Traveling the way of peace doesn't mean withdrawing from the world and all of the situations that steal our peace. The deepest levels of peace are attained only by engaging the reality that life serves up and doing the best we can to find and keep it.
Too often, though, we don't, instead content to "work on ourselves" and pretend the rest of the world has nothing to do with us, much less the peace we seek. Wrapped in a protective blanket of denial, isolation, and avoidance, we find an uneasy peace that is all-too-easily disturbed.
While such actions may allow us a relative calm amidst the outer storms, sooner or later the search for lasting peace will demand we deal with them.
For rarely do these things go away on their own. Instead, they keep growing in number and volume until they become like the squeaky wheel that will give us no peace until we fix it.
We all know what happens by then. The problems often escalate in scope and complexity, and demand much more of our time, effort and resources to deal with.
That's where our world is today.
Situations that have been cooking for years are bubbling up all over, now getting to a point where we're forced to do something about it. Their threats are so great that many of us are throwing open our windows and screaming, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."
So how are we to find peace in times like these, when the world around us is falling apart and screaming for our attention to fix it before it's too late?
Knowing what we're all about is an evolving process. What we think we are or know today isn't necessarily what will be tomorrow. There's always more, and the unfolding of that discovery is part of the mystery and joy of human life.
You're taking a lot of flack these days. For some in your ranks, it's probably well-deserved. For most, though, it's a bad rap.
In case you haven't noticed, there's a battle brewing, and the pot is beginning to boil.
