Peace, peace...

I was thinking this morning about peace. The 'peace which passes all understanding'. I am fortunate to have known it many times during my life; it is unmissable. I'm not talking here about the lovely warm fuzzy glow-type peace (although that's good too) but about the Peace you feel against all the odds, when your rational mind tells you that you are insane for experiencing a deep certainty that you are safe.

It tends to creep up on you unawares. One moment you feel as though you have been thrown into the deep, frozen lake which is Life, and the next you are being gently drifted back to the shore, wrapped in a blanket and given hot chocolate as someone murmurs soothing words into your ear.

I've felt it at times of crisis, during hospital stays, when worried about my children, and whilst watching people dying. I'm quite sure if we wished, we could explain it away in terms of chemicals flooding the brain - that is, after all, how we experience life. But my daughter (who studies these things) is also a great believer in peace and doesn't seem to think that the physical explanations for it negate the experience itself.

Jesus was a great proponent of peace. He definitely didn't approve of empty platitudes. He was angry with those who burdened people, "saying 'Peace! Peace!' where there is no peace." (Which reminds me of those people who insist that everything's fine when it patently isn't, which is neither faith nor peace, but crass insensitivity). But he did seem to be tapped in to some place where he could access this peace, even if he did have to struggle to do so in Gethsemane.

Other religions too call for us to be peaceful and know that we are safe.

What does this mean in practice?

It is not enough - for me, at least - to drift through life like Fotherington-Tomas [sic] oblivious to the cruel realities of what is happening around me. My peace has to be in the context of knowing the harshness of the world - the sunshine to life's shadows if you like.

In fact at this stage in my life I would go as far as to say that peace is experienced more surely in times of trouble. Since I was in my thirties, I have always turned to those simple words of Mother Julian: "All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Thing Shall be Well." In other words, "It will all be okay."

And won't it? As humans, whatever we choose to believe about life, aren't we all heading for death? And if that's where we're 'supposed' to end up, then isn't it right that we shall all arrive there? So in that sense all IS well.

I am very suspicious of any system/belief/religion which promises peace but doesn't deliver. I always think of what Jesus said: "By their fruits you will know them". If someone talks about knowing a God of Peace but doesn't know peace themselves, I'm sad that they haven't accessed it. If someone teaches a method to calm people's thoughts yet is an angst-ridden person with a lot of nervous energy on the boil, I wonder. I've known a Buddhist who would sit deep in meditation and then go home and shout at their family.

I'm not saying that I am always calm myself! It's certainly not my place to sit in judgment on people, but - if we KNOW this peace exists, doesn't it make sense to live in it as much as we can? So that our lives are increasingly calm on the inside, and then on the outside?

Personally I believe there are many ways to this place. One of my favourites is to sit in the countryside and just experience being part of creation. Another is to listen to Bach or Mozart or some other music which has stood the test of time and can ground me. Your way may be very different. But if you follow a way which promises peace, make sure you aren't missing out.