Praying for peace entails believing that peace begins with you, and aligning yourself with peacefulness.
Peace is understood in the Christian tradition as “tranquillitas ordinis”, the quietness of order, the calm that comes with harmony.
And order is arranging things so that each gives to the other its proper place.
Even God must do this.
In the Jewish tradition it is said that, in order to create the world, God had to step back.
David Steindal Rast
Once out of our particular bondage, self-made or otherwise, the long pilgrimage of spiritual work demands a commitment to wander into a life of authenticity and truth. Once awake, the journey of our promise is always near and challenging. At the same time, the journey of our bondage is still near and disheartening. This is our crooked path to enlightenment: two steps forward, one step back; two days of being heartened, one day of being disheartened. This is the dynamic of being alive. This is what we work with and for.
Mark Nepo, The One Life We’re Given
When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life. Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement. You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth. You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence. You know now that your true source is not outside you. Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you.
John O’Donoghue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Letting go of all the theories from the past frees us to go with how it is actually unfolding
Throw away the light, the definitions,
and say of what you see in the dark
Wallace Stevens
Your job may change, your relationships may change, your body may change, your beliefs may change, your desires may change, your ideas about your role in the world may change, but the essence of who you are is the continuity of awareness that has no beginning or end. Your thoughts, beliefs, expectations, goals, and experiences may come and go, but the one who having the experiences – the experiencer – remains.
Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga
Today is the Spring Equinox – from the Latin “equal night”, when there is equal light and dark in our day – marking the beginning of Spring for countries in the Northern Hemisphere.
We, the older ones,
Call it Spring,
And we have been through it
Many times.
But there is still nothing
Like the children bringing home
Such happiness
In their small hands.
Mary Oliver, Children, It’s Spring
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