘above,’ what we now are, is the result of one’s finding God. And consequently, we view life, with all the glorious possibilities our Creator sees. It is imperative that we understand that herein lies the only hope for the human race.

Under ‘the wings of God’ there is no tension based on the color of one’s skin; or how many millions one can lay claim to, while his brothers and sisters suffer the pains of starvation; no race towards the production of weapons of mass destruction to settle human-made dilemmas.
The gross misunderstandings, the partial truths, the warped and twisted ideas permeating the ancient city of Jerusalem, thrust the local populace into a sea of confusion, restlessness, and despair.
Jesus shows us the true meaning of empathy. Empathy does not mean to observe from the outside what lies inside a broken heart, or the longing to find some certainty in the quagmire of constant change. The essential meaning of empathy, Jesus demonstrates, is to take the offending circumstances that belong to other people, and graft them into one’s own experience long enough to put upon them, the mark of that spirit. Then upon their return to their owner, by the Grace of God, they will inspire victory.
During the Crucifixion, when mob hysteria reigns in the boisterous, and unthinking crowds, Jesus endures their insults and accusations. He silently gathers all inside Himself. Finally, He responds to His tormentors, and indeed to the world, by offering the most gracious moment ever lived. He impregnates the noxious air that is invading everything, with the prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Our experiences of restlessness, whatever initiates them, need never be supplemented by any fear of God’s forgetfulness. We forget that God is always present in Jesus Christ, to gather us within the shelter of Himself, and thereby provide for us the peace that passes all understanding. As a hen gathers her brood under her wings, so He desires to shelter each of us.
In the end, however, our peace of mind and serenity of soul is contingent upon our willing obedience in this life. The full meaning of life becomes apparent only “In Him,” from ‘UNDER HIS WINGS! It is here alone that we can learn ‘To Be As He Is’ and therefore ‘Do As He Does!’ Our lives are to be the conduits of His unconditional love, and continuously drawing from the deep well of His empathy we must go out into the troubled world to bear one another burdens. Only  in this way can we bring peace to the restless world.
There is a profound thought captured in a poem titled: “THE PULLEY” by the 14-century poet, George Hebert:

” When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
‘Let us, said He, ‘pour on him all we can:
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span’.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flow’d , then wisdom, honor, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure
Rest at the bottom lay
‘ For if I should,’ said He,
‘Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.’

‘Yet let him keep all else,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast. (4)

Prayer to Follow This Meditation

O God, our Father
May the Peace of Your Heavenly Home come once more to change the world, we now call ‘home.’
Many of Your children are afraid, disillusioned and beginning to despair. They hear grown men shouting at each other and threatening one other with utter destruction. ‘ Man’s inhumanity to man’ is exploding everywhere. Everywhere, greedy people flaunt their wealth while infants in the global village or on the next street cannot find milk to sustain life. There are governments glassy-eyed over the promised revenue to be gained from legalizing substances that may well increase the wailing because of lives similarly destroyed and broken by addictions. O God of all mercy, show us the way of Peace.
Show us again that Heaven’s Peace is not the “greenhouse” variety that too soon fades. Show us once more that Heaven’s Peace is the product of LOVE. Love that binds together all who bear Your Image. O God, Please, for Your sake, and for ours, hasten the reign of Your Peace on earth. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, AMEN.

 

Sweet Peace The Gift Of God

‘https://franksmeditations.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=367&action=edits Love

https://youtu.be/Zx9XvhVtD9o

Editorial Notes

1.All quotations from The Holy Bible are from The New International Version, NIV
2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “DAY IS DONE,” stanzas 7,9 &11. Bartleby.com
3. See #1 above
4.George Herbert in ‘THE PULLEY’
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44370/the-pulley

Photo: taken at our summer cottage at Michael’s Harbour, Newfoundland , August, 2017.