When Peace Feels Elusive
Note: I was asked to write something in honor of today’s International Day of Peace. In preparation for writing, I spent some quiet hours hiking in a small forest near my home and reflecting on what stops us from a sustained practice of peace. Why does peace feel so elusive? From the work I do, and from my own life, I understand that what often holds us back is knowing where to begin. As I considered this, there arose within me a few lyrics from a song I had sung as a child, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”[1] A few steps further along, I heard my own voice calling, “ Begin Within.”
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Today, September 21st, we celebrate the International Day of Peace across the globe. It is a day to remember our shared humanity and our call to move beyond all perceived differences among us, and between us. On this day of days, may we commit ourselves to the cultivation of a living “Culture of Peace.”
At this moment in our shared history, we seem to have forgotten how and where to find peace and how to co-create peace in our shared lives. We have become entrenched in opposition and division. We seem unable to recognize in ourselves and others our sacred calling to peace.
Peace has become elusive.
And the strange thing about it - really, the mystery of it, is that peace lives within us as a grace given us for taking on this human existence. Pushed aside, peace lives on at our edges, waiting to be called forth and to once again find its own resident rhythm at the center of our lives.
I believe peace is an active state of being, a sustained and thoughtful movement from within - over and over, again and again. Peace must live in an internal dialogue before it becomes external. It necessitates continuous adjustments and iterations. It thrives when paired with reflection and forgiveness.
Peace calls us forth to sit at its hearth and feel its fire. It invokes our awakening and offers its transformative energy, its eternal flame, its healing waters.
It calls us home.
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When Peace Feels Elusive
When peace feels elusive,
Seek it at the edges of your mind.
At the edges of all things that imprison you,
Seek it where you are held hostage to fear,
To anger,
To an abandonment that leaves you in a seething current of hatred,
In tide pools of loneliness,
In the knowledge of the battering oppression of being
Unseen,
Unheard,
Unloved.
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When peace feels elusive,
Seek it at the edges of your heart,
Where you have pushed it aside
Seeking refuge
Beaten and discarded as scraps without value
Left to drown in pools of hurt and pain
Silenced by names put upon you to wrench you from the promise of Love.
Names that have no purpose but to rob you of your own, precious name,
Beloved.
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When peace feels elusive,
Seek it at the edges of your soul.
In sanctuary from being
Hushed and trampled upon
A refuged knowledge of yourself
Of who you are.
Of who you came here to be.
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When peace feels elusive,
Seek it along all your edges
For here, it lies.
Waiting to be acknowledged as it whispers and calls,
“Look here.”
“Look here.”
“Look here.”
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When peace feels elusive,
Coax it.
Shout its name.
Call it home from all its edges.
Sing Peace into the smoldering fire in your belly.
Into the unceasing beat of your heart.
Give homage to its Light within you and around you.
Fuel its flame.
Call upon its redemptive waters.
Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin within.
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May peace breathe in and out of you.
May peace wash over you and through you.
May peace find you in your every breath,
In its holy inhalation and exhalation,
May peace bless you.
May peace provide its blessings to everyone and to everything you encounter.
[1] This well-known song, “Let There Be Peace On Earth” was written by Jill Jackson in 1955 and put to music by her husband, Sy Miller, 1955. There are many artists and choirs from many countries and continents who have covered it since.