Peace; 2015; 4″ x 5″; lino-cut.
This cracking, bleeding orb hurtles through space, and I am only a tiny, imperceptible pinprick of yearning somewhere on its spinning surface.
I’ve never craved peace so urgently.
My own pulse of longing seems to merge with a collective sigh of all colors and creeds, like black exhaust fumes spurting from an ancient, lumbering, rusty vehicle. From the bullet-pocked streets of my own city, to blood-stained foreign lands, peace eludes like howling winter wind.
Today, I’m setting down the broken pieces of all this un-peace, these mangled moments I can no longer bear. I’m standing up straight and I’m setting out on a journey. I’m walking ’til I reach hulking hills on the edge of a town, until I creep to a stable where animals rustle and a newborn, wet and warm, invades this shattered world.
There, the hands that formed the universe fold and fit into the created. There, just-emerged flesh-and-blood tenderly mews: God is for us.
Even as brilliant creatures of light, buoyant in midnight air, burst into song like a frozen morning tossing off a white winter blanket, blinking, startled in inexplicable twinkling blue.
There, peace penetrates the last, longest steps from the wall of my chest to my fluttering heart and I know: all is well, and all shall be well.
I fall to my knees with shepherds and wise-men, paupers and kings.
I cry out as never before with the sum total of all my soul: Oh Prince of Peace, let your Kingdom reign, be born in me today!
Colleen Briggs Images & Writing 
Amen! And what a beautiful peace of artwork. Merry Christmas.
Beautifully expressed with your art and with your work, I wish you Peace
Thank you Mercedes! May all the peace and joy of that very first Christmas be yours!
May the joy of the Creator flood your heart Laura, my artist friend!
Beautifully expressed with your art and work. Wishing you peace!
Thank you, Colleen. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Diane! Makes my heart happy to hear from you!
Merry Christmas! Thank you encouraging peace, hope and compassion all year long!
I could say the exact same thing to you verbatim, my friend! I’ve really enjoyed “getting to know you” this past year, and my heart resonates with yours!
Merry Christmas to you and your family my friend! GOD is good!
Amen Tony! I just wanted to thank you for being so faithful and encouraging with your comments! My WordPress annual report notes that you are one of my top commenters. Many thanks!
I’m just catching up on your blog and am so glad I am. Your words have a way of finding out hithertofore inexpressible feelings in my heart. This piece (peace) is a piercing example. Thank you!