winter, stillness

Each of us has to find our own peace from within. And for peace to be real, it must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Peace always begins within each of us. Our ability to create in the world depends on our ability, first, to work to create peace in our own lives. It's much easier to advocate peace on Earth than it is to be able to bring peace your own home. Or your own heart.

Let us pray for planetary peace ...

peace in every nation
peace in every town and city
peace in every neighborhood
peace in every home and family
peace in every heart

Grace and peace be with each friend of silence.
May our love and peace radiate out to the world.

May Peace prevail on earth!

O, Great Peacemaker
You make your Home in our hearts,
as Loving Companion Presence.
In the Silence, we come to know You;
With unreserved, radical trust,
our path is made sure.
Bonded in Love, we become empowered
to serve with mercy and justice:
One with You
One with All.
Blessed are You, O Life of our Lives!
Hear our grateful prayer,
O, Blessed Peacemaker!

Mattie Stepanik is a personal friend and one of the most remarkable young people I have known. He wanted to be a peacemaker and through his poems and own courageous example, he proves that finding peace within one's self can lead to harmony among families, communities, and nations. With wisdom and uncomplicated vision Mattie reminds us how easy it is to forgive others, to find something amazing even in the most trivial things, and to celebrate the little gifts of each day.

He looked at me, standing up on the back of the room near the door, so tense, so close to tears, I was ready to open it and run out. "You held up your truth. Now go on holding up your truth. You want world peace right now. So don't be so optimistic, you might become complacent. You must take care of your aspiration to compassion. Just WANT to make these changes, just take it on with joy. If it doesn't matter to us how long it takes for world peace, we can have it right now, with complete joy."

If we learn anything from the peace that is in us, it is that it represents the highest good to which no only persons but whole people can be called, and we cannot be content with our own serenity and, at the same time, indifferent to the swirls of anger that threaten to rend the fabric of society all around us. To do so would be to make of ourselves hypocrites, content to save ourselves and lose the world.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

The Way is everything. It's not a particular direction or a special way of doing something; it's a circle with no outside and no inside, just the pulsating of life everywhere. It excludes nothing. Therefore, as peacemakers working in the world, we exclude nothing. We'll pick and choose according to what's appropriate for us at a certain place and a certain moment. But we won't be attached to what we choose, for everything is the Way.

This is the way of peace:
Overcome evil with Goodness,
Falsehood with Truth,
and hatred with Love.