...the good of the crossroads

My prayer for the holy city:
"May the lives of all who love you
be enriched in the very act of loving.
Peace fill the spaces between your walls,
pervasive safety make watchtowers obsolete."
For the sake of love,
for my beloved ones, I gladly say,
"Let peace reign!"
For the sake of the abiding place 
of Mystery, the heart of love,
I will seek the good of the crossroads.
---Psalm 122:6-9 (para. laca)

Jerusalem is an important city, and has been for thousands of years. The meeting place of three major world religions, and too often their boiling point. Open the newspaper (or, more likely, your home page) and, chances are, it won't be hard to find a headline concerning unrest in the Holy Land. Ironically enough, as holy days approach, the tensions ramp up, religious fervor fueling the fires of suspicion and hatred.

Open the Scriptures, and you see the same stories, Beta version. Jerusalem, the city with peace (salem) in the name, but none in the streets. Religious strife, political machinations, tribal feuding all kept Jerusalem from experiencing shalom, the 'wholeness that leads to life' that we translate peace.

And we should pray for peace in this holy place, pour out our hearts for peace. And we should add feet to our prayers, acting in ways that promote peace in this part of the world where it is possible for us.

But the world is a kind of Jerusalem. Through global travel, internet, and media of all kinds, our world has shrunk considerably, and our global village is just that. And our Jerusalem is an incredibly diverse place, with innumerable divisions of race, clan, faith, gender, politics, and economics. And those divisions cause distrust, and inequity, and violence, and hoarding. And fear, which may be the long, ugly taproot of them all.

Our Jerusalem is this world at the crossroads. And we are all in the crosshairs. We can be destroyed by the fear we foment. Or we can be enriched by the very act of loving. This is peace.

Seek the good of the crossroads.

Enjoy a beautiful sung prayer for peace by a talented woman I am privileged to know, Amanda Powell:
https://youtu.be/VX9L3zfZ_dc