Peace Be With You

ALL: Peace be with you.

Reader 1: We say these words to one another with hope,

believing in this promise, leaning in to hear this whisper from the Holy.

ALL: Peace be still.

Reader 1: We hear these words from the voice of Love that beckons us,

Calls us by name, calls us to see the fullness of this promise.

Reader 2: To see beyond our current reality of all that is unresolved, broken, in ruins

To the hope of what will be — whole, restored, reclaimed.

Reader 1: Peace is not the absence of turmoil.

Reader 2: Peace is the Presence of Love.

Reader 1: Much like grief. Grief takes up space in our hearts;

Reader 2: Stretching wide to the edges.

ALL: And so Love grows wider. To make more space.

Reader 1: Stretching our hearts to a fuller capacity.

Reader 2: Grief doesn't become less or grow smaller.

ALL: Love grows wider.

Reader 1: Peace does not ask us to cheapen or ignore the tragedies of this world

With yet another platitude of positivity.

Reader 2: Peace does not require that we diminish the storms

that rage outside and within us.

Reader 1: Peace does not demand a facade of stillness and silence

when upheaval comes and all that we hoped for is gone.

ALL: And so we let Love grow wider. To make more space. For peace.

Reader 1: Stretching our hearts to a fuller capacity.

Reader 2: The tragedies of this world, the storms that rage, the upheavals that come

don’t grow smaller.

ALL: Love grows wider. To make more space. For peace.

Reader 1: This is where we find Peace.

ALL: In the Love that keeps us, carries us, holds us fast

Reader 2: In the growing, in the stretching, in the holy knowing that

Reader 1: In the crucible of the darkness

resurrection hope whispers a story of new life and light.

ALL: And as Love grows wider. To make more space. For peace.

We find ourselves leaning in to hear this whisper from the Holy.

Peace be still.