Building Collective Peace
This December, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team are sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. Join us as we explore the Advent themes of hope, peace, love, joy, and Christmas. This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Candace Woods, M.Div., Juniper Formation’s Minister of Gender + Sexuality Liberation.
How can you be at peace with what you know to be true?
Hebrews 11:8 (The Inclusive Bible)
By faith, Sarah and Abraham obeyed when they were called, and went off to the place they were to receive as a heritage; they went forth, moreover, not knowing where they were going.
I don’t remember the last time I drove more than 10 minutes without turning my GPS on. I know where I’m going and how to get there, but there’s something comforting about seeing the traffic conditions and the exact ETA.
It would be so nice if the rest of life was like that. But alas, we are called to move forward into our callings, taking steps towards our inheritances as children of God, without knowing where exactly it is we’re going or what the conditions are that we’ll encounter along our way.
How do we find peace in stepping out in faith like that? Maybe it comes from recognizing that, unlike our daily commutes, there is no singular destination. Through faith, we cocreate the future with God, taking each step and action in alignment with the peace of mind and nerves that we find inside ourselves.
Today, where is there peace in your body and mind? That doesn’t necessarily mean no risk, but rather, being at peace with what you know to be true. How can you step into the future building on that peace?
With whom can you be in solidarity in order to create peace together?
Isaiah 54:4a (The Inclusive Bible)
Fear not!
I don’t know about you, but being told “Fear not!” is not exactly the best way to get me to stop being afraid. My pathological demand avoidance jumps in to say, “I will be afraid, damnit! Just because you told me not to.”
What works better for me is to know that I’m not doing the scary thing alone. To hear “I’m with you. We’ve got this together.”
What’s interesting to me is that most of the time when we see “Fear not” in the Scriptures, it’s connected to some kind of statement of solidarity. “God is with you.” “With everlasting love I will gather you.” “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
It’s really solidarity and connection that allows us to be at peace and overcome our fear.
Who is showing up in solidarity with you in moments of fear? Or with whom can you be in solidarity in order to create peace together?
How can you participate in the peace-building world?
Psalm 113:7-8 (The Inclusive Bible)
You raise the poor from the dust, and lift the needy from the dung heap to give them a place at the table with rulers, with the leaders of your people.
It’s unlikely to me that the rulers and leaders find their newly shared dinner tables with the poor and needy to be places of peace. That probably feels more like chaos and disturbance to them.
Justice often feels like disturbance to those who have outsized wealth and power. The advent promises of exalted valleys and mountains brought down are not necessarily peaceful feeling moments for the mighty mountains.
But peace is not simply the absence of conflict. It’s the creation of a just and equitable world. The world of shalom where all have what they need.
What a gift.
Might some of the discomforts in your life or community be the result of justice occurring? How can you participate in the peace-building world when you are benefiting from living in the high places?
In what ways can modeling community care help us build collective peace?
Isaiah 54:1 (The Inclusive Bible)
Shout for joy, O childless woman!
Break out in jubilant song, you who have not given birth!
For more numerous are the children of one who is single than the children of the married woman,” says YHWH.
As a child-free woman by choice, I do rejoice. There are not many places in society where I can say that without being judged or ridiculed. So I’m grateful for the words of Isaiah that validate and celebrate the role that childless aunties play in the world.
This celebration comes from acknowledging the inheritance and influence of single women and queer folks and couples who have not been able to conceive. We create spaces for all y’all’s kids to be seen and known. We are godparents and confidants and guncles.
For me, I had a great, deep, internal peace making the decision to not birth my own children. I know that’s not the case for some. But I do think about the great collective peace that we can foster as we model community care. Chosen family. Adoption (metaphorical and literal). And living our truths to provide examples for the children of the world to come.
Consider a childfree person in your life and think about their contributions to the world. Maybe even reach out to send appreciation for the ways they nurture and raise and parent people around them.
Hebrews 11:13 (The Inclusive Bible)
All of them died in faith. They didn’t obtain what had been promised, but saw and welcomed it from afar.
We started this week with Sarah and Abraham moving out in faith, not knowing where they were going. And we end the week reckoning with the reality that they did not walk into the promise of a land of peace. Rather, the writer of Hebrews says that they “saw and welcomed it from afar.”
I believe that faith is an exercise of imagination. It is a dreaming into the possibilities of what might be. It is working toward a day when the mountains are made low and the valleys are raised, acknowledging that we might not see it in our lifetime, but maybe our kids will (all of the kids - Palestinian kids, immigrant kids, Congolese kids, queer kids). And if not them, that at least we have raised the kids of our communities to have the skills and imaginations to continue moving toward that day of peace, that world of shalom. May it be so.
What specific dream of peace is yours to imagine into today? And how might you spark that imagination in a young person in your community?
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