Peace Be With You

I am very nearly finished reading my current library book, Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional, shortlisted for The Booker Prize in 2024. The first paragraph of the jacket flap reads: "Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident."

This novel reads like a journal, telling bits and pieces of the daily life of the sisters, the struggles of the writer, the extended visit of a woman from the writer's past, what forgiveness is about, and [perhaps too many details about] a plague of mice. With twenty-one pages to go, I delay picking it back up because I am not ready for it to end.

Early on, page 29, to be precise, the writer tells us, “Afterwards comes the sign of peace. The nuns move towards us with their hands outstretched - and something catches in me. I allow myself to be greeted in turn by three or four of them . . . . I find it hard to stop tears pricking my eyes, which alarms me. It is to do with being greeted warmly by a stranger; offered peace for no reason, without question. They have kind faces; warmth radiates from them. I hold their soft, dry hands.”

After reading this, I closed the book to reflect. For a pretty long time. What she describes is a meaningful experience. It is different from the peace that is shared at the church where I belong. And, I imagine, at many other churches.

In our liturgy, between the Prayers and the Offering, comes the Peace. The pastor -- or the vicar -- will stand in front of the congregation and proclaim, "Peace be with you." And the people respond, "And also with you." We are then instructed to "take a moment to share God's peace." 

And so it begins. Rather than a quiet exchange among four or five people seated near each other, we have people reaching and stretching to reach those in pews further away, crossing the aisle -- indeed, roaming up and down it. It's almost as though the congregants want to greet as many people as they can. And the word "greet" is carefully chosen here, because for virtually everyone who grasps my hand and bids me "Peace," even as they do so, their eyes are scanning for where to go next, and they do not wait for me to say, "and also with you." The words "peace be with you" are rote, much like "good morning." It is a greeting of peace rather than an exchange.

Writing this post, I think of individual members: the grieving woman who has lost her husband of many years, the one who has received a frightening cancer diagnosis, and the man whose teen-ager is causing him sleepless nights, all of whom I want to wish a quiet, sincere, and empathetic "peace be with you." But that's not how it works. 

Please do not misunderstand. This is not a criticism, nor is it a complaint. It is more of a lament. I love my church and I love its members. I have no wish, none at all, to attend elsewhere. 

But how I long for a Page 29 experience.