The Presence of Peaceful People

I recently spent a day away at a Franciscan retreat center in Stoneville, NC. One of the perks of being a vocational minister is that you are allowed regular times of solitude and prayer as part of your work (though it saddens me to see how rarely colleagues and I take advantage of that privilege and how often we miss the importance of these recharging times). To take a day away is like plugging my soul into a spiritual generator, as I have time away from people, email, and the phone. But I can also be fooled into thinking that the only and best way for me to rest is in being by myself.

St. Francis Springs is a large center with hotel-style rooms, a large dining room, sitting room, library and chapel, and acres of woods to walk in, and surprisingly I had the place to myself, except for two of their staff and one volunteer. After a morning of prayer and Scripture study, spending time on a rock in the middle of a creek and walking in the woods, I was treated to a nice lunch with the staff, and I couldn’t help but find rest in being with them.

Do you know people who are just at deep rest with Christ, who exude His peace and love and calm? It’s a joy to be in their presence because that peace sort of drifts over to you. There are different ways that I have reacted to that peace in others – one time I met with a pastor whose soul-rest so contrasted the frazzled and dry state of my soul that I went back to my office and wept. Other times I have tried to emulate the rest and peace of others, tried to figure out how they got and what I needed to do to get there. But the best way I’ve found is to simply receive it and enjoy it as a gift. Rest is a gift from the Lord, a command with a loving purpose (which, actually, is true of all His commands), and the presence of peaceful people can usher us into a place of rest in the midst of community. I love to be around people like that, and I long to be one of them for others.