Back to Thoughts on Peace

I haven’t written in a few days. The title of this blog is “Thoughts on Peace” and I guess I just haven’t had any peaceful thoughts to share. I am still searching, though.

I have met people who have told me that there is a lot of good going on in the world and I just have to open my eyes. Peacemakers of import have told me that we can make peace, if not in the world at large, at least in small ways in our little circles of influence.

I have also had mentors who have tried to help me with this impossible virtue called “acceptance”. Sometimes life sucks, but it is what it is. Good and evil live side-by-side like the wheat and chaff. Ying and yang, light and darkness.

Some people get all crazy and scary and talk about the powers of light and darkness and the great battle going on. I don’t like to go there, primarily because it is not productive, but also because it allows people to think that good and evil are someplace “out there” while ignoring the fact that good and evil dwell within each of us.

I need to get back to Peace Pilgrim who taught that in order to make peace in the world, we need first to find peace within. “When enough of us find peace within,” she wrote, “our institutions will become more peaceful…”