Peace: The Second Sunday in Advent

By Reverend Stephanie Cooper

Comfort responses. When I feel my heart race, when I feel my palms clam up, when my chest rises with shallow breaths or when I can feel overwhelm setting in, for years my comfort response has been to begin Wendell Berry’s poem:

When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve muttered these opening words. Especially lately. Our bodies often know and express our grief and fear better than our cognitive minds do. When I sit down to write and my mind goes blank, my body is telling me about my despair. When I walk into a room to get something (or was it… do something?), what was it?– my body is telling me something about my despair. And when I toss and turn in the night and see the clock read 2, 3, and 4 am, my body is telling me something about my despair.

And lately, my body has had a lot to tell me.

When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

The air has tasted like despair lately. Since November 6 I have felt a sense of overwhelm and despair that I sometimes cannot cognitively name. So I’ll do things like look at real estate abroad. I sometimes feel silly doing this mental exercise of disaster planning. But my bones cry out in despair in a way that it doesn’t feel silly at the same time. 

For many of us, the decision of November 6 felt like a betrayal of the American people. A dismissal of our very existence. 

I am of the opinion (albeit, possibly an unpopular opinion among this crowd) that our country would benefit from significant disruption to our systems. There is too much bureaucratic clog and waste in our systems. People on the ground, people like you and me, don’t feel like the government is actually doing anything that well. One example: Less than 17% of Biden’s Build Back Better money has actually left the door because of bureaucratic clog. Time and again voters told pollsters that they wanted to see change from the next president. And unfortunately the person who most clearly articulated a change platform is also the person who intentionally dismisses ethics and common decency. He is also the candidate who stokes division and hate. He is the person who denies election results unless he is the winner. And he is now the candidate-elect who is willing to put billionaires in the driver seat of disruption and change. 

So while I am of the opinion that the systems in our country do need some disruption and change, I wish the conversation could have acknowledged the nuances of that desire and reject false binaries. My despair creeps up in my body because now when I foresee change we are certain to get, the helm of the ship is being guided by the self-interest of billionaires reinforcing systems that already benefit them and their cronies.

When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

So I repeat these words from one of my favorite poets. Because when despair for the world does grow in me,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

The morning after the election, I walked into my daughter’s room, like I do every morning, to gently wake her and get her ready for the day. I was greeted with the soft giggles of a three year old who was unaware of how the world had shifted. 

After I dropped her off at school, like I do every morning, I walked out into our vegetable garden. The butterflies flitted and floated above and around me. I was drawn into their swirling and twirling dance as they too were unaware of how the world had shifted.

I then made my way back into the house and was greeted by our three foster-turned-adopted cats, happily rubbing against my legs as I reentered our home, unaware of how the world had shifted.

I come into the peace of wild things.

The world indeed has shifted. And while before the November 6 despair for the world grew in me, these days we can now see the scaffolding of how that world will shift in drastic ways. The change coming is not the change I wish to see and so despair is trying to claim a seat at my table.

Today, just like the prophet Jeremiah heard millenia ago, we hear our leaders cry, “Peace, Peace!” when there is no peace. It feels like we live in alternate realities where on the surface the realities of “them” and “us” (again, another false binary) look the same, but our experiences of the world are so different.

Our leaders cry peace peace, but to be sure there is no peace for trans kids in this shifting world.

They cry peace peace, but there is no peace in a country that chooses willful ignorance about our history, racial terror, our economic system built by slavery, and the subsequent racial inequities that resulted from that system. 

They cry peace peace, but there is no peace for Gaza.

They cry peace peace, but there is no peace for families like mine, queer families scared for what might come to the courts in these next four years.

They cry peace peace even when they try to silence the prophets in the pulpits and in the streets.

They cry, “Peace, peace!”

When there is no peace. 

They pull the wool over their own eyes and the eyes of their supporters to uphold their power and profit and the systems from which they gain power and from which they profit. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. These leaders crying “Peace, peace.”

So I mutter these words again and again.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Last week my family visited our dear friends Sarah and Rodney Macias at Sister Grove Farm. This regenerative farm hosts cows and sheep, chickens and bees. All intermingled bringing life and nutrients back into the land. They’re rebuilding a delicate system (that only needs human intervention because of the ways human interference has so greatly disrupted the balance) and using the property to celebrate the earth and educate her visitors. 

Last week we got to roam about the property with our daughter. As a three year old she is often more clear-eyed about the world than us adults who are beaten down and brainwashed by the capitalist ways of our world. She raced over to the chickens and with wild eyes observed every movement, every scratch, every squawk. She picked up the feathers scattered on the ground holding them to the sun examining every inch. She then squealed in delight at the chickens running along the fenceline. I gazed past her to the rolling hills, blowing with brown, seemingly dead grass, that will surely burst forth with new life in just a few months. And adopting my daugther’s clear-eyed vision, I came into the peace of wild things. 

There is power in this peace. These moments, however small and however fleeting, sustain us for the work ahead.

So when despair for the world grows in me (and it does)

And I wake in the night at the least sound (and good Lord, do I)

I go where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water…

And I come into the peace of the wild things…

I rest in the grace of the world, 

And for even just a fleeting moment, 

I am free.

May you find those tiny moments of peace in these days.

Stephanie True Cooper (she/her) joined the Alliance staff in 2019 after serving churches for over 10 years in Texas, Kentucky, and Virginia. She is a graduate of Georgetown College (’07), Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (’10), and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Ministry from Brite Divinity School. With her wife Ashley and daughter Nell, Stephanie currently resides in Austin, Texas where she enjoys hiking, gardening, and partaking in local fare.