Peace by Stephanie Goodwin - Church Warden at Leigh
7 Nov 2018 • Articles
Our Area service in September looked towards the focus of this year’s Remembrance Day services and events using The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-10) and thinking about our understanding of what peace is.
On 11th November 2018 our country, and Europe, mark the centenary of the end of the First World War with services, bell ringing across the U.K. and other events. To link with this in Leigh there will be a ‘peace quilt’ made up of fabric squares designed by people, young and old, in the community, bringing together small ideas of “what peace means to you” into a larger one. (Many other things are also happening across the rest of the Uttoxeter Area to acknowledge this centenary.)
But are we just thinking of peace as the cessation of hostility? What is peace?
Peace evokes a passive picture, an absence of civil disturbance or hostilities, or a personality free from internal or external strife. However, the concept of peace in the Bible is larger than that and embraces health, harmony between people, prosperity, success and fulfilment as well as victory over one’s enemies or absence of war.
World War I ended, as it had begun, with a period of uncertainty and inaction. The world held its breath that peace would last, the carnage would stop. But in the midst of warfare people had turned to God as a comforter, a listener and a steady presence.Warfare and other civilian situations that threaten our stability heightens awareness of our immortality and our place in the great universe.
My grandmother lost close family in World War I and by the Second World War had suffered several personal tragedies and losses. She always said peace did not come easily after war and that you needed to work at finding peace for yourself.
Jill Murphy’s children’s book “Five Minutes’ Peace” tells of a mother just wanting a few undisturbed minutes alone, away from the demands of her young family. However, even in the bath she finds it doesn’t happen and accepts that there is more to being at peace than just being silent – the pride and satisfaction of a loving family is her peace.
For me that feeling of peace does sneak up, often unexpectedly, when I am relaxed but not necessarily quiet or inactive. Often it is as I sit concentrating hard playing viola in the middle of the orchestra, as I walk in the countryside or sitting with the light coming through the stained glass windows in the Chancel at church.
In our modern world where mental health awareness is now being raised in profile, it would seem pertinent to ask “Where do you find your peace?”
As we move forward to celebrate the birth of Jesus, God’s son, The ‘Peace Child’, try to make time and space to find peace.
Stephanie Goodwin
Church Warden at Leigh and Lay Representative on the Area Ministry and Mission Teams