In response to a challenge from our minister, I am committed to writing of spirituality for 40 days. In particular, focusing on peace. Yesterday’s was hand-written. I will try to keep the next 39 on the blog so I can be accountable.
Day 2.
On occasion, I see that people have ended emails or letters with the word “Peace”, then their name. When I think about how that has made me feel in the past, I realize that I have never liked that ending. For some reason, it has felt artificial or even faddish. After writing that, I have to step back and wonder why I feel that way. Why would “peace” feel bogus to me from a writer? This has nothing to do with the person writing – it is a general feeling that comes from me. What is it about that word which feels unacceptable or unbelievable?
How very odd. Does this stem from my youth and my life at the edge of the hippie movement? When people said or signaled “peace” and very few meant it? When, more often than not, it was simply fad? What does “Peace” truly mean to me and why my emotional response?
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines peace the following way:
1 : a state of tranquility or quiet: as a : freedom from civil disturbance b : a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom
2 : freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions
3 : harmony in personal relations
4 a : a state or period of mutual concord between governments b : a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity
5 —used interjectionally to ask for silence or calm or as a greeting or farewell
— at peace : in a state of concord or tranquility
Wow. Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 are about individuals and relationships. With the exception of 1:b, Peace doesn’t have to do with governments and countries. It has to do with me. And you. And us as spiritual beings. What is internal and felt.
Perhaps now I have a little better understanding of why I didn’t get it when the ending was “peace.” I didn’t understand that peace is about the inside of a person. It must begin within each of us. We must find the harmony within to be steady without. I always thought it had to do with lack of war. But that is a lack mentality. Peace mostly has to do with balance within. I too often – I regularly – allow the imbalance of others to affect my internal unity. In my world, peace has usually had to begin with others for me to feel it, for it to be passed on to my being. Thats backwards. I get it now.
Peace. The peace that passes all understanding. I am definitely beginning to get it now. The peace of the inside. Balance, unity, coherence from your deepest internal spots, that most sacred inner being that some people call a soul.
Now I can say it, and even write it, and understand that the concept is so much larger than I imagined. Peace – inside of me, inside of you, within us. That is where it must start to grow to become a larger phenomenon. To become a household, community, state, country, government, and a world concept. We have to have that for ourselves to spread it on to the globe at large.
Is peace possible in our world? First, is it possible inside of me? I will be thinking about it. I will attempt to internalize it.
Peace to you.
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There is a wonderful saying…”Let it begin with me.” A worthy goal for me.
It is a line from the song…Let There Be Peace on Earth.
God bless, J
There is a wonderful saying…”Let it begin with me.” A worthy goal for me.
Nicely said.
Carl Jung said something I’ve always remembered, and that is that if there’s something not right in the world, it makes sense to change it in ones’ self, first.
Peace.
- Laurie
This is good, and so very timely for me. I have been yearning to get back to that confident foundation of knowing who I am spiritually and not let another person’s chaos unsettle me. Learning how it slipped away is a good first step in coming back to that peace; follow the bread crumbs back to where I let go of it.