Inviting Peace To Dwell Within

How correspondingly ironic it is that we look for that which we either don’t have, or we have but want more of; the scope of the present issue: peace; inner harmony.

Jesus promises us that peace and the sufficiency of the Spirit, if we will partake:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

~John 14:27a (NRSV)

An Attempt To Describe Peace

Peace is a gladdened nothingness where acceptance rides sway and conflict is ever lower in our interest than just being is. Just enjoying ‘being’ is salubrious.

Peace doesn’t try; indeed, it does not; it cannot. It just is. Why try and do something so apparently wrong? Instead, peace sits at rest with a more urgent and ever persuasive truth. It contends against nothing. Nothing matters more.

As it’s known throughout both modern and ancient worlds, this peace we seek is ever-present, abiding within the flourishing flow of life itself. And yet, how is it to be known, personally, deeply?

Peace is a state of mind and heart; and one can help the other there.

The Contributions Of Both Mind And Heart And Their Amalgamation

Where there’s thinking, there’s also feeling. Both are involved in perception. It beckons, then, that contributions for peace reside within cooperative investment at the level of both mind and heart.

The mind advises for peace, calming the heart by logic and knowledge: God is good. The mind thinks good, when it can.

The heart empathises with the mind, soothing its cognitive aches and pains, the dissensions from momentary congruence: a personal ease. The heart feels good, when it can.

To experience peace we make a home for it; a place where it might dwell, by sitting comfortably within stillness, facilitating longer and more frequent visits.

We tend to the inner environment much like a garden. We trim old growth, ridding callused memories. We blow them into the wind. As they disappear from our possession we lose, also, our warrant for them. We let them go. We allow them their disappearance. We focus on other, more life-giving things.

As we dig up the soil in our lives, day-by-day, we allow the regeneration within the matter that is our lives. These stagnating compartments feel outwardly for the presence of oxygen and they’re embellished with new growth.

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For varying reasons peace is sought. This peace is ever-present; we tap into it now if we want. It doesn’t hide. All it requires is a coming home to truth. Both the mind and the heart can help.

To allow peace to dwell within we need to make room for it. We prioritise it. We raise its value in our personal estimation. Then, God blesses us with it.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.