“The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses His people with peace.”  – Psalm 29.11

God’s plan for us – is peace.  At times, reality – is depression. Or fear. Confusion. Hopelessness. Guilt.  Non-clarity of thought.  Prolonged or severe emotional stress.  Uselessness or no purpose in life.  Physical illness, bringing on much of what has just been mentioned.  Add your own ‘opposite of peace’.  From time to time, I struggle with depression which can bring a plethora of those symptoms or feelings with it. I know that for every problem, there is a root problem.  Therein lies my problem.  I can never seem to figure out what the root is.

Several years ago when my three boys were young, we were invited to attend a presentation of a Christmas Cantata at my aunt and uncle’s church.  I was also asked to play Christmas music on the piano before and after the service, and for the offertory.  The church was about an hour and a half drive from where we lived in Massachusetts.  All the way there, whiter-than-white snow just glistened under the moon’s light, the street lights, and lights from businesses in more highly populated areas.  We experienced the ‘beauty of God’s earth’ in just getting to our destination.

  Part I

I remember being five years old and watching our church burn flat on the crossroads of Routes 1 and 6 in the backwoods of Maine.  An oil truck had stopped on the corner, and for whatever reason, exploded.  It was miraculous that no one, not even the driver was harmed, but our church was ablaze in seconds – gone.  I heard later that as devastating as it was to see this happen, that it probably was divine intervention from God.  The older men said that the church was so old that it was a real possibility that it could have collapsed on its own, and if it had happened on a Sunday, taken lives with it.  That was one of my earliest lessons in trusting God in all things.

In my study in the Psalms – I mean, a verse-by-verse study of the Psalms (it has been three months and I’m only up to chapter 20) – I have been impressed with how overwhelmingly impressed the Psalmist David was of God’s strength and might and power.  And how many times he refers to Him as his Rock.  When I think of all the rocks I have ever seen, there is a particularly unique one in Red Beach, Maine.  It is in an area where my boys (when they were young), and I referred to as ‘the Rocks’.  We loved going to this place, having a picnic and then climbing down the cliff to the shore which was completely covered with Rubik Cube-sized rocks.  No nice sandy beach at this place.  We walked those rocks all day, collecting ‘washed glass’ (beach glass) – looking for crabs, jellyfish and other sea fauna that had washed in with the tide.

For the past several years, the word ‘community’ has become ketchy – a buzz word.  To me, it has become annoying.  Let me explain.  First of all, I’ll give two dictionary definitions of ‘community’ –