peace on earth

the holiday season gets peace into the everyday vocabulary. it keeps showing up on holiday cards and in beautiful songs like this one.

to me, there's this visionary and mystical feel of the phrase, peace on earth.  when i hear or see those three words together, i'm drawn to the questions: what is peace on earth? what would it look like? what would it feel like?

in more righteous phases of my life, i felt like peace on earth was something we had to fight for.  it was something that would arise when all the injustice was battled to its death; it was something that would come out of the elimination of all the violence in the world.

but, when i held that view, i felt very far from the reality of peace on earth.  i felt like it was centuries, maybe millenia away.  i felt like it was almost unattainable because how could we possibly end the immense amount of injustice and violence in our world.  there's too much, and going after it one little bit at a time seemed absolutely exhausting and overwhelming.

later in my life, i discovered a small unity church that i attended on and off for a few years.  at the end of the service every sunday, the congregation made a circle around the sanctuary, joined hands, and sang.  i'm not much of a singer, so i mostly mouthed the words with little umpf, but there was one special song that i was happy to sing.

in this church's version the lyrics were changed to, "now there is peace on earth, and yes, it begins with me. . . "

the first time i was in this circle, singing the song in this way, i literally started weeping.  my hands were awkwardly occupied by the two strangers holding them on either side of me, so i didn't even wipe the tears.  i was held in this state of vulnerability, tears streaming down my face and the song proclaiming a reality that i so deeply craved.

i realized that in that moment, in that room, in that small community mostly made up of people whose names i didn't know, there was peace on earth.  i felt no violence; i felt no injustice; i felt no war.  all that felt real was peace.

from that moment forward, the idea that peace on earth is here and now has grown.  there are undeniable places on the planet, geographically and within human hearts, that are not at peace.  five seconds of web surfing or news watching is all that's needed to confirm that. 

but, at the exact same moment, there are these wells of infinite peace that are equally available and spontaneously invoked at certain moments.  although this immense peace and the actions it inspires don't get the same air time, i know that they're there.

we can choose to exercise the incredible force of human faith and believe that there is peace on earth, now. by where we put our attention, and how we stand in relationship to others, we can choose whether to feed our power into a reality of peace on earth, or into some other reality. 

making the choice to live in this state of peace on earth isn't easy.  i've found our fighting to eradicate the violence, war, and injustice in others to be a often vain battle that only perpetuates the very things it claims to eliminate.  in fighting externally against forces labeled evil or wrong, we only increase the violence within ourselves and incite the other to get back at us. 

but there is a battle that must be fought to live in this state.  the battle is not against others, but rather, it is a battle within ourselves.

the only place to possibly fight for peace is within our own beings, within our own minds, and within our own relationships.  at times this requires radical honesty in facing the hatred and war brewing within ourselves.  it's only in surrendering in the war within that the gateway opens for a more consistent residency in the place beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing, that place of peace on earth.

during this season when this magical little phrase flies around more than at other times of year, i feel a renewal of my faith that peace on earth exists, here and now.