This morning our theme will be 'prophets and discoverers' (or in David Adam language, 'visionaries and discoverers') and we will read of Isaiah (from the NT) and Elijah (from the OT).  The link to peace gets a bit tenuous, so I won't be forcing it, though it strikes me, as I type that Nobel was so discomfited by the outworking of one of his discoveries that he instigated the famous prizes awarded for 'peaceful' or at least 'peaceable' works.

Peace is a bit of a 'slippery' concept, easier to say what it is not that what it is; sometimes only a via negativa captures what we try to express:

Peace,

Not merely absence of war

Not simply silence after shouting

Not a moment of stillness

Not relaxation after business

Not warm fuzzies deep inside

Not...

Peace

The je ne sait quoi that defies comprehension

That sneaks, unbidden, into hearts and minds

The sense that 'all will be well' despite all odds

That fear has evaporated

Hatred subsumed by love

Anger dispelled by forgiveness

Peace...

Undefinable

Unattainable?

Glimpsed in a newborn laid in a cattle trough

Won through the desolation of Roman execution

Confusing concept

For which we yearn...

Peace

May we discover fresh glimpses of it this Adventide