peanut butter, peace

reason #5908235470 cats are worse pets than dogs: they don't take their pills with peanut butter. so i just wasted a spoonful of peanut butter and half a cat-thyroid-problem pill because the cat seems disgusted by peanut butter. come on, cat! who doesn't love peanut butter? these cats, that's who.

anyway, i apologize for not writing in this enough. i've started to write a couple of times since my last post, but i either just got annoyed at how weird i thought i sounded, or i just couldn't come up with one good thing to write, so i stopped. and i know that's really bad of me... the more i write, the better i feel. and not that i always need to feel good or happy - but writing a lot does just make me feel like i've released what i need to release. i guess that's the best way i can put it.

so what has happened recently... probably the most exciting thing was church on sunday.

i went to a new church (i've been looking for a new church in the area - but that's a whole other blog post) and just loved it. the message was really great; it was just exactly what i needed to hear. the pastor talked about peace - jesus' peace versus the world's peace. i am not normally a big note-take during church, but he said so many things that i really wanted to write down and go back to later. one of the most interesting points, that really stuck with me, was this: "Jesus didn't intend for us to live in the peace the world has to offer - He came so we could live in the peace that HE brings." he went on to talk about how we tend to think of peace as just one general concept. as christians, when we talk about peace or pray about peace, we tend to not make a distinction between the peace the world wants and the peace Jesus brings.

this was a really interesting idea to me. i've gone to church my whole life and i went to a christian college, so to be honest, i tend to get kind of arrogant about sermons, christian writing, etc... i feel like i've heard so much that i'm rarely surprised by something new. it's easy to approach sermons with judgment or apprehension, because then you don't really have to let them affect your life. i can feel good about myself, knowing that i went to church or read a christian book or went to a bible study - but i don't really have to change anything in my life, because, well, i don't know if i totally agree, or i feel like i've heard that message a million times already. i guess this is one of the negative things about having been so immersed in the christian subculture for the past four years (although the positive things far outweigh the negative, there are still some negatives! or at least, things to be cautious about). so anyway, the message this sunday was really good - because i felt like God was telling me "you don't know everything!" which is incredibly obvious. but clearly, i tend to forget it. whenever i hear/read/see a christian perspective and look at it with contempt, negativity, or judgment, i am proving that i think i DO know everything.

the concept of peace is so interesting. i'm sure every christian has, at one point or another, prayed for peace - in the context of a relationship, a global conflict, or something inbetween. but what KIND of peace are we praying for, exactly? if you're like me, then you're probably praying for the hippie kind of peace. like, let's just all learn to love one another. not that that's a bad thing at all (because it's a very good thing!), but, it's very human-focused. it's like, we can all solve this if we just love each other. when i think about all the times i've prayed for peace (whether it was about a friendship or a war), i am thinking about it totally in terms of PEOPLE bringing peace to the situation. but then, why am i even praying? if i think - subconciously or not - that problems can be solved by people simply treating one another with respect and love, why do i feel the need to pray about that?

i think it's fairly clear, when looking at the course of history, that humans simply are not good at bringing peace to situations on their own. in fact, we are really, really bad at it. why do we look to figures like martin luther king jr. and mother teresa and call them "peace-makers"? i think it's because they were some of the rare people who could be and were actually peaceful people. if everyone were like that, we wouldn't have to look to these historical figures as examples, because it would just be the norm for everyone to be that way. and even if we can be peace-makers on our own, how long does that last? until another conflict comes around? certainly even mlk jr. and mother teresa went through times of wanting to wring someone's neck. nobody can keep that peacefulness up all the time - and definitely not on their own. i don't care how much of a saint you are. we simply cannot do this on our own. clearly, we need to the peace of Jesus - and that is not the same as the peace of the world. i don't know that i'd ever quite made that distinction, at least not in the way that it is now making sense to me.

so i'm not quite sure what exactly all this means. it made me reconsider some of the political views i hold (not change them, really - but think about). i wouldn't call myself a democrat or republican (i am still in the idealistic-college-student mentality of feeling unsatisfied by choosing a political party, i suppose), but i do tend to support more liberal candidates and policies. i voted for obama and am extremely happy that he won (please don't be turned off by this if you don't agree - i promise to not talk about politics anymore!), and i voted for him for many reasons, but i do think one reason was that i was very encouraged and excited by his messages of peace and hope... and, well, those things are great. but they are not even close to the same as the peace and hope of Jesus. if am i clinging to the ideology of a group of people who want to see peace, i should not feel too secure. while earthly peace is a good thing, i think it detracts me from seeking TRUE peace - the peace only Jesus can bring. when He is graciously offering His peace that i could never dream of bringing to myself, why would i ignore that simply to attempt to bring about earthly peace that has no chance of lasting? this realization hasn't really changed my political views, so much as it's just made me realize our deep, deep, ridiculously huge need for Christ.

well i didn't mean to turn this into a long rambly theological thing... and i am no biblical scholar, so please feel free to add to this or criticize it or whatever you want to do!

peace to you - the Jesus kind :)