The Seer

When we think about peace, everyone seems to have their own ideas about what that should look like. We certainly know what peace is not — war, violence, cruelty, lack, pain, suffering, noise, inner turmoil and so on.

The idea is that if we eliminate those bad things out of our personal (and also planetary) experience then we would be at peace. But all of this is only ideas.

Peace is something bigger than just having an outwardly gentle and quiet demeanor. We all know this, but is there something that we are calling peace that is behind all of our ideas about it?

Consider the poem below, written in a noisy airport. What sort of peace is being referred to in the poem that could include the noise of a busy airport? Is this peace achieved through lack of noise?

This peace does include harmony and justice and gentleness but doesn’t exclude the hubbub of everyday life at all. It is something that includes all of the tumult of the human condition with generosity and inclusiveness.

This is the peace that passes understanding referred to in the Bible. It can’t be understood by the limited and polarized mental processes that we have so long been habituated to use as filters in our perception.

Now, as we are able to open up our perception (noticing and relaxing the filters that are no longer helpful) we can begin to perceive directly this other kind of peace beyond all of our ideas about it.

At the Airport

Listening
To the hum of humanity
Above the silvery silence
Complete and at rest
Behind the sound.

Movement and stillness
Joining together
The dispersed strands
Of life’s fullness.
Each enfolding the other
In holy embrace.

~ by Alice Gardner