Peace can have a range of effects on faith, and it’s my belief that a truly robust faith has room for this feeling. For an earlier post about peace, click here. To look at the intersection of peace and faith, read on…
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” —Julian of Norwich
“When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.” —Horatio Spafford, It Is Well With My Soul
Peace is often an act of protest, especially when it comes to faith.
Lawyer and Presbyterian elder Horatio Spafford endured some Job-esque trauma in his life. Two years after losing much of his financial assets to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Spafford and his family planned a trip to Europe. Spafford’s wife and four daughters went ahead, but the steamship they were traveling on (the Ville du Havre) was struck by another vessel and sank. Spafford’s wife, Anna, survived, but all four of their daughters perished. Grief-stricken, Spafford sailed across the ocean alone to rendezvous with his wife, and during the voyage, he wrote the lyrics to It Is Well With My Soul.
It Is Well With My Soul is not a happy song. It’s not a shallow proclamation of good cheer or the “cheap joy” we talked about a few weeks back. It’s a song of protest, a song which demands peace. Through his lyrics, Spafford declares, “Even amid all this pain, I will claim peace. Though peace may seem far away, I will claim it in this moment.” This is the reason so many contemporary resettings of the old hymn miss the mark; with every upbeat guitar riff or optimistic new bridge, the song gets farther away from its original context. It Is Well With My Soul, while not quite melancholy, is certainly meditative and methodical. It is a peaceful song seeking peace.
As we covered in the post on peace a few months back, of the six core feelings at the center of the wheel, peace seems to happen the least automatically. We have to work at it and cultivate it, and there are long traditions in multiple religions of contemplation devoted to precisely this. Take, for instance, Christian monks living in community. Though they are known for their peace and clarity of thought, they are also some of the most regimented and hardworking people you will ever encounter. Their lifestyle is considered countercultural, so like Spafford, their peace is cultivated in contrast to the world around them, not in concert with it.
Now, don’t mishear me. There is peace in the wild. Sometimes a hiking trail or random building lobby may have a certain serenity, but the larger American culture is very anxious (and that includes churches, as addressed in last week’s post). Peace is something we grow, and it takes practice. Whether you find spiritual peace through meditation or prayer or communal meals or time in nature or journaling about gratitude or whatever practice you choose, the peace is out there. We just have to be intentional about making the space for it.
Leave room for peace in your faith.