Other days, I’m like the cat on one of my favorite greeting cards. Sitting in a yoga posture that I doubt cats ever actually try, she lists the contemplative practices she pursues. But despite her efforts, she still (as the card tells us) wants to clobber someone. I practice contemplative prayer. I meditate sometimes. I’m still less like my shalom sign and more like the cat on the card. I’ll keep trying.

On the other hand, maybe peace isn’t only about being quiet, gentle, and at one with the world. Jesus wasn’t always sweet and relaxed, as writer and pastor Frederick Buechner reminds us. Jesus upset the money-changers’ tables angrily in the temple, for just one example. And yet Jesus is the Prince of Peace. What do I make of that? "The contradiction is resolved," Buechner writes, "when you realize that for Jesus peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love" (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, HarperSanFrancisco, 1973).

Now that might be an attainable goal for me. I doubt that I’ll ever come close to being at peace with the world on a constant basis, but I can definitely work on being more loving. Given the evils and injustices in this world I can’t imagine feeling 100 percent of the time. I suspected there would be something seriously wrong with me if I could. Maybe I can pray more for those who infuriate me, even in the midst of my anger, and ask God’s peace for them. That’s hard to imagine, but I suspect it’s possible, and even a good idea. Perhaps I can learn to love the sinner in front of me, even if I despise their words or deeds, just as Jesus loves me, the sinner standing before him. At the very least, I can practice what a wise friend once taught me to do when I can’t love and can’t pray for someone: I can ask God to help me want to love and want to pray for that person. Surely I can do that much.

I don’t know about you, but I know I don’t do a very good imitation of Jesus some days. I’ve got a lot more to learn about loving and about peace. But perhaps in trying to love (and maybe actually succeeding here and there), I can help bring just a smidgen more peacefulness into the world around me. Maybe if we all worked on it, we could increase the peace exponentially.

Debra K. Farrington has written eight books of Christian spirituality. Check out her Web site at www.debrafarrington.com

This article is published in the April 2008 issue of Lutheran Woman Today.