Purchasing? Peace.
What Happens When Even Our “Zen” Comes With an Ad?
Three hundred fifty-(or so) days ago, I traded 150,000 Delta miles and half a million Hilton points for four days of near-total decisionlessness. We flew to the Dominican Republic and settled in at the Hilton all-inclusive resort at La Romana. Amid the pools, breezes, and tropical drinks, we took the holy permission to do…nothing.
It was wonderful. Deeply so.
If you ever get the chance, go.
Most people who ask about the trip nod with longing and say something like, “It just sounds so peaceful.”
And it was. And that is also where the trouble begins.
Somewhere along the way, peace got flattened into a spa day for the soul (I’m looking at you Calgon). Peace is quiet room. A porch view. A commercial you can skip if you want a “moment of Zen.”
Peace became something to purchase…or at least acquire with redeemable points. But Advent keeps insisting on something truer and far less convenient and far more satisfying.
When Peace Becomes an Escape Hatch
If we peel back the marketing, we discover how deeply this transactional definition of peace has sunk into us. Peace, we assume, must look like:
fewer decisions
fewer disturbances
fewer notifications
fewer expectations
It is also the reduction of friction and numbing of noise.
The dictionary definition backs it up: “freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.” And honestly, who among us doesn’t crave that?
But if that is all peace is, then the Dominican Republic is its capital, and the Hilton loyalty program is its sacrament.
The problem isn’t that these things are bad. The problem is that we start to treat them as the telos.
Escapist peace is not useless. It’s just insufficient.
Because Mary did not bear Christ so we could sun ourselves into serenity.
John the Baptist didn’t endure camel hair and locusts so we could have upgraded buffet access.
Jesus was not born so we could feel momentarily undisturbed.
Advent’s peace is not the absence of irritation. It is the presence of God’s mending work in a world that desperately needs it.
The Prophets Never Promised Tranquility
It’s striking that the second Sunday of Advent is often linked to peace and also to the prophets — Isaiah’s unsettling poetry, John the Baptist’s urgent cry.
Prophets are not typically invited to the spa. They are the ones who shake us awake. They rattle the cages of our complacency. They tell the truth before the truth feels comfortable.
And somehow, in the strange arithmetic of God’s imagination, this truth-telling, justice-seeking, goodness-making labor is the soil where real peace grows.
Shalom, the biblical vision of peace, is not a vacation.
It is a world set right. A life aligned with God’s love. A community where equity and compassion have weight and consequence.
Peace isn’t when everything gets quiet.
Peace is when everything gets healed.
Wendell Berry and the Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry wrote that when despair grows in him, he lies down where the heron feeds and “comes into the peace of wild things.”
But notice: Berry doesn’t ask creation to silence itself for him.
He doesn’t flee to a sanitized hush.
He steps into a world still humming with life and what he finds there isn’t escape, it’s alignment.
He remembers the truth Jesus gave us on the hillside: “Consider the lilies… consider the birds.” Not because they are tranquil, but because they are held.
Peace is not an oasis where the world dims itself for our comfort.
Peace is stepping into the world God already sustains.
Your Moment of Zen Has Been Sponsored by…
Which brings us to YouTube TV.
You’ve seen it, right? The button that says, “Skip this commercial and enjoy a moment of Zen.” And as you breathe for five seconds, another ad sits quietly in the corner, selling you serenity one impression at a time.
It’s peace, but it’s also monetizable. And this is what the world around us keeps offering:
All-inclusive resorts.
Perfectly curated Airbnb porches.
Ad-free Zen between hockey periods.
Tiny reprieves we can buy. Slices of calm we can earn.
But Advent whispers a different truth:
There is a peace we can live — not just escape into.
A peace born from engagement, not evasion.
A peace shaped by generosity, justice, and steady, communal care.
It’s quieter than the waves at La Romana but deeper than a vacation can reach. It is the peace of people who refuse to settle for tranquility when the world needs healing.
The Peace We Make, Not the Peace We Purchase
Maybe the work of this season is to resist the low-price version of peace that our culture keeps selling back to us.
Maybe peace is not found in the chair on the beach, or the mountain cabin, or the five-second Zen window YouTube wants us to believe in.
Maybe peace is found where we offer bread to one another, where we tend the wounds of our neighbors, where we embody goodness publicly and consistently, where we choose hope even when the headlines refuse to cooperate.
Peace is work.
Peace is practice.
Peace is participation.
And somehow — mysteriously, mercifully — peace is also gift.
May we refuse the commodified version long enough to receive the real thing.
