Is Peace Possible?

by RON IRVINE

I’ve been thinking a lot about peace, especially throughout September in light of the International Day of Peace. In a context of such polarization we are a long ways from being at peace in this country. So much of the cause of this and it’s expression is in the public realm. In my 62 years, I’ve never seen so much political and religious division from the deliberate use of a politics of violence and a language of war to express and provoke rage, hate, and fear. Social media and self constructed social silos leave us all living in very different realities based on our own pet alternative truths. We are going to have to solve these problems we have created or die, suffocating in our safe and secure bubbles of death. But these problems have become so complex that it will take years to unravel them, let alone solve them. 

But, in the meantime, peace is possible in the same way it has always been. It must begin within me. Outer turmoil always begins with inner turmoil. Peace out there is not possible without peace within. It is like a jar of water with dirt mixed in. When that jar is all shook up, it is no longer clear. But if we are patient with ourselves and just sit with it in stillness, eventually things will become settled and clear again. If we become still and settled, peace will return.

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