The older I get, the more I appreciate peace. As a youngster, I wondered what peace looked like. My elders often spoke of peace, and I wondered if I would recognize it when I saw it. Peace has many forms. It is a bit like fairy dust or gossamer wings. Amid a thunderstorm, peace shows up. It may be a brilliant rainbow behind the smoky black clouds. Peace happens kind of like Christmas. In the quiet of a winter morning or the unexpected unity of broken hearts.

Peace sits by the bedside of the lonely. Peace holds the hand of the forgotten. As the parents of a sick child worry, Peace brightens the room through the eyes of their baby. Peace is unobtrusive yet always close by. At times, Peace has its hand on our shoulder and we are comforted. Laughter is heard in a hospice room. Peace is recounting a humorous anecdote. Tears of joy are in every eye…Peace is doing its quiet work.

Peace gets photographed often. All the days of our lives, Peace is in the background of the photo. Never seen until you know what to look for, and then there is Peace.

Looking back on a life, the events that make up our memories capture Peace in the frame. ‘As a man thinks, so is he.’Peace lights up a darkened room and a sad countenance. Peace brings safety in the middle of war. The homeless smile and bid you good morning, good day. The poor share their pittance so that their sister or brother can eat. The little child sleeps as Peace rocks their cradle.

War, death, and destruction are not the natural order of things. Hurtful words are arrows to our hearts. Survival of the fittest is a myth. When we accept a lie as the truth, Peace can not be found. If we believe in an eye for an eye and karma, we seek an elusive Peace. Soon we are blind from the darkness of our souls. We cry out in pain from our festering wound. We want what we do not have and will not give…Peace…