Do you want to know something disappointing?

My children bicker. I get snappish. My dogs bark at nothing.

Today it seemed like nothing could salve the fractiousness in our household. We were all grumpy and petty. Pettiness is disappointing. It is a waste of life. And we can all be petty. Standing at the kitchen sink noticing how many of the dishes in the sink you didn’t create, waiting in traffic at a lane-merge fuming when that navy blue BMW tries to pull in front of you, crafting a perfect email response knowing that it will, simultaneously, be professional and biting.

Peace is not the absence of conflict. The Passing of the Peace, our next step in this Liturgy of the Mundane, is not a polite handshake. Peace is more than pacifying or avoiding conflict. Conflict can be productive. It can also be destructive. Conflict can help a community find a way through difficulty or break it. Peace is what happens when, in the midst of conflict, the sacredness of the participants is foremost.

Passing the Peace can be a radical act of love in the midst of conflict.

But we are talking about mundane pettishness. Conflict is bit too lofty for the likes of our average altar?

That is why Passing the Peace must put on work boots. Peace isn’t an insipid platitude and pasted-on smile. Peace gets down in the muck with you.

It can sit with children who are rasping the edges off your patience arguing about foot space under the table.

Peace insists that you see them. Not as the ones who are taking your space, touching your stuff, and frustrating your plans, but as an opportunity to enact Peace.

Passing the Peace is stopping the rant in your head: Why does she always get everything she wants? If only he would pull his own weight, then this place would run smoothly. Passing the Peace is slowing down enough to see the human in the midst of the struggle.

Peace insists that you let the Christ within you be one of abundance.

Passing the Peace is double-digging. Double-digging is taking a shovel and digging up about eight to twelve inches of dirt, carefully scooping it into a wheelbarrow and breaking up the clumps. Once you have a trench, you take a garden fork and break up the next layer of dirt. When the dirt is loosened, then it is time to mix the dirt you dug up with compost and manure. When you return the mixture to the trench. Worms become invested. Seeds thrive. Harvest is bountiful. It is slow, enriching work.

Passing the Peace is being willing to skip the tractor.

Passing the Peace is living slowly enough to see what is behind the pout, the impatience, and the anxiety. This week, slow down, look at the crumpled snaggle-toothed face, and let the Christ in you greet the Christ in her.

To do this, you will probably have to spend a few extra minutes brushing your teeth.

This post was originally written for the Missional Wisdom Foundation.