Is everything holy? I learn that when the upper limb of a cottonwood tree is cut crosswise, the grain reveals a perfect five-pointed star. The star is understood as a sign of the Great Spirit's presence and the tree's holy nature. Even the breeze blowing through the cottonwood leaves is understood to be its prayer... Who would ever notice, in my busy life, that a star is secreted in a cottonwood tree? It makes me wonder, are there equally hidden depths inside of me?
The act of inner attention seems to create a medieval walled garden. It is hedged about with silence and stillness, but silence and stillness are not the heart of it. At the center is a fountain and we see that everything has arranged itself around the water playing in the sunlight: here is the source of the timelessness that is everywhere apparent. The more deeply we enter, the more the fountain soars above; awe and wonder claim us.
It asks that we learn how to live, to make a particular path and fullness out of the spirit's eternity and silence.
BLESSINGS of a peace-filled heart be with you! For PEACE is a double blessing radiating inward as a life-giving force and radiating outward as gift to the world. Those silent spaces of the heart is where peace dwells and grows.
Divine peace has an inner and outer manifestation. Exteriorly, it manifests as fire, as zeal, as transformation, as death and rebirth. Interiorly, it manifests as silence, as knowledge, as joy, as union with the Beloved: a joy of union that is capable of communicating itself to others.
~ from "Zeal In Detachment" by Stratford Caldecott in "Parabola", Fall 1996
We don't have peace within ourselves, and yet we talk about peace. When we bring peace to our inner self, then it will flow from us out to the people, to the world.
~ from EVERYDAY MIRACLES IN THE HOUSE OF GOD by Pat Fisher
If you take time to listen, you will know that peace can be felt within. Peace is the flower of silence. It is deep acceptance of yourself and everyone. It is all inclusive. Reject one person, remain angry toward one person and you cannot feel your peace. You enter your peace when you leave all these thoughts and feelings of separation behind. Peace is there when judgment drops away. It opens its heart to you when words and thoughts cease.
Diversity is the world of form in all its infinite variety of textures, colors, contrasts, and differences. Not only are we different from each other, but everything is different from one moment to the next -- everything is change. We are all part of one single unity, but we're also very different. We can't do peacemaking in the world -- in fact, we can't do anything effective in the world -- without taking our differences into account.
Peace is a force -- positive, purposeful, possessed of a definite and sure dynamic; there is no mistaking its presence and action. It touches the jangling thoughts of the human word "peace" spoken by one who is possessed of peace, releases a force whose movement tends to establish rhythmic harmony and restfulness. ... In all ways peace is good and produces good. It comes forth from "the tree of life -- and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
