Golly gosh, this quest for hints and glimpses of 'peace' in the Northumbria Community daily Prayer readings is proving a real challenge!  Today we have:

Psalm 139: 13 - 18

Song of Songs 4:9

Ephesians 5: 31 - 32

One of these is still very sensual/sexual/metaphorical, one, put bluntly, links the mystery of procreative human sexual activity to the relationship of Christ and the Church, so I am left with the psalm, and words which are very familiar and comforting...

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

If attributes of peace include security, freedom from anxiety, a sense of being held safe, then these words are rich in peacefulness.  I'm not sure there's much to add by way of comment, merely an invitation to rest in the safe, loving, enveloping peace of God...

God of Peace,

These words are lovely, the poetry delights the mind, the imagery thrills

Yet real life is never so cosy

Anxiety, regret, bewilderment, travail, grief...

These and so many more

Cast ugly shadows across the paths we walk

Help us move from trite truth claims and twee smiles

To a deep sense that ultimately our security and rest is, indeed, in you

That despite appearances, your never abandon us

That in the most turbulent storms of life

You are the still centre

The point of calm

The source of hope

Of peace

In our busyness

In our frustratedness

In our lostness

In our delightedness

In our beginning

In our ending

And forever

Grant us peace

Amen.