The gulls fly en masse, a swarm of white and a sound of screams. What frightened them from their river shore I don't know, but they make an exit reminiscent of an audience after a bad play. I am sitting on the back stairs in the early afternoon sunlight. I snack on lime tortilla chips and homemade salsa, and I read Isaiah.

I like peace. I'm a secondborn, some people call it the peacemaker's position, some people call it avoidance. I think it's a little a both. Isaiah must not have been a secondborn--peace wasn't really his overall message. But it's still one of my favorite books of the Bible. I gravitate to it often, when the gospels fail to inspire and the epistles fail to chastise. I'm always up for a little excitement in the form of rebukes and prophecies.

Isaiah slips peace into all of his talk of forthcoming punishment and wrath. It's the reward, he says, and the roadmap. It's salvation and strength. Today, he says, it is righteousness. I like that. I like righteousness. My conscience likes righteousness. It's easier than, well, walking by the Spirit alone or sinning for a season of fun.

He says that the work of righteousness will be peace. And I stop here. Reread that line. A few times. Does that mean that righteousness will yield peace? That those who are righteous will have peace? That peace is righteousness? That righteousness is peace? None of those feel right. None of them seem right.

I sit and think for too long about that line. The binding of my Bible slips between my knees and I lay back on the cement, closing my eyes to the sunshine and gulls. I chew righteousness and peace like a round peppermint candy, rolling it around until all that's left is a skeleton of goodness.

I don't know what Isaiah was saying here, but here is what I absorb in my half-hour break on the back porch: Peace is not born of avoidance or surrender. Peace is work. It is righteousness at work. Righteousness at work looks like peace. We will and we order and we do it every single day.

This morning in our staff meeting he spoke about how our posture should always be to assume that the same Spirit at work in us is at work in others. This is work, is my first thought. I like to think it comes naturally to me, but the truth is, it doesn't. What comes naturally to me is to avoid situations where the seeming peace might be interrupted.

But peace is work. Righteousness yields peace. And Righteousness is work.

I have no master but Thee, no law but Thy will, no delight but Thyself, no wealth but that Thou givest, no good but that Thou blessest, no peace but that Thou bestowest. I am nothing but that Thou makest me. I have nothing but that I receive from Thee. I can be nothing but that grace adorns me. QUARRY ME DEEP, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water. Valley of Vision