It is there that the required formation and life instills into us what peace really is.  it is an absence (or a struggle against)  the forces that act against a peaceful people as God has called us to gather to be (notice I don’t say “here”, but “there”*).  The peaceable kingdom is the story to which we are called, and to make it our story. 

* just an aside;  a spiritual footnote,  to my exasperating failure to find a place that is putting up a fight against the culture,  and in doing so,  lives a life centered on discipleship and worship.  Discipleship requires an accountability which has become anathema to our individualistic culture.  It has caused me to feel I am growing sick,  and that the isolation I feel makes it all the harder to continue trying.  I have felt is creep into the blogosphere,  perhaps more so because of my realization that this blogosphere is not any kind of “solution”.  I believe it helps engender an appreciation of the scope of the seekers for authentic church,  but it also heightens the sense of local lacking.  And as I rail against the shallowness of efforts at church,  I recognize my own impatience.  But then my inner demons suggest to me that if I give it a better , more serious try (and to stick with something longer) ,  that this will only enable those with whom I attempt to find this a way to recognize how little there is in me to make it an attractive idea to be with me on this journey in any serious life-sharing way.  ……this “aside” is really an undercurrent that feels like such a dark cloud, and a heavy burden that so weighs on me that I feel like a complete bore.  That’s just me today (and on many occasions over the past months).