Peace

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'"
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Mark 1:1-8

Preaching of John the Baptist

Relief sculpture

Mixed materials

1508-1519

Cathédrale d'Amiens

Amiens, France

NOTES: "The wilderness is our solitary place, our lonesome wasteland, our desolate, empty space, wherever our course of action is uncharted and our way is unclear...This crying out from the wilderness and darkness is not a quiet conversation. It is a confrontation. It is also a prophetic pronouncement and declaration, the origin of which does not lie within you or me as individuals, but with God. Our crying out is God speaking through us. Our voices echo His Voice within us." (Yoder, 122)

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20111129951110839&code=ACT&RC=29350&Row=2

Some of the most important works of art are sequences of polychrome sculpture, dating mainly from the late 15th and the 16th centuries. A large sequence in the North transept illustrates Jesus' Cleansing of the Temple, with imaginative tableaux of the Temple. Both sides of the ambulatory are lined with sequences illustrating the lives of the two saints whose cults brought large numbers of pilgrims to the cathedral: John the Baptist and St Firmin, the first bishop of Amiens. The artists took care to create a parallelism in the telling of the stories: both saints, decapitated for offending the rich and powerful, suffer neglect and loss, until a later generation discovers their relics and houses them fittingly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiens_Cathedral#Renaissance_polychrome_sculpture

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek

but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Set peace of mind as your highest goal,

and organize your life around it.
~ Brian Tracy