To Write Again - May We Be Peace

To Write Again 1-14-10
I have missed my blog. I have been thinking about it often. But as so often happens, my life has taken a different direction and in the busyness I have been struggling to find time to blog. I am also involved in a new project and have been trying to figure out how to merge my interests in a way that will create something hopeful to write about. My blog is in transition. I have noticed what has happened with my writing and my blog is that once we completed the marathons together, my creative writing started to run out of steam. I was also so involved in academic writing that the part of my brain that thinks freely was becoming encumbered with the internal editor.

But the way to combat any transition phase along with the accompanying uncertainty, angst, and fear is to just begin. So here I am making a new commitment to writing again, to write as interestingly and hopefully as possible about my experiences with life once again.


May We Be Peace
What a strange phrase. To be peace… My recent journeys have brought this phrase to my conscious mind. I have my entire Catholic life prayed for peace. In mass I say, “Peace be with you.” “And peace be with you,” is the reply from the community. It is delivered first as a blessing on the community from the priest, and then extended as an individual blessing when each person shakes the hand of their neighbor and wishes them peace.
I can easily recall prayers of peace offered to God in times of trial, illness, wars, depression, etc. The endless list of human suffering offers a perfect opportunity to extend the gift of peace. The accompanying worry, angst, distress, pain seem to call out for relief through a feeling of peace. “Peace be with you,” seems not only humane, but absolutely necessary.
Most of us are comfortable with the offer of peace. As a culture of action, to do something, to offer words for example makes perfect sense. But what is less familiar and seems to be more difficult is this notion to be peace. Wow… now that seems absolutely divine.
Recently I discovered the phrase, being peace, in a book of the same name by Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and human rights activist. He believes that if we are not peaceful, if we do not know how to be peace, then we cannot share peace with others. This caused me to question in my own mind our practice of offering each other peace in such an automatic, non present way. How many times have I offered peace without the sense of being peace?
In my quest to grow and expand my spiritual condition, I have stumbled upon the method of mindfulness meditation. This is a method of quieting the mind, focusing on the present moment, connecting to the breath and the sensations in the physical body in order to be present in this moment right now with full acceptance of what is.
Through this practice of present awareness, I am discovering the sensations of my body, the feeling of being peace. I am able to recall what this journey of life is all about, an AH HA moment to be sure: To be peace in all aspects of my life, here now with whatever, with whomever, and whenever.
Luckily, life gives us plenty of moments to practice being peace, in the argument with my husband over who should give our son a bath, in trying to get my teenager to get out of bed to go to school, when my computer will not cooperate and allow me to send emails. In these moment of real life, of real struggle, of real angst to “be” peace seems impossible, yet paradoxically through the desire alone seems doable.
So for today, I will practice this idea of being peace, not praying for peace, bringing peace, seeking peace, or even having peace but simply to be.