"Everyone has a hidden agenda," a friend told me years ago. Her tone suggested she was cynical toward those agendas. Spiritual comfort would be unachievable since she could never trust anyone.

   "Deep" comfort is a phrase that brings relief simply by connecting the words. What it means to you is personal.

    Is comfort falling into an easy chair after a hard day? Yes. But, that kind of comfort temporary.

   Peace is not available at the local furniture store. 

   Some yoga practitioners find more lasting serenity. The same is true for nuns, artists, lovers. Yet, inherent in the human condition is pain that seems inconsistent with peace.

   Those that find true peace have learned to accept pain. Caregivers see this in those rare patients who have know pain is part of life. 

    Faith, Beauty, Love, Hope – which of these brings deepest "comfort" to you?

    The answer may be simple for some. The path to reach it is forever elusive for others. How do we discover Serenity's subterranean location? 

   The simplicity of falling into an easy chair confuses the search for deep comfort. But "falling" is actually an answer to spiritual peace. Love's arms are open to surrender. To put aside doubt & distrust. To choose to accept the pain if they fall the wrong way.  

   The difference between skeptics & cynics holds a clue. 

   The skeptic is a child clothed in adult logic & open to hope. Questions are natural. Positive answers are possible & reachable.

   The cynic is a child that wears a permanent cloak of suspicion. The cynic is certain that no one is trustworthy & so chronically afraid of being tricked that he is incapable of trust.

   The cynics deserve not contempt but compassion. Their lives are shadowed with fear & forever blocked from true comfort because they are sure God is a lie.

   True healers help sufferers to trust what they cannot see, to see Beauty that is right before their eyes, to hope for miracles because life itself is a miracle & to find God's Love by surrendering to it. 

-Rev. Erie Chapman