Music by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller.
MIDI adaptation and sequencing by Les Herrman.*
Runtime: 3 minutes, 50 seconds.

*Instrumental panning by Jim Hastings.

Let There Be Peace

     This well-known — and very much loved — hymn was one that an early contributor, named Bill, selected as his musical background on a memorial page for Matt that he had added to his Web site. He gave the link in a message posted to the original message board, "Remembering Matthew Shepard." His subject line was "A Page for Matthew." I first saw this board and read Bill's message on Friday, October 23, 1998.

     I added the current page on December 22, 2006, for the benefit of those visitors to my site who would like to take a few minutes just to sit and listen once again to the hymn.

     At this season, especially, I am reminded once again that there can be no true peace without the Prince of Peace. Let me quote here his words, as found in John 14:27:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

     To a degree, I have learned from experience and my own testing times that the Savior's promise is true.

     The animated lighthouse graphic, above, is common property on the Net these days. Bill used it on his page for Matt. Though I don't remember now all that he said in this early tribute, I have used the same graphic here to recapture the simple feeling of thanks I got from viewing his page and other early eulogies.

     Bill and I exchanged several good e-mail messages and words of thanks. In his last message to me, November 14, 1998, he attached the following text of a prayer by St. Francis:

     

 Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace —
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

 

Home

[ Memorial | Poetry and Short Essays | Full-Page Essays ]

Reader Feedback

[ First Letters | Prevention | Musical Backgrounds | E-Mail ]