Hoping for Inner Peace in a time of discontent

Yesterday was the first day of Advent.  While I was doing the nursery with three, four, and five year-old children there was a sermon going on related to Advent.  Yesterday was supposed to be the Sunday of "Hope."

From time to time I consider the concept of hope.  It is a looking forward to an expectation . . . something that is supposed to be good in your eyes or at least good for you.  We have all kinds of hopes . . . some are little and some are large. 

In the end, something that is hoped for is supposed to bring a sense of fulfillment or pleasure or peace.  Your emotional inside should feel positive and not negative. 

Here at the end of 2012 we have all kinds of worries and discontents.  In many of our countries the economy is doing badly.  War persists in several locations around the world.  The news brings us all of it and Marshall McLuhan's global village brings us a sense of insecurity.

Combine the feelings of insecurity and discomfort with Andy Williams singing, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and you are experiencing a contradiction.   The feeling of worry and discontent can increase some to make one question personal sanity: Is something wrong with me?

 Defining and Finding Inner Peace

I think for the purposes of this blog, inner peace simply defined is an absence of anxiety, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of security, and a feeling of confidence that you have a grasp on things.    Inner peace does not make everything better.   Inner peace allows you to see a big picture and tolerate the distress and be able to be still. 

A warning is noted here: I can find my own inner peace.  I cannot find yours for you.  I cannot get you over your hump . . . there are no freebies here. 

First, I think that people as a rule do not pay attention when they have inner peace.  They only know when they feel absence of peace or emptiness.  Some of that emptiness comes when there has been a loss that one had centered his or her life around such as a marriage or career, or significant other.   I have found a useful exercise to include asking:

What do you feel like when you are not feeling empty?

For at least now, some people have to ask the question:

What good is your worry doing you?

I have known, colleagues, patients, acquaintances and family members to stay anxious out of a belief that it is the wise choice.  They are the type of people who say "I hope you're right?"  They will stubbornly hold onto their anxiety and be "basketcases."  They hang onto their worry and anxiety out of some need for control . . . they at least feel they are doing all they can do . . . maybe.

A risky example: Me

For me, I find my sense of inner peace first in my faith.  I note that God offers peace throughout the Bible.  Jesus told his disciples in John 14 that he gives peace--not as the world gives.  I have to surrender from time to time and ask God for peace because I am not always going to find it within me.

I also find peace in my non-religious beliefs.   I found that I had been holding negative assumptions that were actually making me feel wretched. When I stopped trying to mind read the thoughts of others and stopped  dwelling on the past I actually felt more peaceful.  Keeping my mind on the present has a remarkable way of faciliting serenity and a sense of order as I can only do something now--not yesterday nor tomorrow.

I must say that as a human I am not a perfect model of inner peace.  Like all humans I have my worries from time to time. 

As I look at Christmas and seeking the feeling of peace, I do find that I am dependent on something larger than I am.  I sometimes need not to look just at the babe in the manager but also at the courage of a guy named Joseph who learned that the virgin he committed to came up pregnant, and he listened to God in his dreams and acted in faith.  He made the obedient choice to stay in the relationship.  I get the sense of peace that it is okay that I as a human have tough choices to make where there are risks and some emotional suffering because that is life.   Sometimes with the risks come affirmation in strange ways that include

• some strange shepherds barging in on your and your wife in the middle of the night telling you a wild story of seeing angels in the middle of the night sky.  

• eight days later seeing some old guy holding your baby up and saying some prayer to God that he can now be dismissed in peace because he has seen the salvation, and then some old lady making a prophecy about your baby 

• two years later seeing some astrologers coming in with Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh followed by another dream telling you to get out of town because Herod is wanting to kill your son.

The Bible does not give Joseph's emotional state through this story line, so I can only imagine that Joseph saw his big picture that there was something larger working.  It hurt and was humiliating in the beginning, but there were all kinds of acts of God after the fact that affirmed God was present and working, even in possible emotional pain. 

I do not know what the future holds, but the Christmas story does have all kinds of complicated side bars to look at.  I think that it shows that God is not naive of how complicated our lives are and can be.  God is there and he will give people to those who ask for it.