Anxiety has been a dogged, trickster companion for most of my life. Sometimes it’s a slip of darkness far off in the periphery. Sometimes it sits on a small chair by the fire warming its persistent fingers. Other times it clings to my chest like a long-lost child that won’t be put down. It has the ability to jolt me awake in the night and play havoc with my thinking, logic sent flying out the window. Other times it has a way of softening the edges while clarifying what is truly important to me.
As a child, I remember the uneasy knot that would tie up inside me when I would look from the back seat our green station-wagon and see Mom dozing off in the front seat when we were headed home on the Ignace road late in the evening. Dad was driving, competent and alert, but seeing Mom asleep left me feeling that I was somehow alone in the world. She was by role and by nature a constant presence; I felt angsty when she was asleep and I wasn’t.
By contrast, one of my deepest senses of safety and peacefulness came when I could sleep with my mom. Dad would occasionally be away overnight, and those were the times when I could crawl into bed with Mom. All was right in the world when that happened. I have no recollection of conversation between us only my feeling of being settled, secure, and content.
She is now in the sleep of death. It sounds poetic, but it’s not. Rather than inscribing daughterly sentiments into a birthday card for her, her end date has been etched in stone.
So I look for ways to weave together this time of watching and waiting in Advent with its themes of hope and peace into life without Mom’s living presence alongside.
Years ago, in an attempt to learn some of the French language, a friend gave me some lessons. I remember reading the Beatitudes in a French Bible as a way of learning and comparing since the English version of that particular text was very familiar to me. One of the Beatitudes reads, “Blessed are the peacemakers…” (Matthew 5). In French that text read, “Bienheuruex les artisans de paix…”.
Artisans of peace… An artisan is “a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making by hand” (Dictionary). After years of reading that text, a new meaning opened up. An artisan of peace is no different than a peacemaker, but the imagery of an artisan gave the text an accessibility that was different and fresh. How could I use the ordinary stuff of my everyday life and with my hands craft peace? How could I be an “artisans de paix” using the raw material that is right before me each and every day?
I heard on the radio this week of a Palestinian and an Israeli who were worked together to make a film documenting some of their experience in the Middle East ( the documentary is called “No Other Land”. It was at the Toronto International Film Festival, but I can’t find where it can be watched now). These two people took their lived life experiences and chose to work together to create something that would hopefully cast a light towards a pathway to something of peace. They live in the crux of no peace yet have sought out a way to use the stuff of their lives to craft something subversively good.
The earthy stuff of my life does not involve war. Nonetheless, I can aid peacefulness in my corner of the world. Things were not always serene and peace-filled between my mom and I, but I am grateful that with time, bits of conversation, and letting go that our story did not end there. We used what we had to nurture away the tensions. Anxiety still knocks occasionally disturbing my calm, but acceptance and perspective can help to restore it.
We can all craft a sense of safety for the children in our corners keeping their worlds at peace. We can pay heed to our people whoever they may be and learn how to love them well. And we can lift our eyes from the corners of our lives to hope for and pray for peace on this whole earth.
Peace. Lighting a candle for peace.