Peace, peace and more peace. Please . . . .

Goodness sakes . . . it is 2013 already! I can't believe how the time -- and life -- flies by.  It seems to drag when one is younger and anxious to get on with life.  But it seems to fly as one gets older, and life gets on with us.  But life is life -- and it beats the alternative as my mother used to say.
Always, when the end of a year approaches with a new one on the horizon, we get nostalgic and reflective -- and we should.  We remember what has passed, what and who we have lost all the while looking forward with excitement to what the future will bring. 
And we pray.  I hope sincerely that we pray. 
My prayer for 2013 is a simple one:  "Dear Lord, give us peace -- peace, peace and more peace.  Please."
We need peace in our lives -- so we aren't driven by anxious doing, running here and there and everywhere, and mostly feeling like we accomplish nothing.
We need peace for families, many of whom are torn apart and fractured.
We need peace for our children -- that the world they inherit from us will be a good one, one that affirms and supports them as created in the image and likeness of God.
We need peace in our community, where so many still suffer from so many things -- addiction, separation, fracture, and violence.
We need peace in our country -- not contentious disagreements that dominate the discourse and our relationships with each other.
We need peace in the world.  Too many places and people suffer from violence and war, with lives shortened by disease, malnourishment and neglect.
We need peace.  Period.
Yet, it seems that in 2013, as always, peace must begin with us.  I hope and pray each and every one of us finds a center of peace in our lives.  For me, that center is God -- the one, loving, transcendent, very present and accounted for God who created us, redeems us and -- daily -- sustains us.
The God  I know in Jesus the Christ, who said -- at a time when he was about to face the worst violence humanity could throw at him on the cross -- "Peace I leave you, my peace I give you."
Dear Lord, give us peace -- peace, peace and more peace.  Please!