peace
Saturday afternoon, I twist in a hammock chair on the back porch, one foot tucked up and the other dangling, a book splayed open in my lap. Spinning my way through a story, here and not here, I rest in the travel lands while Kevin dozes beside me, Kindle rising and falling on his chest. A light breeze lifts the hair off our faces, dances magically across our skin, and somewhere along the threads of imagination, I sigh over the gentle pleasure found in sharing peace.
I don’t mean peace as a place—you will be thrown off, maybe, by where we are; or peace as a feeling, as in the gentleness of this afternoon, but peace as in the transformative personality, tethering and leading us, protecting, with us even when, feet set solidly on the ground, we take to the everyday road. We are a three stranded cord, us and our shepherd, and not easily broken. I breathe the exhale of God—He’s so near, tasting this union absently and presently, as I sweep through the pages of a novel. Peace is only a place because He is everywhere, because there is nowhere He cannot or will not be; it’s only a feeling if it is the experience of Him.
How long, I wonder in the back of my mind, turning a page, have we humans pondered where we came from and where we’re going? Maybe always? These questions, the questions of direction, are here, in the pages of the novel in my lap. They’re everywhere in the gospel of John, recently I’ve seen–like never before–that these were the questions everyone brought with them when they came to Jesus, sometimes in humility, sometimes in fear. The parents of my generation keep asking these questions over their children, even as our children become adults. Where are you going? God asked a similar question, a more present one, in the garden after Adam and Eve sinned: “Where are you?” I imagine God’s voice, sad and aware, bouncing over leaves. It wasn’t that He didn’t know, but that they didn’t know anymore. In restaurants among friends, we shake our heads; we murmur about what’s happening; we grapple over feeling lost, even if no one really wants to use that word anymore. Why do we never want to admit we don’t know where we are? And then, there is this resistance to asking for directions. We ask philosophically but not directly. We call these crazy times, but the truth is that wandering is nothing new.
The back door creaks, screeching suddenly on its hinges, as Zoe wanders outside, finding us, and plops in one of the rockers. Kevin comes instantly awake, and I stop my twisting to acknowledge her. I take off my reading glasses and lay them in my lap on top of my book. As our children age and develop their own autonomy, we learn to appreciate the gift of presence–their lives still wrapped up in ours, and the ever-presence of God with us. We learn, as a family, to make the most of our opportunities for communion. Saturday feels like a plateau where we all camp and catch our breath.
The moment we reach physical quorum on the porch, Riley also appears. Riley, who values withness as treasure, maybe especially because she has to search and dig to find it. The door creaks again, screeches like a herald as Riley hails, “I’m baacck.” She sits in the other chair, falling silent because she knows–better than all of us–that being together has never really been about the words. I have also been discovering this secret, learning that prayer can be as silent as it is articulate.
I glance toward the window beyond which Adam paces, and I lift my hand. He watches us through the glass, and when he sees me, he waves, quickly so no one else will notice, and then turns away, moving toward the kitchen. He lives like a yo-yo on a string, smoothly winding toward us and away again. I smile wide, seeing now how we can be so differentiated and still so connected, like planets, like trees, like children. The whole world testifies: individuality only leads to disconnection when we’re missing the one who holds us all together.
Exploration keeps demanding further distances of our daughters; Zoe has come to talk about this, to discuss what will happen when she goes away to college. She wants to talk about where she’s going, to tease out the borders of the journey. Already she goes, even while she’s still at home. She feels nervous and exhilarated, as any embarker should, admitting to not knowing so much of the territory that lies ahead of her.
Mostly, we listen, nodding as she wonders aloud, smiling over the gift of her honesty.
“But it’s okay; I don’t have to worry,” she says, finally. “I know God’s got this; I just need to trust Him.” She speaks of peace. Peace, who breathes when her breath hitches; Peace, who promises never to leave her. I think of Jesus, promising His bewildered disciples that He would come back and take them where they need to go, to be with Him. God is a nomad; we go with Him before we go anywhere.
“And if God wants me to be in the Pathfinders program, I’ll do that,” Riley suddenly says aloud. It’s a hard right turn at an awkward incline, but it fits. “Or if He doesn’t want me to do that, I’ll do something else. Whatever God wants.” She lifts her hands, moving them as she talks, pointing her fingers at invisible signposts. Next week, Riley will take a test to see if she’s eligible to participate in a local college program for exceptional people. Every time someone asks her about the test, or about next steps, this is what she says.
Listening to her, I’m reminded again of something Jesus said, right over the disciples’ confusion about the future, right when bald-honest Thomas said, “But we don’t know where you’re going, so how could we know the way?”
“I am the way,” Christ had said simply, “and the truth, and the light.”
