Saturday, March 7, 2009

The King's Peace

In the United States when an indictment or information (the charging instrument for a misdemeanor) is issued, almost invariably it will say, "against the peace and dignity of the state." That's a holdover from the concept of The King's Peace (or actually at this point in England it's called The Queen's Peace.) It comes from the concept we innately recognize that each of us has a personal space, and if somebody gets too close and they're not special persons who can be in that personal space, we feel violated. 

Well, each feudal lord had that kind of space, called his "peace." And he controlled what happened within that space, could make rules that made him comfortable. And of course it goes without saying that the more powerful the person, the larger the personal space that person can claim. So the king's started out pretty big and kings amassed more and more area, taking away from the feudal lords. Then came the concept of "legal fiction" which means legal lie. One legal lie I've always found interesting was the source of the word "felony" but that's another (long) story. The legal fiction I set out to explain is the king's peace. His big space expanded because the king built highways, so his peace went with the Interstate Highway system (or the medieval equivalent thereof, the royal roads.) After that, it didn't take a lot more fiction to just fill all the nation with the King's Peace.

I got to thinking about the concept of the King's Peace as it might refer to the King of Kings. For God, it's not a fiction. His presence fills the world, the universe, and beyond. My concept is that God's not in the universe, the universe is in God. So the King's Peace is everywhere. God's peace is everywhere. Wherever you are, God is there and Peace is there. You just have to breathe deep, look for the peace, and, voila! it's in you!

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