I already had it.

"the quality of mercy is not strained"--Shakespeare

Here is my book selection for this weekend/week/month... I'm not sure where I left off here, but I have still been trying to give myself the gift of reading. I've had an incredible time of late--uniquely full of stuff that most people would consider BAD: Lice, a sister struggling to recover from unwanted major surgery and a surprise diagnosis, sharing lice, my dad with yet another form of cancer, my brother with cellulitis, bells palsy, debilitating headaches and Lime disease, lice that won't vanish, and an uncle diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It has felt like walking into a cold, drippy rain shower that keeps taking a turn for the worse. I feel sad, angry and exhausted but strong. I want to help. I want to work through it all. I took the kids to the library last week and found myself drawn to the title of this book, and grabbed it at the last minute as I headed toward the circulation desk. I didn't even notice the tiny subtitle on the cover page; the book I checked out said "A Celebration" on the front, not "A Christmas Poem" as seen below. Either way, I felt connected to the premise that bad things happen. And bad things happen when we least expect them, throwing us a little off balance from time to time. And I wanted to read about Maya Angelou's interpretation of this amazing peace.

I know where to turn for peace. I feel centered by the peace I find in my knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe in Christ. I know that my amazing peace comes from knowing that Christ has already lived through the pain, sorrow and anguish that we may feel now, or have yet to feel in our lives. But it doesn't stop the emotion. And the amazing peace [and strength] that comes from knowing that Christ knows me personally does not stop the heartache and wanting to take away the pain that others are required to endure.I read this book as I was climbing into bed the other night. It only took about 10 minutes. The opening lines read like this:

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Floodwaters await in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and gray and threatening.

And then I started to weep. Thunder has rumbled my mountains. The eaves of my personal house are rattling so loudly at times that I can hardly hear myself think. The floodwaters that are my tears, I know are waiting in the avenues of my emotions. And man, does my village feel unprotected.

I know that I need to be able to experience the raw emotion of sadness, sorrow, anger, pain, fear and grief because it's right. And good. Hard things happen. I can't stop that. I know where to turn for peace, but when I look around me at the hard things everywhere, I want to give outlet to the vulnerable frailty that is part of my humanness. Reading this book did not provide any great enlightenment on where to find peace, rather it helped me to think about dwelling a bit longer in the hard place, instead of exusing it away to hurry and get to peace. It made me think about the process of reaching peace. And that it's a journey to get there. It needn't be rushed.