The Kiss of Peace -- A Pause in Advent

This is the last Pause in Advent post with Floss. I must say, I've struggled to find new things to say about peace at this time. Our hearts are astir with a national grief, with busyness and travel and family. How many of you look forward to being with your family members, only to struggle a bit with how to speak, or relate, or even how not to argue?

I must find peace in spite of a too-small house, and too-much mess, family that I miss, small disasters, a tight budget, niggling worries, and the constant specter of Death that hovers our lives always.

"I must find peace" -- even those words lend a certain insistence that belies peace.

My husband kissed me this morning.  (Or I kissed him. I don't recall which. When each kisses the other, does it matter?) And then I realized that a kiss means peace -- peace between the kissers. It is reconciliation if there's been conflict. It is a kind erasing of all distress. How sweet a kiss is! Do you ever think of the elderly, the unmarried, or others who might go for many years without a kiss? With each kiss we give, we should think, "Peace. Peace among men, and between men and God."  Kiss someone today, even if only on the cheek. If everyone did, how much more peaceful would our world be?

May this last day of Advent not be a frenzy of angry shopping at the local WalMart (or as one friend just said, stopping to watch a fight in the WalMart parking lot!) A kind word, a cheerful smile, a little bag of cookies, an offer of help -- all these are kisses of peace.

Merry Christmas!