winter, stillness

PEACE is very meaning of the word Islam. When its three operative consonants, S, L, and M, are combined with a variety of vowels, they spell "peace" across the whole spectrum of human speech. SALEM is the word for peace in English. SHALOM means peace in Hebrew, while SALAAH is peace in Arabic. (In the native language of Gandhi, the word for peace is SHANTI). Peace is a longing that connects the human family in a common depth of soul. The hope for peace surges in the collective unconscious. It is for the generations now living to bring this hope to consciousness and build the structures that will give it operative vitality.

Lead me from death to Life, from falsehood to Truth.
Lead me from despair to Hope, from fear to Trust.
Lead me from hate to Love, from war to Peace ...
Let Peace fill our heart, our world, our universe ...

The Peace of God resides deep within each individual, given to each spiritual being at its creation, to remain in their inner consciousness structure forever. No one can give it to you, no one can take it away. If you have not done so already, please give yourself the priceless gift of inner silence, That silence is the way that the very atoms of energy and love that surround you and are part of God can enter and give you the inner peace that you hunger for with all of your heart and mind.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten: we belong to one another.

PEACE dwells in the heart of silence.
Listen. Heed the Voice of Peace ...
Radiate the Peace engendered by Love!

Peacemakers are called the children of God, because that is precisely what they are: the conscious offspring of the creator. Peacemakers are men and women who have adventured down the avenues of healing and caught the current of their divine identity. Peacemakers have internalized the seven steps to wholeness outlined in the Beatitudes:

They recognize their faults and long for what they need to change; they are gentle, unpretentious and nonviolent; they pursue right livelihood and have compassion for others; their motivation is pure as they offer unconditional love to all.

Contemplating the Indwelling Presence, you are given new eyes of faith, hope, and love to see God's grandeur bursting forth... All things cry out to you that God is here. This place is indeed holy! With eyes of a child filled with wonder and joy, you open to God's living revelation in all things. You believe nothing can keep out the loving, presence of God as love in all things. As you act on that living faith, it becomes a reality. Every moment with all your material involvements allows you to become more and more united with the Indwelling Presence of God, the triune community of I-Thou in a We of self-giving persons.

To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so it has its own rhythms of darkness, of dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a live of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.

See www.jesuits.ca/orientations/deepercall.html

The world has become noise, silence its orphan child. The contemplative is a seed of silence planted amidst the jungle of noise, one whose harvest will come at a later time, perhaps a later age. The contemplative is a witness to silence, affirming that all things come out of silence and must return to silence to be healed and re-created.